Angler In Darkness

by Edward M. Erdelac

  Sea of Trees

  Manabu stepped out of his car and let the door close. He did not take the keys. The car was a rental and the Tocoo! agency in Fujiyoshida would want it back.

  He took the hiking trail out of the parking lot and walked for an hour into the woods before he came to the No Hiking Beyond This Point sign and stepped over the rope to pick his way among the tangled roots.

  His mother had told him as a boy never to play in Aokigahara Forest, the Sea of Trees, because it was haunted by the miserable ghosts of those that every year wandered in here to die. It had been going on since back in the old days of the daimyos when the destitute families around Mount Fuji used the woods for ubasute, abandoning their elderly infirm to the elements in times of famine, to spare the remainder of the household.

  Manabu’s mother had told him the Ubasuteyama story once.

  This wasn’t in Aokigahara, but in Nagano somewhere. There was a famine, and a boy chose to carry his crippled old mother up to the mountain to leave her in the woods. He carried her very deep into the forest, perhaps thinking to lose his conscience too.

  When at last he set her down, he saw that he might become lost himself on the way back down.

  “Don’t worry, son,” croaked the old woman. “As you carried me, I spread out my hands and broke off the twigs of the trees. There is a trail of the broken ends behind you now to follow home.”

  Manabu’s mother had ended this story by clasping both sides of his pudgy face in her hands and promising him that she loved him as much as the old women in the story had loved her son.

  Manabu’s mother was two years dead now.

  She had died down there in Fujiyoshida, and he hadn’t even been able to attend the funeral. No money to travel from Tokyo. He could not even afford to take the time off from his job.

  Always it was money.

  Without money there could be no love, no shelter, no life. He had pondered these things on the walk home from his last day at the accounting job he had held for five years, the job whose twelve, sometimes fifteen hour days had hungrily sucked all passion from him, chained him with paper links of yen to a cubicle desk, where he had squinted at figures on a computer screen until his eyes had grown weak and his shoulders drooped, spine permanently bent both from hunching over his desk and from the immeasurable, unendurable burden of subsistence. He was paid well enough, but his rent and his various debts and bills were exorbitant. It was impossible to save, impossible to afford even the most meager amenity. He lived like a hermit.

  The company he served had reached the end of the fiscal year and decided he was a redundant expenditure.

  So he had walked the streets of Tokyo, hopeless in the deceptive glow of neon lights which gave no warmth, unwelcome by the laughter and smiles that drifted from the bars and clubs, with not even enough to cover next month’s rent on his disheveled, tiny apartment in his bank account.

  He had withdrawn the very last of it and bought a bus ticket home to Fujiyoshida and a rental car. He had visited his mother’s grave, and told her of his intent to go into the Sea of Trees.

  ‘YOUR LIFE IS A GIFT TO YOU FROM YOUR PARENTS. PLEASE THINK ABOUT YOUR PARENTS, YOUR SIBLINGS, AND CHILDREN. DON’T KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. TALK ABOUT YOUR TROUBLES. CONTACT THE SUICIDE PREVENTION ASSOCIATION.’

  A telephone number punctuated the lengthy sign nailed to one of the gnarled trees.

  But Manabu’s mother was dead. He would see her again, he reasoned, after today. He had no siblings, no love (and therefore no children), no one to talk to. Not even a phone with which to call the Suicide Prevention Association.

  So he walked on.

  A half hour later, picking his way randomly over the thick roots, he began to see other signs nailed to the trees.

  One small placard, written in red lipstick read;

  ‘I loved you. How could you forget me? I hope this will make you remember.’

  And another;

  ‘Do not look for me. You will not find me.’

  And another;

  ‘I am sorry, mother and father, and little brother. This life is too hard. Please try to forgive me.’

  There were more. Epitaphs and valedictions scrawled in unsteady hands, driven into the oblivious wood.

  There were other signs of those that had passed into the Sea of Trees. Discarded compacts. Shoes, keys, empty wallets, clothing.

  There was tape too, and bright ribbon wending around the tree trunks, littering the place. It didn’t seem to follow any real pattern. It didn’t mark anything special. It just went out in every direction, like gaily colored spider webbing.

  He had no real idea where he was going, so he picked a long yellow strip of ribbon and followed its meandering path through the trees, peering at the various articles buried among the dry leaves.

  The forest was quite silent. No animals crashed through, no birds chattered in the branches. The only sound was of his own feet rustling through the leaves and kicking the volcanic black earth beneath.

  He still wore his work shoes, black, the heels worn down, the aglets cracked, the laces bursting from them, frayed. The cuffs of his dark slacks suffered the torment of the undergrowth. He felt cold, having left his jacket in the car with his ID. He had only his white collared shirt and tie between his pimpling skin and the chilly mountain air.

  He saw frayed ropes dangling from the tree limbs now, triple braided twine most of them, and belts unbuckled, their grisly burdens taken down no doubt by one of the forest rangers or the army of volunteers who every April trudged through these woods to recover the bodies for burial, sometimes as many as a hundred at a time.

  That was why Manabu knew there were no ghosts, no pale, legless yūrei floating among the trees like in the stories.

  His mother had told him that when a body died, the spirit sat in purgatory until its funeral was held. Then it moved on, and could return to visit the living during the Obon Festival, a joyous celebration culminating in a brilliant parade of colorful paper lanterns, each inscribed with the name of the departed and set bobbing upon the river. The river, his mother had told him, as he she held his small hand in the darkness, carried the departed souls back to the land of the dead.

  So he knew, because it was the end of the fiscal year, that he would only have a month to spend in purgatory before his body was found by the volunteers and buried. He had prepared a note and tucked it into his breast pocket, a note asking that he be given a modest funeral and buried, so that he might rejoin his mother, the only human being who had ever seen worth in him without looking at him through a yen.

  He wondered what purgatory would be like. Surely being bodiless was no worse than blearily watching money pass between the rich on a dim computer monitor. At least he would have no responsibilities. He would not be enslaved to money.

  And then his heart pounded in his chest, for he heard a noise. A rustling up ahead.

  He feared it was one of the forest rangers who he knew sometimes patrolled the woods independently. The father of a childhood friend had been a ranger in Aokigahra, and his friend, Aki, had related second hand many of his father’s stories about rousting suicidal campers from the forest, or discovering black faced bodies buzzing with flies.

  He froze, and a deep, blustery voice called out;

  “There’s no point in standing there, I can see you. Come on up here!”

  Manabu had never been an assertive person, and he felt compelled to answer the authoritative summons.

  He walked around a tree and along to where the voice had originated, at the end of the yellow ribbon path.

  A woman sat with her back to the base of a thick tree. She had been dead for days, a blue black patina about her bloated face and hands. Her swollen limbs stretched the sleeves of her blouse. The yellow ribbon was tight around one puffy hand. Ants flowed up and down her, and flies clustered in her eyelids and ears, packing her half open mouth.

  At her side, neatly arranged, there was an open compact mirror and a makeup kit.r />
  The smell was horrendous. Manabu put the back of his hand to his face and looked away.

  His forehead broke out in sweat.

  “Yeah, she’s been here a while,” said the voice. “Sleeping pills. The women usually go for the pills. I read somewhere that they think they leave a nice looking corpse behind that way. She tried to pretty herself up. What do you think? Would you kick her out of bed?”

  The voice chuckled, and Manabu looked back to see a man, younger than him, in a black leather vest and ripped jeans, his hair crazily styled, roostered and streaked with red and green dye. He had a surgical mask on, and thick work gloves, a plastic bag sagging with items in one hand. There was a tattoo of a striking snake on his thin arm.

  “Relax, man,” said the young man. “I’m not a ranger. Name’s Orochi.”

  Manabu clasped his hand over his nose and mouth to shut out the reek of the body.

  Orochi came up to him.

  “Come on, walk over here, away from the smell.”

  They left the rotting woman behind.

  “Why did she carry along all that ribbon?” Manabu asked. “So she would be found?”

  “Sometimes they get indecisive. They leave string or ribbon so they can find their way back if they change their mind.”

  Manabu tested the air gingerly, and took his hand away from his mouth.

  “So how are you gonna do it?” Orochi asked, swinging his rustling plastic bag.

  “What?”

  “Did you bring pills too?”

  “I’m just....walking.”

  “Come on. Nobody Japanese just goes walking in the Aokigahara. Especially not dressed like you. What happened, salaryman? You lose your job?”

  Manabu looked at Orochi as he took out a pack of cigarettes and slapped it. He slipped his surgical mask down around his neck. He had a stubbly beard and a gold hoop in his bottom lip.

  When Manabu said nothing, Orochi shrugged and lit a cigarette.

  “Wanna smoke?”

  “I never tried.”

  “This could be the chance of a lifetime then.”

  Manabu took a cigarette from the pack, held it to Orochi’s, put his lips to the filter, and drew. He didn’t like it. The smoke roiled and burned in his lungs. He choked and coughed. By the time he’d stopped, Orochi had finished his own cigarette. He took Manabu’s from his fingers and began to smoke it too.

  “What about you?” Manabu wheezed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Best job in Fujiyoshida,” he said, holding up the bag and twirling it. “I always come around this time, right before the volunteers. People come in here with their wallets, their purses, jewelry, sometimes car keys....”

  “You’re a thief?”

  “I don’t think of it that way. I don’t rob anyone. What I take the owners don’t need anymore. What about you? You wanna give me your wallet and save me the trouble?”

  “What kind of a person are you?”

  “I’m going to walk back out of these woods and go get some sake, maybe get laid. That’s what kind of person I am.”

  “You sicken me,” Manabu spat, trying to exorcise the foul taste of the cigarette. “I want to be rid of this shitty existence.”

  “You sure about that?” Orochi said, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

  “Of course! I want nothing more to do with this pathetic world.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand violently.

  When he had finished, he found his hand was shaking, and he made a fist to quell it.

  “How do you know the next one’s any better?” Orochi asked.

  “It must be!”

  Orochi put a finger to one nostril and sent a comet of snot streaking into the brush.

  “You know what a fardel is?” he asked, sniffling.

  “What?”

  “A fardel. Have you ever read William Shakespeare?”

  “No.”

  “And you want to die?” Orochi said, squinting at him, the bag of wallets and jewelry over his shoulder. “Never having read it?” He shook his head and cleared his throat impressively, spat, and stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. It bobbed as he recited;

  “Who would Fardels bear,

  To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

  But that the dread of something after death,

  The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn

  No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,

  And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

  Than fly to others that we know not of.”

  Satisfied, he moved the cigarette back to the front of his mouth and took a long drag, blowing it from his nostrils like a dragon.

  “I don’t care about William Shakespeare,” Manabu hissed. “Fuck William Shakespeare! Why don’t you leave just me alone?”

  Orochi shrugged.

  “Alright, salaryman. I’ll leave you to your fardels. Do what you want. See you later.”

  Orochi walked off, swinging the bag of loot and trailing smoke.

  Manabu watched him go. For a moment his heart ached and he wanted to call the strange young man back, or to yell for him to wait, so he could go with him, drink sake. Maybe meet a young woman.

  But then what would he do? Walk these gloomy woods with Orochi? Haunt them like a real demon, looting bodies for a living and quoting Shakespeare to the trees?

  He shook his head, deciding.

  No, he would do what he came here to do. That Orochi was a parasite. Obviously he had never tried to make anything of himself. Was that the sort of person that was going to make Manabu lose his resolve? A vagrant and a corpse looter?

  He looked around, and found a tree that had fallen against another.

  He walked over to it. It looked like an easy climb. And there was a branch, a good thick one.

  He took off his belt. It was a cheap thing. He hoped it wouldn’t break.

  He started to climb with the belt in his teeth. He had to keep reaching down to hitch up his pants. He wondered if his pants would fall down when he died, and he decided to turn the lip of the waist over once to prevent this.

  What sort of a world was this where the best someone who worked as hard as Manabu could hope for was to live like a rat in a cage, while freewheeling vagrants like that Orochi prospered and were content? Where fat stomached old men could dictate the lives of the young, flogging them into submission with chains of currency?

  Who would fardels bear?

  Those words kept going over and over in his mind.

  No, this world was diseased. It was sinking in a sea of misery and he was getting off. He wanted the peace of the afterworld.

  Now.

  He took the belt from his teeth and put it around his neck. It was difficult to keep his balance as he threw the other end up around the branch and fumbled with the buckle to cinch it.

  He glanced down at the forest floor. It was not a big jump. He had jumped farther as a child. How happy he had been to run and play then, imagining the life he would live, a grand life of fulfillment and adventure. There had been no fear in him.

  Now, he was struck through with it. Fear clogged the vessels of his body, mired his blood, made his heart thunder as he looked down at this nothing little jump. He had always been afraid to live. Afraid to speak to the girl at the lunch counter. Afraid to demand of his boss that he be allowed to attend his mother’s funeral. Afraid to splurge and travel and be.

  Must he now be afraid to die as well?

  No!

  He must step out of this life, leave all his crushing burdens behind and plunge into the afterworld like a boy diving into a pool of water.

  He could hear the insistent pounding in his ears, his body demanding to live, pleading. But what was life if it could not be lived on one’s own terms?

  He stepped from the branch into eternity.

  As he did, a panicked thought entered his brain. He had forgotten to turn over the lip of his trousers.

  But it was no matter. After a brief sharp pai
n there was a loud snap and a rush of wind and he landed soundly on the forest floor, lucky not to have broken his ankles.

  That damned cheap belt! The only one he had, the only one he could afford, five years old, bought only for that lousy job, the thin leather cracked and worn, new holes punched through it, one for every year he’d wasted away on dessicated noodle packets and bad food. It had snapped!

  He snickered. He no longer heard his blood in his ears, as if his entire body had collapsed in relief.

  He scowled and then giggled nervously.

  Perhaps it was a sign. Maybe his mother’s spirit had reached out and severed the old belt. Maybe fate had something else in store for him. He thought about Orochi’s words. He had never had any real inclination to read William Shakespeare, but he found that the passage Orochi had recited did resonate with him somehow. Something about fear of the ‘undiscovered country’ making men ‘bear what ills we have.’

  What of the ills he had? Money. Lack of it. But there were people who lived perfectly happy without it, weren’t there? Could he be one of those people? Could he go to Australia and learn to surf? Live on a beach and grow his hair long? Fall in love? Have children?

  Was it possible that he could seize such things from this world? He was back in his hometown, in the cool mountain air, away from the stink of Tokyo. Perhaps the heavy air there, the closeness, had cluttered his soul, his mind. Perhaps in Fujiyoshida he could start again. Sure! Why not? He could look up old friends who had remained. Perhaps they could help him somehow. Perhaps Aki’s father still worked for the forest service. Perhaps he could be a ranger here until he saved enough to travel.

  He thought about the burial note in his shirt pocket. What a silly thing! He reached up to take it out and tear it up, leave it here among the possessions of the successful suicides, for some curious volunteer to piece together and wonder about if he was so inclined. How many of these placards nailed to the trees had been placed there by actual suicides, he wondered. How many of them, like Manabu, had been spared by a trick of fate, or had a change of heart and followed their strings and their breadcrumbs back into life, back into a new day?