started undressing, but stopped and walked into her bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Well, at least I rate that much, he thought.
She came back out a few minutes later, wearing a Denver police academy T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. She crawled into her bed and then looked toward him. “Good night, Alex.”
“Good night, Linda.” She turned off the lights and went to sleep.
Chapter 3
From The Atlantic Monthly
The trees in the Aokigahara forest can cast dismal shadows even in summer, but in the winter, the funereal gloom looks especially inviting to those who brave the maze-like trails of this haunted forest.
It’s suicide season.
“It really increases as we get closer to the New Year,” said Tetsuo Harada, an official with the Yamanashi Prefecture parks department. “Since the afterlife, it’s only gotten worse.”
The Aokigahara Jukai, literally “Aokigahara tree ocean,” has a long history in Japanese folklore and urban legend. Magnetic compasses reportedly don’t work in the forest and steep paths have sent many to injury or death, despite the stone statues of Jizo Bodhisattva that are supposed to guard the traveler.
The forest was infamous as a place to end one’s life long before the discovery of the afterlife in 1997. Ken Takamura, a professor of behavioral science at the Medical College Research Institute of Tokyo and author of “Aokigahara-jukai: Forest of Death in the shadow of Mt. Fuji,” has said, “The problem in Japan is that there are more sites where people are exchanging suicide methods, looking for partners, than there are sites devoted to prevention.
“Now the suicide parties are organized. They pack in computers, terminals, satellite uplinks and they go online and synchronize their deaths with others around the country. And the forest, unfortunately, lures them.”
In Japan, the national government has declared the suicide problem an “epidemic that can’t be cured by medicine or relieved by public awareness.”
“Everyone knows that people are killing themselves left and right,” said Randall Levinson, a visiting scholar at Keio University’s International Center. “But they can’t do a thing about it. The problem’s gotten so bad there have been schools that have had to cancel classes — too many students killed themselves. It’s the siren call of the afterlife.”
It wasn’t a good night for Yamaguchi. Munroe counted five trips to the bathroom. She apparently never even remembered that he was there, or at least he so assumed from the fact that she never even glanced at the desk.
OK, well, I guess I never need to worry about that again, he thought to himself on maybe the second or third trip when he peeked into the bathroom and saw her perched over the toilet.
He went back to the computer and continued planning his trip for next month when she would be leaving town for a wedding and he thought he could take the trip to Egypt he’d always wanted. The website promised a living tour guide and a portable terminal with full Internet wireless access. Start in Cairo and the pyramids, then Karnak at Luxor, Valley of the Kings and finally Abu Simbel, all by riverboat and all for $500 per person. The living would die to get these kinds of prices, he thought to himself. Not that many of them are brave enough to go. With the instability of the Middle East since the discovery of the afterlife, Western tourism, at least among the living, had all but dried up.
He looked at the pictures again and thought of wife number one, Marlene, who turned him onto all things Egyptian, and also turned him off college professors who cheated on their husbands.
Next he checked his email again and found a response from AfterNet security.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Missing persons inquiry
Date: December 19, 2004 2:32 a.m. MST
This is an automated response to notify you that we have received your inquiry. Please do not reply to …
So, nothing so
Well, at least I rate that much, he thought.
She came back out a few minutes later, wearing a Denver police academy T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. She crawled into her bed and then looked toward him. “Good night, Alex.”
“Good night, Linda.” She turned off the lights and went to sleep.
Chapter 3
From The Atlantic Monthly
The trees in the Aokigahara forest can cast dismal shadows even in summer, but in the winter, the funereal gloom looks especially inviting to those who brave the maze-like trails of this haunted forest.
It’s suicide season.
“It really increases as we get closer to the New Year,” said Tetsuo Harada, an official with the Yamanashi Prefecture parks department. “Since the afterlife, it’s only gotten worse.”
The Aokigahara Jukai, literally “Aokigahara tree ocean,” has a long history in Japanese folklore and urban legend. Magnetic compasses reportedly don’t work in the forest and steep paths have sent many to injury or death, despite the stone statues of Jizo Bodhisattva that are supposed to guard the traveler.
The forest was infamous as a place to end one’s life long before the discovery of the afterlife in 1997. Ken Takamura, a professor of behavioral science at the Medical College Research Institute of Tokyo and author of “Aokigahara-jukai: Forest of Death in the shadow of Mt. Fuji,” has said, “The problem in Japan is that there are more sites where people are exchanging suicide methods, looking for partners, than there are sites devoted to prevention.
“Now the suicide parties are organized. They pack in computers, terminals, satellite uplinks and they go online and synchronize their deaths with others around the country. And the forest, unfortunately, lures them.”
In Japan, the national government has declared the suicide problem an “epidemic that can’t be cured by medicine or relieved by public awareness.”
“Everyone knows that people are killing themselves left and right,” said Randall Levinson, a visiting scholar at Keio University’s International Center. “But they can’t do a thing about it. The problem’s gotten so bad there have been schools that have had to cancel classes — too many students killed themselves. It’s the siren call of the afterlife.”
It wasn’t a good night for Yamaguchi. Munroe counted five trips to the bathroom. She apparently never even remembered that he was there, or at least he so assumed from the fact that she never even glanced at the desk.
OK, well, I guess I never need to worry about that again, he thought to himself on maybe the second or third trip when he peeked into the bathroom and saw her perched over the toilet.
He went back to the computer and continued planning his trip for next month when she would be leaving town for a wedding and he thought he could take the trip to Egypt he’d always wanted. The website promised a living tour guide and a portable terminal with full Internet wireless access. Start in Cairo and the pyramids, then Karnak at Luxor, Valley of the Kings and finally Abu Simbel, all by riverboat and all for $500 per person. The living would die to get these kinds of prices, he thought to himself. Not that many of them are brave enough to go. With the instability of the Middle East since the discovery of the afterlife, Western tourism, at least among the living, had all but dried up.
He looked at the pictures again and thought of wife number one, Marlene, who turned him onto all things Egyptian, and also turned him off college professors who cheated on their husbands.
Next he checked his email again and found a response from AfterNet security.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Missing persons inquiry
Date: December 19, 2004 2:32 a.m. MST
This is an automated response to notify you that we have received your inquiry. Please do not reply to …
So, nothing so
Similar Books
