It was the dead of night. More precisely, it was the hour of the Ox, of which roughly three-quarters had passed. I found myself standing just south of the dense forest of Saginomori. The sky was clear like a sheet of ice.
At this particular hour of the night, the world is said to be so quiet that even the foliage slumbers. Still, when one lives in a city, it’s easy to forget the true meaning of such words. The convenience store resting on the corner of Kitashirakawa Betto shines its harsh florescent lights twenty-four hours a day. The bookstores are still packed with patrons at three in the morning, standing in the aisles flicking through unpurchased texts. Strange, modified automobiles zip along Mikage Street and up Yamanaka Pass for midnight communes with alien life. Wherever one looks, the city’s denizens of the night mill about ceaselessly, for reasons unknown.
I do not know if the foliage truly slumbers as the hour of the Ox draws to a close, but humanity certainly resists. Realizing we’re out of food, we run through the dark of the night to visit the convenience store and gorge on steamed buns with cheese. We head to the bookstore at two in the morning to find our friends perusing magazine articles about underground starlets, happy to discuss the day’s gossip.
In a life wrapped in fluorescent radiance, the hour of the Ox loses its eerie mystique. I, at least, had forgotten all about it.
It was only on rare occasions, such as when I spent a full day cycling the circumference of Lake Biwa with Shikama or when I accepted a dare to walk into the Shirataki Tunnel alone, that I rediscovered the unmitigated fear that darkness commands.
The forest ahead was pitch-black, and I could make out little in the darkness. I recognized the location only because I happened to spot the words SAGINOMORI SHRINE engraved on a large stone pillar at the forest’s border. I knew there should be a small hiking trail that led in toward the shrine, but I could not discern it from the surrounding bush.
To my east was the inky ridgeline of the mountains. In the sky, the moon was a sliver of fine, curved wire. A vegetable field stretched between the nearest residential neighborhoods and me, as if determined to cut me off from the civilized world. The field was barren, save for a few upturned cabbages that had long since withered from exposure to the cold northern gales.
An embankment along the far edge of the field served as the foundation for a narrow road, and I could faintly make out a white guardrail running alongside it. Beyond that, the lights of the area’s residences twinkled in the night. I also spotted one lone streetlight standing to the side of the guardrail. It cast a forlorn glow that seemed liable to go out at any moment.
As I studied the streetlight, I became aware of a two-car Eizan train approaching from the direction of Ichijoji. It followed the guardrail, sliding along the narrow farm road and heading in the direction of Manshu Temple. Light leaked from its windows into the surrounding night, gently illuminating the guardrail and the surrounding land.
I began walking, cutting my way across the field. When I reached the far end, I scrambled up the embankment, hopped the guardrail, and looked to my left. The train was escaping into the night, squeezing into the darkness of a tiny unlit alley. I chased after it, clouds of white spilling from my lips.
We were approaching town. Aged stone walls lined both sides of the way, pressing in without mercy. The train continued to roll forward slowly with barely enough room to pass. Little patches of foliage poking above the walls seemed to fade in and out of nothingness as the lit windows of the train passed by.
The townscape became an endless array of twists and turns. I’d never walked these streets and did not know them. I felt as if I were being led through a life-size maze. The train rolled effortlessly, as if tracks were being laid wherever it went, and it began to pull farther and farther ahead of me.
I saw it turn left at a dim crossroads, but when I finally managed to reach the intersection, I was too late. I’d lost sight of it. I rushed a few steps down the train’s apparent path, but it was hopeless. Still, I pushed onward. When the alley turned out to be a dead end, I doubled back and followed a branch to the right. This alley was lined with a thick temple wall on the right and private residences on the left. It was roughly paved—little more than a mishmash of stones lined upon the ground. At one point I came across an armoire set out in the open air. There was a flower vase atop it, along with a handwritten sign reading, Free to take.
Eventually, I reached the end of this alley, too, which ran right up to the entryway of another private residence.
I continued down a steep flight of stairs to my left as if pulled along by some unknown force. More tiny homes packed the sides of the stairway, and the narrow path at the bottom made a sharp, nearly ninety-degree turn to the right. It seemed that the maze might never end—and that the alleyways would twist on through the city, deeper and deeper. Surely the Eizan couldn’t pass through here. The realization left me irritated and bitter.
I made another right turn and found the way ahead blocked by a deep canal. On the opposite bank, a road ran parallel to the waterway. The road stretched on as far as I could see in either direction, lined with the same residential clutter I’d witnessed so far. Every home had its windows fastened tight, with no hint of light inside. But just then, their faces caught a white glow from some outside source.
I checked the surface of the canal. The water carried a reflection of bright rectangles—train windows—sliding steadily in my direction. The Eizan had reappeared. Now it was following the road on the opposite bank, headed north. I stood still and watched it pass. Inside one window, I caught sight of Mizuo, who was gazing absentmindedly through the glass at the outside world, perhaps watching the current of the canal. She’d always enjoyed the sight of running water.
I do not know whether she saw me standing there on the wrong side of the bank, breathing hard from my exertion, or the staccato plume of white smoke rising into the chill night air.