The Sea of Trees
Louise Palfreyman
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Hiroki Oura believes he has been called to the holy mountain by its guardian spirit. He is waiting for a bus at Kawaguchiko station. Tinny music is playing from speakers tacked to the walls. It sets him on edge. This is not the soundtrack he imagined. He is reminded of early Super Mario… a bizarre and unwelcome imposition, Hiroki Oura thinks as he stares down the deserted main street.
It is inevitable, he concludes, that a scenario so often rehearsed in the mind should play out differently for real. He reasons with himself that he has never been to Kawaguchiko station and so could not have known that offensive, inappropriate music would be piped onto the streets. He could not have known that the town would be deserted. He is grateful for that, at least, as he waits for the last bus to Aokigahara. He smokes a cigarette, and then he smokes another. When the bus arrives, he boards, pays the driver, and sits at the back. He is the only passenger.
Hiroki Oura found a picture on a website, a picture he considers so significant that he placed printouts of it in all the key locations of his life. He stuck a small version to the side of his alarm clock so it would be the first thing he saw on waking. His wife made no comment. He stuck a larger version in his cubicle at work, and it met with general approval from his colleagues, and his boss allowed it to stay. He tucked the smallest in his wallet, and it is this one he produces now from among his credit cards and ID. It is creased and folded and dog-eared, but no less potent, he believes, as he smooths it out on his knee.
He slips into the private game he will often play… staring at the image, then closing his eyes and recreating it in pristine detail in his mind. Each time, the peak of Mount Fuji rises blue and distant at the end of a lake, its snow-covered crown glaring white against a hazy sky. The lower slopes fade into a fine mist which intensifies as it meets the treetops of the forest at the foot of the mountain. The mist becomes the whispers of the departed, reflected swirling around the peak in the still dark waters of the lake.
Aokigahara is haunted by a thousand Yurei. The Yurei are the lost souls of the forest. They are the sick and elderly given up to its ancient depths by families who could not afford to feed them. They are the tortured ghosts of lovers and the unloved, the out-of-hope and out-of-luck who chose to wander into the Hemlock trees and never return. Their cries can be heard at night, and their spirits pull the unwitting deep into the trees. Many a soul has been lost in Aokigahara.
At night, Hiroki Oura dreams of the mountain. Tendrils of mist reach for him and whisper his name. Then the clear voice of the guardian spirit commands him to get up and put on his clothes and travel to the base of the holy mountain.
“Hiroki Oura,” the voice booms, “surrender yourself.
“Lie down in the cedars, far away from those who would destroy you. You can only retain your dignity, your honour, if you do this.
“Hiroki Oura, take control of your destiny. Plant your feet in the nether world. A white horse will be waiting, and you will ride towards an eternal sunrise.”
Hiroki Oura stares out of the window as the bus travels along the edge of Lake Kawaguchiko towards Aokigahara, the Sea of Trees. He cannot see the mountain. It is cloudy today and the mists have descended and enveloped both Fuji and the foothills beneath. He stares into the whiteness, into nothing, and closes his eyes.
*
Mariko Oyashi leans against the counter in her little cafe at the edge of the forest. It is the end of a long day. The jars of tea are lined up neatly, labels facing the front, on shelves which have been dusted in readiness for the morning. With her eyes closed, Mariko finds she can only see the mountain. She feels a foreboding deep within her. She pours herself tea from the pot, sits at a table and waits.
*
Yoshi Shirakawa is waiting for the rest of the search team, deep in the forest. He has blown his whistle and is preparing a corpse for removal. Mobile phones don’t work in Aokigahara, and GPS can be unreliable due to the high iron content of the volcanic rock. That’s the official line, but local legend has it that it’s the Yurei messing with the signals, trying to lure people further in.
Yoshi Shirakawa is a firefighter who volunteers for the annual searches carried out by the authorities. Signs urging the despairing to reconsider are largely ineffective, and at the end of each financial year there is a surge in the death rate as large numbers of office workers walk into the trees. The search parties find mainly men in their forties and fifties, decent family men who have gone bankrupt and can see no other way out of the shame. They find women too, and sometimes they find young lovers forbidden by their families to marry.
Yoshi searches through his tools, which are in a kit bag on the forest floor. In the bag he has a hacksaw and scissors for the cutting of rope from branches, balls of brightly coloured ribbon in red and yellow and blue, latex gloves, polythene sheeting and canisters of chemicals and spray paint.
He is on his third body of the day and has to work fast as there is only an hour of light left. He ties red ribbon around the trunk (he will take the ribbon back to the start of the trail) and sprays a red circle on the bark. The paint bleeds into the surface and runs into the cracks.
The corpse is curled up at the foot of the tree. His torso is naked, his plump belly loose over grey tracksuit bottoms, his legs drawn up to his chest. He is middle-aged, though the precise age is hard to tell. The man’s feet are bare and his hair is plastered to his skull in an unnatural sheen. His eyes are closed but he does not look at peace. He is frowning, frowning like a baby coming into the world, concentrating his mind on leaving it and entering the afterlife.
Earlier on in his search, Yoshi found a corpse hanging from a tree dressed for work, though he had removed his jacket, and the white collar of his shirt was loosened, to make room for the rope around his neck. His watch lay on the ground with other personal belongings: a wallet emptied of its contents, notes and ID scattered around. Blister packs, empty. A whisky bottle, also empty. A hand lay awkwardly against his face, resting between his torso and the tree trunk. This accidental arrangement gave him a fey posture, whimsical even. Yoshi felt pity for the man, suffering this final indignity. He tied the ribbon, marked the tree with yellow paint, cut down the body and covered it with polythene before returning to the meeting point.
He also found a woman in a clearing, beneath a transparent umbrella, apparently asleep in a sleeping bag. The bag was stuffed with medication, bottles of cheap wine and the spilled contents of her handbag. Lipsticks and a powder compact mingled with bank notes and photographs of her children. The body had been there for some time and Yoshi had to use nearly a whole canister of chemical spray before the team attempted to extract the corpse.
Bright-coloured ribbon winds its way through the trees. Red, yellow, blue… each one a trail leading to the end of a life, or to the beginning of a new one, for there are occasions when people use the ribbon to find their way out. Some people change their minds.
*
Hiroki Oura gets off the bus and sees a cafe. He walks in, and a woman looks up from a table in the corner. She is tired, but she smiles. “Hello, my friend,” she says. “Come and drink tea with me. You have had a long journey, I can see that.”
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Louise Palfreyman’s short fiction has been published in Best British Short Stories and journals and anthologies in the UK and America. Her book Once Upon a Time in Birmingham (The Emma Press) inspired the Birmingham Royal Ballet production Luna. She was recently awarded an MA (with distinction) in contemporary literature and culture by Birkbeck, University of London. Louise is a Room 204 writer-in-development with Writing West Midlands. Read more at www.louisepalfreyman.com.
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