It was more than 30 years ago when I was in the early grades of elementary school.
Growing up in a seaside town in A prefecture in the Tohoku region, the area near the beach was a perfect playground for us.
We would look for sea creatures and play with them senselessly.
We also sold bait to fishermen for pocket money.
However, I was strictly told by the adults around me not to play hide-and-seek near the sea.
Well, the ocean is full of dangerous places where people can hide in strange places.
Even as a child, I understood that this was probably out of concern for accidents that could result in serious injury or loss of life.
However, even if I understood or something, I was just a child.
If there was no one around, they would do it.
Once we played hide-and-seek, me, a neighbor’s kid, A, B, and C.
C, who was fat for a girl of that time and was practically a leader, insisted on playing hide-and-seek.
We guys didn’t want to be treated as cowards, so we decided to go out with her.
We were reluctant to start, but there were lots of weird hollows near the ocean.
I still remember that it was a lot of fun, and dangerous places are basically fun.
About an hour after we started hide-and-seek, A was the it, but he couldn’t find C.
We had no choice but to stop playing hide-and-seek and the three of us decided to look for C.
When we were about to give up and go home because we still couldn’t find her, we found C in a hollow in a rocky area, which we could not find even after our search earlier.
But she was not alone, she was accompanied by an old man who was wearing a very splendid kimono.
In my childish mind, I wondered for a moment if she had quit hide-and-seek on her own because her family had come to pick her up.
Usually, C, who makes a lot of noise with adults and children alike, was very quiet.
She was staring at a point and not moving, not responding to what the old man in kimono was saying to her.
I thought this was a bad idea, but fortunately neither of them seemed to notice me.
I decided to watch them so they wouldn’t notice me.
I looked closely at the old man in kimono, who was not wet at all, even though he was so close to the sea.
He took out an iron skewer-like object from his pocket, and thrust it into C`s armpit.
I was so scared by his action that I froze, and to tell the truth, I was pissing my pants.
Moreover, he inserted the skewer not one but one after another into C.
But strangely enough, no blood flowed.
C was also skewered so much that she looked like she was on the verge of a blackbeard crisis, but she didn’t move an inch.
Eventually, a yellowish-white slushy substance began to flow out through the skewer.
Then the old man began to attach something like a white bag to the base of the skewer.
It seemed that he was collecting the sludge in the bag.
It seemed that the sack was full.
The old man tied the mouths of the bags one by one and put them together.
On the other hand, C, who had been so fat and plump, looked like a dried-up worm.
I thought to myself, “I’ve just seen something really bad, no kidding.”
The old man suddenly turned his head in my direction, and his mouth formed a big “a” as if he was about to say something.
Then, as I thought he was going to say something, an adult voice from behind me said, “Hey, you son of a bitch! I told you not to play hide-and-seek here!”.
When I turned around, I saw A’s father.
It seemed that A and B had gone to report to the adults in a panic because they couldn’t find C.
I ran over to tell A’s father that C had turned out like a mummy.
At that moment I took a serious beating and another yell from him.
When I pulled him to C, she was lying on the ground, fat and not dried out.
The old man and the skewer marks were gone.
In the end, C was rushed to the hospital, saying that she had fallen while playing hide-and-seek, hit her head, and fainted.
She woke up that evening.
Meanwhile, the three of us were lectured to death.
I was so burned by the scene that I didn’t even listen to the sermon.
For the next few days, C was fine and reigned supreme over all the neighborhood kids.
I was beginning to think it was just a phantom, that I was just crazy in the heat.
But after a week or so, C started to lose weight, even to our kid eyes, and eventually I stopped seeing her.
I went to visit C with A, B and others, accompanied by our mother, C seemed to be ill.
The C there was not the fat C I used to hate, but a much thinner C.
She was not just skinny, but her skin was so wrinkled that it was hard to believe that she was a child.
I thought she was going to die.
When I returned home from the hospital, I told my mother about the old man and the skewered C.
When she finished listening to my story, she said, “Well,” and made a phone call somewhere. When the call ended, she told me that someone would be coming tomorrow to ask me about the incident and that I should answer honestly.
I thought my mother looked grimmer than usual.
The next day, I was summoned to the principal’s office in the middle of a class at school, and a strange old man asked me about the old man and C.
Strange old man showed me an old picture and asked me, “Wasn’t the old man dressed like this?”
The painting depicted a man with a shabby outfit and an unnaturally triangular head, and another man in a beautiful kimono that looked like the old man.
I answered that I looked like the man in the kimono.
Then the strange old man let out one sigh and told the principal that it was apparently not Akae-sama, so
He told me that there was nothing more to worry about.
The principal seemed somewhat relieved.
Then, ignoring me, they went on and on about how there would be a good catch this year.
The fishermen’s cooperative was going to pay a visit to C’s house.
They noticed I was still there and quickly kicked me out and I went back to class.
C ended up dying rather soon after that.
At her funeral, the only people who looked sad were her family.
Everyone else seemed to be smiling and happy.
To tell the truth, I hated C. C., too, so I was happy in my heart.
But I was a little bit eerie because it was so different from the funerals I had experienced before.
My father also gave C’s parents a strange consolation, saying, “God took her to heaven on a whim..”
That fall, the catch was the best in decades, just as the strange old man and the principal had said it would be.
But it was not so good in the other harbors, and only my town was very prosperous.
I, A, B, and I all gained a lot of weight, probably due to the improved nutritional condition.
