The Monster on the Road Is Me

by JP Romney

  Whoever invented this must have been like, “What would happen if we chased little kids up a tree? Then, and here’s the really genius part, we told everyone it was a Sports Day event?”

  “Why, it would be the greatest Sports Day event ever devised,” answered the evil villain who thought up the Ramune race.

  “Go!”

  “What?” I turned to face Kenji towering over me.

  “Go! It’s your turn!”

  “My turn?”

  Then, keeping in line with his very helpful nature, he shoved me down the track. My helmet and I rolled a few times, but I picked myself up, trying to slap away the dust all over my shorts.

  “Run!” my team shouted.

  “All right, all right, wakatta,” I shouted back. The runner from the White Team tore past me and leaped for the mast. He jumped out of his shoes and over the gymnastic pads, slamming into the pole hard enough to shake a few flags loose.

  I think I’ll do this a different way, I decided to myself. Instead of running fast, I’ll run carefully. Instead of leaping for the mast, I’ll slip off my shoes and do a little bunny hop onto the bamboo. Instead of scurrying to the top, I’ll safely plant each foot and palm so my grip won’t slide. I won’t be of any use to my team if I’m dead, now, will I?

  “What are you doing?” my teammates shouted. But they weren’t halfway up a giant trunk of bamboo, so I ignored them. Carefully, carefully. Just like that. Almost there. Keep your eyes on the prize. Slow and steady. So close now. One little red flag coming up.

  It was about that time that I made the mistake of looking down. Normally I’m not afraid of heights, but when the only thing keeping you in the air is bamboo and sweat, you develop the fear pretty quickly.

  I hooked my shoulder onto the mast so fiercely that the bamboo shuddered and began to sway. The ground seemed to be rotating, spinning slowly to the left. I buckled my knees onto the pole and stared up into the sky. That didn’t help. The clouds started spinning, too. I squeezed my eyes shut. I could feel my heartbeat pounding my body as if it were actually trying to knock my grip loose. Stupid heartbeat.

  “Kso,” I hissed through my teeth. “I’m going to die, I’m going to die.”

  “Koda!” I heard Moya’s voice from somewhere far away.

  The swaying stopped.

  “Let your body slide down,” Moya called up to me.

  I opened my eyes, but instead of seeing the ground below, I saw something much worse. Actually, a whole flock of somethings.

  “Moya!” I yelled. “Crows!”

  There was a pause and then I heard her say, “Oh, shit.”

  They came in a storm of spiny feathers and tiny sharp toes. Their quivering bodies slammed into me as their cries filled up my ears and spilled into my brain.

  “Slide down!” Moya yelled.

  But there was so much screaming. All around my head. Pecking at my fingers and snapping at my knees. My head felt dizzy. I locked my arms and legs around the bamboo that was swaying from side to side. Behind the flurry of feathers and beaks I could barely hear Moya’s voice. Her words were like a single ray of light cutting through a tornado of screeching.

  “Move your feet and slide down! You can do it, Koda. Focus!”

  I closed my eyes and let my knees go. I loosened my grip. The bamboo slid between my arms faster and faster. I tried to brace, but it didn’t make much difference when the ground raced up and sucker-punched me unconscious.

  16

  Moya was the first to reach me when I hit the ground like a stack of wet fishing nets. She grabbed my hand and called my name. Her voice sounded dull and distant. My brain was all scrambled inside my skull. I looked up at her face. Into her eyes. That was a mistake. Instantly the world turned to ice.

  Before the war in the Pacific there was a boy named Seimei who lived in Kusaka Town. He was about my age and didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Other than that, I don’t really know too much about him. I don’t even know his family name. I only knew his first name because his mother was shouting it in a park as I watched her die.

  “Run, Seimei! Run!” she screamed.

  Seimei’s father was lying on the frozen ground nearby with a jade-handled samurai sword sticking out of his back. He was groaning in the darkness surrounded by a hundred crows.

  “Leave him alone!” Seimei’s mother shouted, throwing herself on her husband’s body. A huge mountain demon stepped forward and yanked the sword from the dying man’s spine. It turned and threw the mother aside.

  There wasn’t much that the woman could do, really. The tengu stood almost as tall as the rusted swing set she slammed into. Seimei’s mother untangled her leg from the poles and stumbled to her feet.

  The demon towered over Seimei’s father, barking with laughter. Through his elaborate robes the tengu’s skin was thick and patchy like boar’s hide, and as red as the blood that seeped from his victim’s back. The monster stroked his white beard and touched the sockets where his eyes used to be.

  “Oh, how I wish I could see you suffer with my own eyes,” he said to the father, leaning in so close that his absurdly long nose almost scraped the ground. “And I know what suffering is. I have waited more than a century to repay the debt I owe you and your kind.”

  The tengu reeled back and lifted the sword above his head. “But with a hundred eyes watching for me, I will remember this as a glorious day.”

  Seimei’s mother rushed forward. The crows lifted up in unison and the demon spun around, slicing her across the stomach. She crumpled to the side.

  “That is what happens when you interrupt people!” the demon yelled. “Gods above, I was trying to do something nice for this suffering man, and you went and ruined it.”

  “Seimei,” the woman spat onto the concrete. “Climb, my son, climb to the top of the tree.”

  The tengu grabbed Seimei’s mother by the back of her kimono and flung her across the park. She slid along the icy ground and buckled around a streetlamp.

  “Seimei,” the father groaned, reaching out to his son, who was hiding in a nearby tree.

  The mountain demon stomped past Seimei’s father, beheading him with a flick of his sword hand.

  “Man-child,” the monster said up into the branches. “Man-child, come down from there.”

  Through the frigid air I could see Seimei snapping twigs and pulling himself through the gnarled branches of the thick oak. His brown school uniform caught for a moment, but he tore the sleeve free and climbed faster.

  The crows hopped along the ground, fixing their collective gaze on the scrambling boy above them.

  “I see you, man-child. I’m an old blind tengu, but through the eyes of my crows, I see you. You can never hide from me. You cannot climb high enough. You cannot run far enough. Your blood is mine and I will have it.”

  Seimei kept climbing.

  “If you come down right now, man-child, I will wait until after you’re dead to eat your eyes. I promise. You really won’t get a better deal than that.”

  “Inari,” Seimei’s mother whispered. “Goddess of life and protection, the tengu has erred. He has cut me. I am dying, Goddess. Oh, please save my son.” She tore a pendant from a chain around her neck, a small silver fox from the Shrine of Inari where her grandparents used to pray. When the policemen found her body later, they had to pry that pendant from her fist with a metal bar.

  “I’m not climbing up the tree after you,” the tengu yelled to Seimei, but the boy didn’t look back.

  “I have to use birds for eyes, and now you’re making me climb all the way up a tree in order to murder you? Well, I’m just going to say it—you are an inconsiderate child.”

  The monster sheathed his jade sword and wrapped his arms around the oak tree. He rested his long nose and white beard against the bark. The branches shook and the trunk whined and cracked as the great red arms of the tengu crushed and popped the wood. The tree rocked from side to side. Seimei locked his arms and legs into the branches, but it didn
’t make any difference—the monster wasn’t trying to shake him loose. With a sound like that of a cannon, the trunk finally gave way.

  The tengu turned and roared as the tree crashed down into the abandoned park. “See,” the monster growled. “That was inconvenient for everyone. Now I’m going to pluck your eyeballs out and make you watch me eat them, which you won’t be able to do without eyes, but we’ll give it a try anyway.”

  Then something very strange happened. Well, stranger than a blind tengu pulling down a tree to eat a kid’s eyes. There was a whispering, carried on the freezing air itself, floating through the park, winding its way into the frozen branches of the tree.

  “What is this?” the tengu snarled.

  The whisper became visible, like a ghostly trail of petrol fumes. It swirled over Seimei and spread out from the broken trunk.

  “Inari?” the tengu cried.

  The whisper slithered across the ground and brushed against the demon’s red feet. He stepped back.

  “Inari! This isn’t your concern. Keep your minions away from here. I only want the boy. It’s my right!”

  “You have taken more than that already,” the minion whisper sighed.

  The tengu looked over at Seimei’s mother, who was cold and still as stone. “That wasn’t my fault!” he growled, baring his teeth. “It was technically my fault, yes, but she interrupted me!”

  The whisper ignited. Fire surged through the air, swallowing the tree and the abandoned park. The shock of the sudden heat threw the tengu off his feet.

  “Seimei,” the whisper said. “Seimei, open your eyes.”

  The boy obeyed and all around him the world burned.

  “You are safe.”

  When Seimei looked up he saw a girl in a silver kimono covering him, shielding him from the flames. She smiled, just centimeters from his face.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Who do I look like to you?” she replied.

  “A girl. In a gray kimono.”

  “Then that is who I will be.”

  * * *

  The next thing I knew, every teacher at the middle school was huddled around me. Ino-sensei pressed her hand against my forehead. Moya was nowhere to be seen.

  “Koda, are you all right?” she asked.

  I looked up at the bamboo mast above the teachers’ heads. I tried to nod, but my chin straps wouldn’t allow it.

  “That was a bit of a fall, Koda. I bet you’re glad you have this helmet now. You’re like a superhero,” she said, forcing a smile. “Able to fall off bamboo masts with barely a scratch.”

  “That would be a particularly useless superpower,” I answered, clenching my stomach.

  Ino-sensei set her hand on my back and helped me into a sitting position.

  “Is everyone looking at me?” I asked.

  “Um, yes. Want to do a little wave?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “He’s fine, everyone,” the new headmaster announced to the parents in the bleachers. “He’s fine, isn’t he?” the headmaster whispered, kneeling next to Ino-sensei.

  “Thanks to his helmet,” Ino-sensei said, “and to Ikeda-sensei for setting up these gymnastic mats.”

  “I knew this was a bad idea,” the headmaster said. “Kids shouldn’t be climbing those things. They’re so tall that birds run into them. Who invented such a horrible Sports Day event?”

  Thank you. That’s what I thought.

  Ikeda-sensei towered above me, pointing his huge hand at my legs. “He didn’t break anything. He doesn’t have a concussion. Just a little dazed. He’ll walk it off.”

  “Do you have medical training?” the headmaster asked.

  “I’ve seen plenty of concussions and shattered bones in the sumō stables. The helmet broke his fall. He’ll be fine.”

  I wanted to point out that Ikeda-sensei’s go-to solution for probable concussions was walking it off, you know, like a man, but thought better of it and kept my mouth shut.

  “Where are his parents?” the headmaster asked.

  “They’re not here,” Ino-sensei whispered. “They almost never come to the school.”

  “Let’s carry him out to my car and I’ll drive him home,” the headmaster replied. “I should stay with the family and explain what happened. The mayor will probably call when he hears of this.”

  No, he won’t. Nobody cares about a narcoleptic kid who can’t make it through a Sports Day without hurting himself and the people around him. Ino-sensei knew that drawing attention to me was the last thing we should be doing. She waved to Haru, who was finally allowed to jog onto the track.

  “Who is this?” the headmaster asked.

  “Haru Maeda,” Ino-sensei told him. “He used to be a student here. He and Koda are neighbors. Haru will make sure Koda gets home safely. Is that all right with you, Koda?”

  “Gods, yes.”

  “Good thinking, Ino-sensei,” the headmaster said. “I should stay here in my office…”

  “In case the mayor calls,” Ino-sensei finished.

  “Exactly. Ikeda-sensei, jump to the award ceremony. And take down those masts before another child is assaulted by migrating birds.”

  * * *

  Haru pushed my bike and I walked alongside him.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, once we were clear of the school.

  “Nope.”

  “Okay.”

  And that’s why Haru and I are such good friends. We know when to shut up and just let the other person think.

  17

  “You’re sure you feel all right?” Haru asked when we got to my house.

  “I just need something to eat. I’ll be fine.”

  Haru locked up my bike for me, nodded, and walked in the direction of his uncle’s home. When he was out of sight, I unlocked my bike, clicked my helmet on, and rode off to find the last kaki tree in Kusaka Town.

  The logs of the footbridge thumped beneath my bicycle tires, jostling my helmet over my eyes. I stopped and pushed it up again. A wall of camphor trees stood before me like the front lines of a samurai army. I couldn’t see any way around.

  “Koda, over here,” a voice called from behind the lines.

  “What about my bike?”

  “Leave it.”

  “What if someone steals it?”

  “Lock it, then leave it.”

  “I don’t know. It might look abandoned way out here.”

  “A flock of crows just tried to break your neck and you’re worried about someone stealing your bike?”

  “Well, it’s a good bike.”

  “It’s a pink bike.”

  “It’s a red bike,” I clarified. “It’s been … used a lot. The color’s faded.”

  “Listen, Hello Kitty–chan, lock up your pink bike and get your ass in here.”

  “Then we can talk about keeping my neck unbroken?” I swung my leg over the seat. “I feel like we skipped over that part when you were saying rude things to me. Also, do you think I should keep my helmet on?”

  “Does your helmet have any Hello Kitty stickers on it?”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “What about Pokémon?”

  “Not on the outside.”

  “Dear gods and goddesses,” Moya said. “Of all the kids in Kusaka, you had to be the pickpocket. Get in here now.”

  I left my awesome not-pink bike by the footbridge and squeezed through the line of camphor trees. On the other side stood a thin bamboo forest, and in the middle of that—a single kaki tree. Moya walked through the bamboo and sat down beneath the withered branches of the tree.

  “How did you find this place?” I asked.

  “It’s a safe haven. I brought her here when the kaki trees began dying out. She’s the last one left.”

  “She?”

  “Persimmon trees are unlike any other trees, Koda. They have gender. This one is female.”

  “Does your girl-tree have a name?” I asked with a smirk.

 
“Does your ugly pink bike have a name? No? I didn’t think so. Stop hovering out there and come inside.”

  “The tree?”

  “Yes. Sit down.”

  I ducked under the branches and knelt down next to the gnarled trunk. Moya watched me but didn’t say a word.

  “So,” I asked, “how do you know this tree is a she?”

  “You don’t see it?” Moya said.

  “Am I supposed to be seeing something? I don’t even know where to look. That part over there looks weird. Is that it?”

  “What? No! Gods, I mean the soul of the tree, you pervert. Can’t you see the soul of this tree?”

  “Um, no. Can you?”

  “Kaki trees are special, Koda. Do you know why?”

  “Because they’re trees that have souls?”

  “They are resilient. They represent the goodness in this world and the will to survive.”

  “This one looks like it’s already given up,” I said.

  “No, you’re wrong. It is very difficult to kill a kaki tree. Floods and insects and birds and disease—those are all things that kill regular trees like those mighty camphors out there. But not the thin, sickly-looking kaki tree. Even death cannot kill a kaki tree.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Before the kaki tree sends out its fruit in late fall, it dies. Or at least, it mostly dies. The branches shrivel, the leaves fall away, the trunk takes on this twisted, gnarly shape. And then in the midst of its own death, when it looks like it should fall over and be forgotten, it suddenly sends out this explosion of persimmons. Dozens of bright orange fruits pop out. The tree is reborn! For the next several months, the kaki tree pieces itself together and goes on living stronger than before. It’s almost impossible to kill a persimmon tree.”

  “Then why is there only one left?” I asked.

  Moya’s face dropped. “They’re almost impossible to kill.” She picked up a brittle leaf from the grass. “There is an infection in this town, Koda. A cancer much older than Kusaka itself. It isn’t a person or a god or a spirit you can fight against. It’s darkness, hopelessness, emptiness, despair. It exists everywhere in the universe where the light doesn’t shine. Eventually everyone and everything everywhere will succumb to it.”