The Void
It was a sunny Monday in the spring. 1:12 PM. After finishing his lunch, Hiroki Goto turned toward the unvarnished wooden Buddhist altar, clasped his hands in prayer before the portraits of his wife and daughter, and removed the rice and tea he had offered that morning. Then, he stuffed two red and black permanent markers from the entryway whiteboard into the pocket of his work clothes and drove his light truck out of the garage.
From the farthest reaches of the hamlet, he turned onto a forest road.
He drove up a gentle, winding slope that meandered alongside a mountain stream. Although the recent lack of rain had reduced the river’s water volume, the water was clear, and the fresh green foliage on the mountainside was vibrant.
He was heading toward the iron gate of the turning area at the end of the forest road.
His pickup truck weaved through dilapidated ruins, earthen storehouses, and cedar trees on abandoned farmland. Then, he turned onto a narrow mountain road without guardrails that ran alongside a cliff. The four kilometers from this point onward were the Goto family’s private mountain road, inherited by Hiroki from his father-in-law, so he normally wouldn’t have to worry about oncoming traffic.
But the tips of the Aralia trees jutting out from the base of the cliff were missing, as if they’d been torn off. Noticing this, Hiroki slammed on the brakes.
Wearing his rubber boots, he got out of the truck and approached the cliff’s slope, only to find that all the grass-green shoots of the Aralia elata plants—all sprouting from the growth points of the branches—had been completely torn off and stolen.
“I’m too late……”
Hiroki muttered.
By this time of year, he would normally have already mowed the grass around the Aralia elata tree. He would also have rehung the wooden signs with wire attached, but ever since that winter day when he lost his wife and daughter, these past forty-nine days had been so hectic that he’d had neither the time nor the energy to venture into the mountains.
Hiroki got down on all fours in the waist-high weeds and parted the grass to find the wooden warning sign attached to a wire.
The sign still bore traces of a message written in black permanent marker last year stating, “These are wild vegetables cultivated by the forest owner. Harvesting and cutting are prohibited.” However, the wire had snapped from the wind and snow, and the sign was buried in weeds, and fading.
Hiroki took a marker from his chest pocket, traced his wife’s fading writing, and returned the sign to the branch.
The small pickup truck headed further upstream.
Since last winter, every time Hiroki cleared away a bowl of rice, he began to hear the sound of his wife and daughter shoveling snow from the sidewalk amid the silence of snow piling upon snow. Even when he was filing the blade of the brush cutter in the tool shed and pouring the blue mixed gasoline into the tank, he sometimes felt as if he could hear his wife’s radio playing in the wind while she prepared lunch.
The usual dawn, the usual chores. Until the forty-ninth day, Hiroki simply ate his meals like a machine, washed the dishes, tidied up his personal belongings, and shoveled away the mud and debris that had spilled onto the roads with the snow during the winter. Strangely, the void inside his heart remained just as it had been before that day, filled with the sounds and voices of daily life that should never have returned.
A new charm dangled from the rearview mirror.
The private mountain road he was driving on should have had ruts exactly the width of his tires. However, the entire path was buried under dead cedar branches that had fallen during the winter and snapped under the weight of the snow. To avoid getting his wheels stuck, he carefully pressed the accelerator and crept up the gentle slope. However, the scattered branches bore tire tracks that appeared to have been made before his own, and Hiroki furrowed his brow.
If someone had entered the mountain path before him, then the flowering ferns ahead would also be in danger. Hiroki turned the steering wheel sharply and slowly toward the curve where the ferns grew in the shade of a rock, a route his late mother-in-law had taught him about. Sure enough, parked in the shadow of that rock, with its windshield facing his way, was an RV with a license plate from another prefecture.
A stranger stepped out of a parked pickup truck, his brow furrowed. He seemed frightened. A little girl’s smile faded, and she hid beneath her mother’s skirt.
The young couple, looking embarrassed, forced a smile and said, “We’ll move it right away”, and headed toward their RV, which was parked behind a rock. In the plastic bags they were both holding, you could see the outlines of bracken and fiddlehead ferns—and probably some angelica sprouts as well.
Hiroki said, scratching his stiff brow.
“Sorry, but this is our mountain. You can’t just take wild vegetables or river fish without permission. Those bracken ferns, royal fern shoots, and angelica tree sprouts you picked belong to me and m…”
He started to say “my wife,” but his voice caught in his throat.
“We cut the grass around the base, protect them from the snow, and tend them all year long—in other words, they’re crops.”
Tears welled up in his eyes, and when he looked up, he saw the girl trembling, clutching her mother’s skirt.
In Hiroki’s mind, he recalled his daughter’s smiles and tears when she was little, and the smallness of her hands as she snuggled under the covers on snowy nights, and the warmth of her cheeks.
Hiroki turned to the father and said,
“…… There’s a wide enough spot up ahead where two cars can pass. Can you back up that far?”
He nodded vigorously, pushed his daughter into the car seat, and, guided by his wife, began backing up in the RV.
Hiroki followed behind, calling out to him as he walked,
“Be careful, don’t rush. If you fall off a cliff, it’ll all be for nothing.”
He cleared away the fallen rocks and guided them while peering ahead of the reversing vehicle.
After watching the family, who had unintentionally committed theft of wild vegetables, pass by in their RV along the cliff edge, their side mirrors folded in, their vehicles barely missing each other, and seeing them drive off after bowing their heads repeatedly in a gesture that was neither a greeting nor an apology, Hiroki shifted his light truck into first gear, slowly released the clutch, and began climbing the mountain road once more.
However, there were still traces of vehicles scattered further ahead. Moreover, it appeared that several cars had passed through, and on the slope where the road was narrow, there were tire tracks that looked like they had been overridden, fallen trees swept onto the shoulder, and fresh cigarette butts.
Back when his wife was alive, if they came across a lost hiker, they would offer them cold barley tea or freshly picked bracken as a gift, help them onto the truck bed, and send them on their way with a gentle smile. That was when his daughter was still young, traffic laws were more lenient, and they enjoyed the bounty of the mountains.
“Be more careful next time.”
The memory of his wife’s voice, as she smiled at them, came flooding back.
However, Hiroki, who is currently driving the light truck, has a rough idea of what lies ahead.
It’ll probably be the next sandbar, anyway. As he turned the steering wheel sharply again, following the shadow of a protruding rock, sure enough, three minivans were parked on the narrow forest road, leaving just enough space between them. On the sandbar in the stream where his gaze fell, a tarp tent and folding chairs were lined up, and the scent of charcoal and grilling onions mingled in the breeze. Young people with bare skin were laughing loudly while flipping meat, opening beers, and letting the heavy bass from their speakers thump against the river’s surface.
A middle-aged man who looked like a laborer stepped out of a pickup truck and approached with a blank expression that could be interpreted as either grumpy or businesslike. For some reason, the young people—who were hiding the beer cans in their hands—seemed intent on taking the initiative and called out in a drawn-out voice, “Hellooo”, though they were dressed in flip-flops and knee-length outdoor pants. It was as if they had intended to do this from the moment they stepped out the front door.
The young people, who had been relaxing on the sandbar as if it were their own, exchanged glances at the sudden appearance of a local and gauged the reaction of the man who seemed to be their leader.
Hiroki waded halfway across the shallow river, scraping off the leeches crawling up his rubber boots with the heel of his opposite foot, and addressed them.
“Excuse me, but this entire mountain, from the base up, is private property. So is this river. I can’t have you having a drinking party here without permission.”
On the riverbank, sake and watermelon were chilling in a stone-dammed pool, and three mountain trout could be seen swimming inside.
On the barbecue grill, freshly replaced wire mesh was grilling meat and vegetables, while several charred grills were soaking in the river. And to make matters worse, a powerful-looking foreign-made detergent powder and a steel scouring pad were peeking out of a Costco plastic bag.
“—I hope you understand what I’m trying to say.”
Hiroki said.
The young people, their heads bowed and their bodies heavy as if glued to their seats, slowly rose, closing their folding chairs as they stood up.
However, the young man who seemed to be the leader said,
“Look, sir, we’re sorry for barbecuing without permission. But, you know, everyone’s already had a few drinks, right?”
Hiroki listened, keeping his gaze fixed on the young man’s sunglasses as he finished speaking, and,
“So?”
He urged him to continue.
“But that doesn’t mean… So, sir, could you let us stay here until we sober up? Please, I’m begging you. If we drive now, we’ll be breaking the law.”
As he said this, he clasped his hands above his head, and the guy in sunglasses shrugged his shoulders.
At that exaggerated gesture, a scantily clad woman snorted with laughter.
“Cut it out, Yuji. Saying ‘sorry’ won’t make this go away, seriously.”
And the woman faced the intruder in work clothes,
“…You keep going on and on about ‘nature this’ and ‘nature that’, but nature belongs to everyone, doesn’t it?”
She said, while stretching her legs out over the folding chair.
“If you want to claim ownership so badly, shouldn’t you just write your name on everything? On this pebble, on the water, say ‘This is mine’. “
The men and women—except for the man who seemed to be the leader—burst into laughter and chimed in.
However,
“Shut up.”
The man who seemed to be the leader pushed his polarized sunglasses down to his nose, glared at the group with his hawk-colored eyes, and then spoke to Hiroki in a low, menacing voice.
“Come on, man. The remaining points on the tickets are insane, too.”
He was probably referring to traffic violation points on his driver’s license. The woman from earlier let out a shrill laugh and pointed at the muscular man.
“That’s hilarious, Kenji! He’s talking about you!”
“Yes, that’s me, that’s me!” said the guy in the tank top, pointing to his nose and showing Hiroki his gap teeth,
Serving the meat that was charring on the barbecue grill onto a paper plate,
“That’s right, man. I’m on the verge of having my license suspended. Oh, I drive a truck at a junkyard, so it’s pretty risky. I’ll be done in about three hours, so I’ll stay here until then… Hey, why don’t you have some too, old man? There’s plenty of meat. And some booze too. Oh, wait. Alcohol is a no-go, hahaha.”
His dry laughter faded into the forest.
But Hiroki, still standing in the river, stared at him in silence.
Unable to bear the silence, perhaps, Kenji looked away and fidgeted restlessly with a rock at his feet, using his sandal to do so. But he watched with interest as a river leech crawled up Hiroki’s work clothes from his boots, which were half submerged in the river, and latched onto his neck, while glancing sideways to inform his companions of what was happening.
“— Hey, old man, you have a really long mole on your neck, oh. Is that a leech? Hahaha, that’s crazy. It’s really the wild side of nature!”
Once again, laughter echoed through the forest.
The leader remained silent.
Hiroki, too, stared at them as he pinched the leech between his fingers and wrenched it off.
A trickle of blood dripped down Hiroki’s neck, turning it a reddish-black, and the laughter died down pitifully.
Wiping the blood with the back of his hand, Hiroki said.
“No exceptions. Be on your way. Right now.”
The leader immediately shouted, “That’s why I’m telling you it’s against the law! Are you an idiot, old man?!” But Hiroki wouldn’t back down.
“The forest road is our private property all the way down to the foot of the mountain. It’s not covered by the Road Traffic Act. Figure out the rest yourselves… Otherwise, I’ll go down the mountain first and call the authorities.”
The two glared at each other without averting their eyes, and the leader threw his lit cigarette into the river.
Then, as if surrendering, he raised both palms upwards, slapped his knees on the chair, slowly stood up, and announced:
“Pack it up.”
After that, they efficiently divided the task of folding the tarps and sheets and carried them to their respective minivans.
The leader asked if it was okay to bury the still-smoldering food and charcoal from the barbecue grill on the sandbar, but the woman from earlier said, “Let’s take them home”.
Although the damp marks left by the dug-up sand, the stones piled up as a makeshift platform, and the acrid smell of burnt meat and onions mixed with perfume and insect repellent still lingered, within barely twenty minutes, Hiroki was the only one left on the sandbar.
Behind him, he could hear the engines of three minivans. It must have been Kenji—he turned up the car stereo volume menacingly, revved the engines, and called out, “Let’s go,” summoning the ringleader back.
Hiroki turned toward the river, wondering if he had come to apologize or greet him—
──and was struck in the face by a fist. He lost his balance and fell, bracing himself with his hands.
Cheers erupted from inside the cars, followed by a barrage of insults as if to add fuel to the fire, and the tip of the ringleader’s boot kicked Hiroki’s raised face.
Hiroki woke up lying on his back, gazing at the blue sky, then sat up on the sandbar, running his hands over his work clothes.
His wallet… hadn’t been taken. The two permanent markers in his pocket were still there. But the inside of his mouth was cut, and when he wiped his cheek, his fingers came away with a mixture of dried blood and saliva. His left eye throbbed dully from deep within, and he couldn’t open his eyelid.
As he wiped the sweat from his temples, forehead, and neck, he noticed that the blood staining his sleeve—partly due to the medication he was taking—kept welling up uncontrollably.
The leech’s bite mark was still embedded in his skin and resembled a broken faucet. When he touched it with his right hand, his hand came away sticky with dark red blood.
Still, perhaps because he’d fallen into a deep sleep after passing out, he felt refreshed.
Maybe.
The area from his jaw to the back of his neck ached terribly, but he found himself yawning. “I’m such a carefree guy”, Hiroki thought as he rubbed the tip of his aching jaw.
But the truth was, ever since that day when the car driven by a skier unaccustomed to snowy roads had taken his wife and daughter—who were clearing snow from the sidewalk—away from him, Hiroki had never slept so deeply.
Hiroki crawled over to the fish tank they had left behind and washed his face with the water inside.
The face reflected on the water’s surface showed a streak of subcutaneous bleeding running down from his left eye, which was so swollen that he couldn’t open it.
Partly because of the warfarin, red tears were streaming down his face.
Blood mixed with saliva spurted from his cracked lips, staining the area around his mouth red. When he wiped it away with the sleeve of his work clothes, his reflection in the water looked like a clown’s.
Crossing the shallow riverbed in rubber boots, Hiroki double-checked the pickup truck for signs of ransacking, but the keys were still in the ignition and the dashboard was exactly as he’d left it.
It was a mistake not to have written down the minivan’s license plate number before approaching the sandbar, but perhaps due to his recent insomnia, he’d been emotional and impulsive.
He started the engine and pressed the accelerator, heading further into the forest road.
In the rearview mirror, a traffic safety charm swayed back and forth.
In the mirror, a bloodstained clown met his gaze. Hiroki traced the dark red bruise with his finger, but since it was subcutaneous bleeding, there was nothing he could do about it.
The turning area at the very end of the mountain road, where the light truck had come to a stop, was completely covered with fallen, withered cedar branches. He turned off the engine and looked around.
Sure enough, once he reached this point, there were no traces of unwelcome city dwellers to be found.
But Hiroki could see it. Come next fall, when mushroom season arrived, this place would be bustling with activity.
He stood before the iron gate and listened intently toward the other side, where the logging trail vanished into the bamboo thicket.
In fact, there were bears beyond this point.
Especially now, in early spring, and next fall. If he were to encounter a mother bear with her cubs, it wouldn’t end with just a kick.
── But… he couldn’t help feeling that if he were torn apart by a bear’s claws, the gaping void in his chest might be stained and filled by the blood gushing from his wounds.
Late at night, as he drove along in his car, looking at the charm his daughter had bought for the New Year’s shrine visit, Hiroki’s heart remained empty.
At the end of this path, buried under fallen branches, he asked himself once more.
The forty-ninth day memorial service for his wife and daughter was held yesterday.
He placed the two urns, which he had gazed upon every night, side by side and laid them to rest in the grave.
Afterward, during a meal, the young priest said, “This marks the end of one chapter. Now it’s time to live your own life.”
The mountain beyond the turning area is closed off by an iron fence and wire mesh gate.
Beyond that point lies the mountain that for a long time provided firewood and cash income to the Goto family, but that was only true up to his wife’s generation, who had grown up familiar with these mountains and walked them since childhood. As someone born in the city and adopted into the family, he lacks confidence that he can walk beyond the fence without getting lost.
As he gazed through the iron fence at the logging trail disappearing into the bamboo thicket, he felt as if he could see his wife’s back—a basket strapped to her shoulders—as she joyfully headed off to gather bent bamboo.
Clutching the amulet in his hand, he looked beyond the fence.
The mountain terrain passed down through generations, along with the details of those pathless trails—the locations of trees where maitake and enoki mushrooms grow, the rock hollows that shelter from rain and wind, the thickets of tall grass where his wife said they could bundle the stalks together to make a shelter against the snow in an emergency, and the spots where matsutake mushrooms grew—all of these secrets remained hidden this winter.
He can’t help but feel as if his wife is waiting just beyond this fence.
If he ventures in and wanders wherever his heart takes him, his wife will surely come looking for him by evening. That feeling pierced his chest and tugged at him.
Tears streaming down his face, he grabbed the wire fence blocking his way.
Before he knew it, Hiroki was sitting astride the iron fence, staring blankly into space.
In his hand, he held a red permanent marker and the safety charm from his rearview mirror.
He remained perched there for a while, gazing up at the sky, but then, as if a thought had struck him, he shifted his legs to face the turnaround area and began to climb down from the fence.
Then he crouched down beneath the wire mesh and picked up the warning sign—a plastic plate tightly secured with wire—and held it in his hand. It read,
── DANGER AHEAD. NO TRESPASSING. ‘ ‘ BEYOND THIS POINT. ──
It says. Only the part his wife wrote in black ink last year remains, and the two characters for ‘BEARS‘ written in red ink have completely faded, leaving only a blank space.
The characters for BEARS were a remnant of his father-in-law’s compassionate warning—written in red ink to ensure that city dwellers would never, under any circumstances, cross this point into the mountains and get lost or have an unfortunate encounter with wild animals. This year, Hiroki, too, had brought a red pen with him.
However, red ink fades quickly. That part alone disappears every year around this time.
But now, Hiroki was crouched in front of the plastic sign, staring intently at a single point.
There was only silence in the turning area, and although crows were soaring overhead, it felt as if the only sound here was Hiroki’s breathing.
The blank space was clearly reflected in his hazel eyes, which had held the pen for so long.
He had just woken from a deep sleep. His mind was perfectly clear.
Amidst the cedar groves, he gazed at the narrow sky over the turning area, but too many thoughts came and went, and his eyes narrowed in unbearable discomfort.
What words had he come to write on this plastic sheet? As if asking himself that question, he closed his eyes toward the sky, but,
──BEARS,
No, that’s not it. Those two characters were certainly what he’d come to write, but the words he wanted to write now were different.
He shook his head.
It is the name of his wife,
It is the name of his daughter.
He heard his wife’s voice as she breathed her last, saying, ‘Thank you’.
And the face of his daughter as she closed her eyes, saying, ‘Sorry’.
Hiroki grabbed onto the iron fence and shouted while crouching.
If he were to put it into words, it would mean something like, “What do I want to write here?”
There should be more fitting words, more elegant characters.
Then, his shoulders trembling, he violently shook the iron railing he was gripping, breathing heavily.
He shook the wire mesh as if pounding it, and as he did so, from his numb fingertips to the top of his head, he felt a euphoric numbness as if he were no longer himself. He looked up at the sky and a single tear rolled down his cheek.
And realizing what he had just discovered, clutching the railing, he—of all people—began to laugh.
What should he write to fill this void? Not BEARS, nor his wife’s name, nor his daughter’s name. He knew. The words he sowed here and now were seeds of vengeance—a trap to ensnare the future of his smiling wife and daughter, and those reckless fools who stole his heart—those seeds were taking root in his empty heart under the narrow sky of the turning area, sprouting a strange joy.
Laughing and shedding blood-stained tears, he laughed out of sadness at this realization. Even though he had come to realize something so terrifying, there was no one here to stop him. That fact was so deeply sorrowful that, while crying, Hiroki laughed with just the tips of his shoulders, as if in resignation. After all, this is his mountain. The noisy fence, the mosquito-infested path, this sign, the turning area—they’re all his, aren’t they? Holding a pen nib that seemed to be waiting for the cap to come off, he looked up at the sky, his eyes rolling back and forth like a crow in flight, having found something to fill the void.
Hiroki took off the cap.
The leech’s proboscis had rotted, and perhaps drawn by the smell, a fly landed on the nape of his neck.
With that same hand, he wiped the blood away and used a red pen to write two kanji characters in the blank space on the plastic sign.
── DANGER AHEAD. NO TRESPASSING. MATSUTAKE MUSHROOMS BEYOND THIS POINT. ──
He tied it tightly to the iron fence, and turned around, the corners of his mouth curving into a smile stained with dried blood.
He felt a thrill in his chest, as if the seeds he’d sown had already sprouted.
A light truck slowly descends the mountain road.
Starting today, those red characters will surely lure city folk into the mountains.
Just how many people would cross that fence and vanish into the mountains?
It was unbearably delightful.
From that sign, only those letters will be scorched by the summer sun, buried in snow during the winter, and gone by the following spring.
The next year, and the year after that.
It’s delightful. Absolutely delightful.
Unable to contain himself, he spoke to the talisman swaying violently in the bloodstained rearview mirror.
Little birds play, and the stream babbles.
The air was clear and refreshing. His heart was filled with contentment. He gripped the steering wheel with a sense of fulfillment.
In the rearview mirror, he saw a bloodstained clown.
It smiled at him.
It listened to him cheerfully, for as long as he wanted.
