I was once asked by a friend to cut down trees on a vacant lot.
My friend told me that a large factory was going to be built in the near future and they were going to build a parking lot.
Since I was running my own private tree trimming business, my friend took the liberty of giving me the job.
We had known each other since high school, and he came from a family that was a landowner in the area.
He had taken over the family business and was now checking rent payments and helping with property management.
It was only May when he asked me to do the field work to cut down the trees, but I remember it was unusually hot and blazing like midsummer.
As I was cutting the trees, wiping the pouring sweat off my face with a towel, I thought I saw a girl-like figure out of the corner of my eye for a moment.
But when I checked my surroundings, no one was in sight.
“Maybe the heat had gotten to my head.”
I thought to myself, but continued my work.
It was a large tree, so it took several days to cut it down, but after we were able to complete the job on schedule, I went home to my apartment after having drinks with friends at an izakaya (Japanese-style bar).
Perhaps my body was tired, but I was lying in bed relaxing with the light on, and before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.
I woke up in the middle of the night and went to the kitchen to drink some water.
The lights in the room suddenly flickered on and I was struck by a strange chill.
Then, in the corner of the room, the figure of a girl suddenly appeared.
She looked about the age of an elementary school student.
She was looking down. and I could not see her face, but I was so surprised that I could not react to anything.
“Why did you cut it off?”
The girl said.
“What?”
I don’t know what you are talking about, and I am too busy asking back.
“Why did you cut down the tree?”
Hearing those words reminded me of a girl I thought I saw for a brief moment during the felling.
I thought I was dreaming, but my consciousness was clear and real, and cold sweat was pouring out of my body.
(Did I do something, something I shouldn’t have done?)
I think about this and that, but I don’t know what to do.
“I cut it off because my friend asked me to.”
When I answered fearfully, the girl replied
“All right.”
And then, poof, he was gone.
What in the world was that?
At first, I drank some water to calm myself down and got under the covers, but I could not sleep.
I was beginning to drift off into a doze when suddenly the phone rang.
It was my friend who had asked me to cut down the tree.
“I’m on my way over there now, so please wait for me at home.”
I knew that my friend’s restless appearance had something to do with what had just happened to me.
Unable to stand still, I waited in front of my apartment, killing time.
After a while, my friend arrived in front of my apartment with his father in a car. The father was driving and my friend was sitting in the back seat with a very pale face.
I get into the car and the car leaves for somewhere and I find out from my friend what happened during the trip.
My friend told me that when he woke up, he found a strange girl standing by his bedside.
She said, “Did you cut down the tree? Why did you cut it down?”
The girl’s face was in shadow, but her tone of voice conveyed an unusual presence.
She said she jumped up and ran to her father’s room and told him what had happened. He immediately sensed something and went to my house with the money he had in his room.
When I asked him what he was going to do, he replied that he was going to take a Shinto priest to a shrine and have him perform an exorcism at the place where the tree was cut down.
I took the priest in the car on the way and asked him about it, and he told me that trees and other natural objects are rarely inhabited by spirits.
If the environment is changed by cutting down the tree without notice, the spirits may become violent because they have nowhere else to go.
In this case, the tree I cut down was inhabited by spirits.
My friend’s father said he had an epiphany from his long experience as a landowner.
When we arrived at the spot where the tree had been cut down, the Shinto priest began to perform the exorcism with great skill.
At that moment, rather than fear, I felt more guilt for having cut down the tree, which had a soul in it, just because it was my job, and I put my hands together as hard as I could.
My friend and I arranged to have a tree planted in a section of the completed parking lot, which was not part of the original plan.
I am not a very religious person, but since this incident, I have always made it a point to pray before cutting any tree.
