This is a story from before I started elementary school.
I lived in an apartment complex called S in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The complex had three buildings on its premises, if I remember correctly. My family’s apartment was located on the eighth floor, at the farthest end of one of the buildings.
On the eighth floor, there were three boys of the same age as me, including myself. We were all good friends and always played together in the park inside the complex or various other places within the premises. Some areas had many cockroaches and spiders, which was creepy. Perhaps due to the large mountain behind the apartment complex, there were an unusually high number of insects there.
Now, apart from our close trio, there was another boy named T who occasionally played with us. T lived on the first floor of the apartment complex and seemed a bit shy. He preferred playing with toys inside his house rather than going out to play, so we only played together a few times a month, as we were more into outdoor activities.
One day, I went to T’s house to play by myself. The first floor of the apartment complex was a bit dimly lit. Furthermore, it was a cloudy day, making the corridor dark as if it were nighttime. I remember feeling quite uneasy until I reached T’s apartment.
When I arrived at T’s place, T and his mother welcomed me, which put me at ease. T brought out miniature ambulance and police car toys, and we created a story and played together.
After playing for a while, I happened to look up and noticed an unfamiliar toy on top of a dresser in T’s room. From below, I could only make out a three-dimensional intersection of tracks, but it looked like a very interesting toy.
“Let’s play with that toy,” I asked T. However, T responded indifferently, saying, “It’s broken, so we can’t play with it. Maybe you broke it, ○○(my name).” I was taken aback and replied, “No way. I’ve never seen that toy before.” “You broke it when you came to play the other day,” he insisted. I had no recollection of it whatsoever.
Just then, T’s mother entered the room and began putting away some laundry in the dresser. “T says you broke that toy,” I complained to T’s mother. “But ○○(my name), you broke it when you came to play the other day, didn’t you?” T’s mother replied. I think I was around 4 or 5 years old at the time, but I have relatively clear memories from around the age of 3.
Since I was already aware of my surroundings, I could determine whether I had broken my friend’s toy or not. I definitely didn’t have any memory of it, and moreover, it was my first time seeing that particular toy. “Why are you saying that? I didn’t break it!” “You broke it when you came to play the other day.” “Yeah, ○○(my name) broke it, so we can’t play with it anymore.” I didn’t know the term at that time, but it was the first moment in my life when I felt the concept of “absurdity.”
I desperately tried to recall the memories of when I had previously visited T’s house but I couldn’t remember anything. Feeling uncomfortable in that situation, I returned to my own home.
It was a quite shocking experience for me, and I couldn’t bring myself to talk to my parents about it. Shortly thereafter, our family moved to Tokyo, so the matter of T’s toy remained unresolved, shrouded in mystery.
After that, I received a birthday gift from my aunt, which was a children’s book called “Fabre’s Book of Insects.” I loved it so much that I read it over and over again, which made me develop a great interest in insects. The place I moved to had a lot of nature for Tokyo, so I would go outside and catch various insects to play with.
However, I just couldn’t bring myself to like spiders. It was not a matter of simply not liking them; just thinking about spiders gave me a creepy feeling. The book “Fabre’s Book of Insects” also had stories about spiders, and they were very interesting to read. But no matter how much time passed, from elementary school to high school, I couldn’t overcome my fear of spiders.
One day, I was talking with my mother about the days when I was young and lived in an apartment. As we reminisced about various things, she said, “You still hate spiders even now, but when you were a child, it was really bad. You would suddenly scream in the middle of the night, saying, ‘I hate spiders!'” As I mentioned before, I consider myself to have relatively clear memories of my childhood.
However, I have no recollection of crying in the middle of the night. According to my mother, my crying and screaming were so genuine, as if there were actually spiders there, and I was terrified. It was not a half-asleep state or something trivial; it seemed more like a state of confusion, as if something was wrong with me. Such incidents happened repeatedly, and my mother even wondered if it would be better to take me to the hospital.
That’s when my own memories started to become vague. No matter what, wouldn’t I remember if such a thing happened? But I don’t remember anything at all.
It hit me. I had experienced something like this before. Yes, it was about T’s toy. I was about to remember something when the thread of memory suddenly broke, and I couldn’t recall any further.
At that moment, my mother said, “That apartment had a mountain behind it, so occasionally, large spiders would appear. They were about the size of an adult’s hand. If a child saw such a big spider, it would probably seem huge.”
In an instant, several images raced through my mind, and before I knew it, I was clutching my head and groaning. I barely managed to suppress my scream.
The moment I tripped and fell while running around in T’s room, landing on that toy track. T’s accusing me while crying and pounding the floor. T’s mother asking me how I could make peace with T. T’s mother grabbing a spider larger than her hand and shoving it into my mouth.
