This is a story I actually experienced when I was a student.
One female friend I was dating at the time was a bit mysterious.
Her brother had passed away, and when I went to her house to visit her, I would hear the sound of a mandolin coming from somewhere.
Then she and her mother would say, “Oh, she’s playing again,” as if it were a matter of course.
Around that time I frequently had strange dreams.
I dreamed that a round-faced boy who looked like her was hanging on a cross.
When I told her about it, she would
My brother died of leukemia, so his face was round due to the side effects of the medication.” That’s my brother,” she said and cried.
Eventually, at night, I began to feel something invading my house.
She would give me a shrine charm (fuda) and I would put it up in the four corners of my room.
But perhaps because I was still young, I didn’t think of these things as anything unusual.
But when I went to Tottori for fun in the summer of my second year of college, I was in a situation where I could not say such a thing.
We all got in the car together, and by the time we crossed the mountains, it was nighttime.
Just the thought of driving at night in the mountains was scary enough for me.
Halfway up the mountain, the car started rattling and stopped.
“Oh, here we are…what are we going to do?” And then, just as I was thinking.
She said in the driver’s seat, “I think I gave someone a ride…”
“Oh, no?” I panicked.
I was in the passenger seat, but I was too afraid to look behind me.
She said, “I think he wants to go somewhere, so I’ll give you a ride.”
As soon as she said that, the car started moving again, ran for a while, and then rattled to a stop.
”It looks like this is the place…”
She calmly said, “Please get off…” and opened the door.
I could no longer do anything but pray to God, Buddha, and ask something to get off….
Perhaps my desperate pleas were answered, something white disappeared from the back seat of the car into the corner in front of me as fast as it could fly.
She shined her light on it and there it was, the Jizo.
”You wanted to come here…” she said.
I couldn’t say anything else and just prayed that we would make it over the mountain and arrive at our destination safely.
In Tottori, we saw the dunes, swam in the sea, and were at peace.
The return trip was not exceptionally scary, and we arrived home safely.
She and I became increasingly estranged after that.
He never appeared in my dreams again.
