first corpse.
I came down from the hill one fresh morning and saw several of the ghouls congregating on the beach. As I got closer, I could see that one of them was kneeling on the ground with his hand under the head of a dead man, its shoulder protecting the carcass from its hideous kinsmen, claiming the body as its own, while it lashed out at any of these revolting creatures who dared to come too close.
“Shoo! Off with you!” I shouted, racing across the hard sand toward the gathering, splashing into the low tide, my sword raised in two hands like a samurai. Ah yes, I can hear you say, what a dashing figure I must have cut, Hisako! Oh, how the
jikininki
hissed at me, stumbling out of my way, to the left and right, but not prepared to leave. They spit and slobbered. Then they turned their backs on me, bent over, and farted horribly. You laugh, Hisako, but it was true! Bravely, I covered my nose and waded into their midst, swinging my sword back and forth. You cannot kill what is already dead, but the
jikininki
are tender-skinned nonetheless, I soon found out. They are half rotted and, in any case, afraid of the living. They hate the living; too much of a reminder of what they’ve lost, I guess.
“Leave him!” I shouted, slashing at the one who had claimed the body. The thing pulled back. Then it opened its horrible maw, from which gobbets of blood and flesh spilled. It tried to growl at me, but its mouth was too full. Sick with revulsion, I pierced the creature through the chest. It squealed hideously, loud as a siren, and clambered to its feet, scuttling away, but not without taking a great hank of flesh in the talons of its left paw. While I stood guard over the corpse, the other
jikininki
circled the one with the food, slavering and screeching, like so many seagulls wanting their share of the bounty.
The flesh-eaters had hideously disfigured the dead man’s face, but his tattered uniform proclaimed him to be an American sailor. I wasn’t sure what Americans did with their dead; I seemed to think they buried them, but since I was not sure, all I could think to do was to cremate him, as is our custom.
There would be no need to moisten the lips of the soldier with the “water of the last moment.” He was lying in the wet sand of low tide, waterlogged. I wondered how long the sailor had been trying to land, washed up and washed back out again by the tide.
It is not hard to die; I had learned that all too well. But I found myself thinking how hard it is to settle, to find a place of rest. With the flesh-eaters around, there would be no rest for this soldier’s spirit. So I dragged the man up the sand to dry off. I stayed nearby, for I could sometimes see the ghouls not so far off, watching, waiting for their chance. Then the wind changed and they wandered off. When I felt I could leave him for a moment, I gathered what I needed and built a pyre of driftwood and a bamboo platform for the sailor to lie upon, his body facing north. I talked to him. I wished him luck.
“I have no coins to give you to ford the River of Three Crossings,” I said. “I’m sorry. But perhaps your gods do not require payment.” Then I lit the fire with one of my precious matches and watched the flames consume the man. I fed the hungry fire to keep it as hot as possible. The
jikininki
returned with the fickle breeze, drew as near as they dared, and howled at their loss, their hands raised to their cadaverous cheeks, but did not dare come too close. Fire, it seemed, was their enemy.
And so I set myself up as the island’s undertaker. It was something that needed doing, and I went about it as best I could, sending dead souls to wherever it was dead souls went. Did
gaijin
go to the same place our own people go? I had no idea; I had never given such things much thought. But here I had only to keep myself alive and to get well, and so the days stretched before me with more time to think than I would have thought possible. By the time
I came down from the hill one fresh morning and saw several of the ghouls congregating on the beach. As I got closer, I could see that one of them was kneeling on the ground with his hand under the head of a dead man, its shoulder protecting the carcass from its hideous kinsmen, claiming the body as its own, while it lashed out at any of these revolting creatures who dared to come too close.
“Shoo! Off with you!” I shouted, racing across the hard sand toward the gathering, splashing into the low tide, my sword raised in two hands like a samurai. Ah yes, I can hear you say, what a dashing figure I must have cut, Hisako! Oh, how the
jikininki
hissed at me, stumbling out of my way, to the left and right, but not prepared to leave. They spit and slobbered. Then they turned their backs on me, bent over, and farted horribly. You laugh, Hisako, but it was true! Bravely, I covered my nose and waded into their midst, swinging my sword back and forth. You cannot kill what is already dead, but the
jikininki
are tender-skinned nonetheless, I soon found out. They are half rotted and, in any case, afraid of the living. They hate the living; too much of a reminder of what they’ve lost, I guess.
“Leave him!” I shouted, slashing at the one who had claimed the body. The thing pulled back. Then it opened its horrible maw, from which gobbets of blood and flesh spilled. It tried to growl at me, but its mouth was too full. Sick with revulsion, I pierced the creature through the chest. It squealed hideously, loud as a siren, and clambered to its feet, scuttling away, but not without taking a great hank of flesh in the talons of its left paw. While I stood guard over the corpse, the other
jikininki
circled the one with the food, slavering and screeching, like so many seagulls wanting their share of the bounty.
The flesh-eaters had hideously disfigured the dead man’s face, but his tattered uniform proclaimed him to be an American sailor. I wasn’t sure what Americans did with their dead; I seemed to think they buried them, but since I was not sure, all I could think to do was to cremate him, as is our custom.
There would be no need to moisten the lips of the soldier with the “water of the last moment.” He was lying in the wet sand of low tide, waterlogged. I wondered how long the sailor had been trying to land, washed up and washed back out again by the tide.
It is not hard to die; I had learned that all too well. But I found myself thinking how hard it is to settle, to find a place of rest. With the flesh-eaters around, there would be no rest for this soldier’s spirit. So I dragged the man up the sand to dry off. I stayed nearby, for I could sometimes see the ghouls not so far off, watching, waiting for their chance. Then the wind changed and they wandered off. When I felt I could leave him for a moment, I gathered what I needed and built a pyre of driftwood and a bamboo platform for the sailor to lie upon, his body facing north. I talked to him. I wished him luck.
“I have no coins to give you to ford the River of Three Crossings,” I said. “I’m sorry. But perhaps your gods do not require payment.” Then I lit the fire with one of my precious matches and watched the flames consume the man. I fed the hungry fire to keep it as hot as possible. The
jikininki
returned with the fickle breeze, drew as near as they dared, and howled at their loss, their hands raised to their cadaverous cheeks, but did not dare come too close. Fire, it seemed, was their enemy.
And so I set myself up as the island’s undertaker. It was something that needed doing, and I went about it as best I could, sending dead souls to wherever it was dead souls went. Did
gaijin
go to the same place our own people go? I had no idea; I had never given such things much thought. But here I had only to keep myself alive and to get well, and so the days stretched before me with more time to think than I would have thought possible. By the time
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