“Please help us move a grave-like object”… A monk receives a bizarre and mysterious request - Part 7

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❤️Updating Every Saturday Evening (Japan Time)

(Translated and Arranged by Saya)

😊PLEASE READ THE PREVIOUS EPISODES FROM HERE

202 (OP): 

Konbanwa (Note: Good evening). I will write as much as I can today, so that I can finish the story, once and for all. 

But please forgive me if I still take a break here and there. 

“Uh… so, could you please explain to me exactly what has been happening upstairs and the problems you are facing..?”

T san:

“Yes…sumimasen… It began, as I said, from around the time after we had the barbecue in the garden. 

At first — right now, we are sleeping in that room down the corridor but — we used to sleep in the room upstairs with a window overlooking the sea. It has such a great view… and after the barbecue, one day, we felt a presence — we first thought it was a person, and I wish it was. 

In fact, what suddenly appeared in the room, out of nowhere, was that object which look like a grave. We were sleeping at the time, and it was floating in mid-air.”

“Floating, you say?”

T san:

“Yes… I think it’s best if you see it with your own eyes. It’s hard to explain but, it was like a computer generated image in a Sci-Fi movie,  so to speak… the grave-like object was floating in mid-air in the middle of the room. 

We were just so astonished, and not only because it was floating.

We heard some strange sounds or voices coming out of it.”

Okusama:

“Yes, and there is more. Not only the sounds and voice, but also an entity that looks like a person comes out of it.

Well, ‘comes out’ might not be the right word… it sort of slowly appears out of thin air like this (stretching both arms out in front of her), and sometimes it even comes downstairs .”

T san:

“We are telling you the truth.”

“Yes, of course. Please don’t worry. I’m at the point where I’m ready to believe anything you say. 

So, how big and what shape is it?”

203(OP): 

“If possible, could you please draw it for me on a piece of paper or something?”

Okusama went to fetch a pen and paper, and T san made a drawing of it. 

T san: 

“It sort of looks like this…. Isn’t that right?”

Okusama: 

“Yes, it looks like this, and the size is, well, about this big (drawing the shape of a square in the air with both hands) I think.”

The shape T san drew on the paper was made up of rectangles and squares, which altogether did resemble a gravestone. The size looked about 30 ~ 40 cm on all sides. 

A Japanese style gravestone 

“And what are the unpleasant things that are happening because of this?”

T san:

“The very existence of itself is unpleasant. Imagine how it would feel to have such a thing in your room, and floating at that. 

What is more, you hear strange sounds and voices keep coming out of it.” 

“No physical pain or suffering of any kind?”

T san:

“Come to think of it, no, but we feel so much stress. We are suffering so much mentally.”

Okusama:

“So that’s why we have not been upstairs for nearly half a year. We are just too scared to go up there.”

“I understand…. Well, I don’t actually, but let us go upstairs anyway. 

But to be perfectly honest with you, there is no guarantee that they will be anything I can do to help you with this.

By the way, have you ever told anyone about this besides me?”

T san: 

“No, we have told a few other people about the bones, but you are the first person we have confided in about everything.”

All three of us then walked over to the staircase that led to the second floor.

204 (OP): 

It seemed my heightened nervousness was playing tricks on my mind. 

When I arrived at the bottom of the stairs, I suddenly had a flashback of an episode from “True Horror Stories (Note: a TV series), in which a person at the bottom of some stairs perceives a woman in a white dress come down, but no matter how long the person waits, he can never see her from her chest upwards, although there is no doubt that she is walking down the stairs — the story was entitled as “a woman with an unusually long upper body.” 

Yes, I was definitely frightened — noticing my mind fall into such a state was amusing and it almost made me smile.

“OK, let’s go upstairs,” T san said, and led the way, while Okusama and I followed him from behind. 

I had already decided that I would do what I had done in the garden straight away if anything happened. 

****************

205(OP): 

As soon as T san arrived at the top of the stairs, he cried out:

“Oh! It has changed!”

“What? What has changed?”

T san:

“It looks more distinct than before. Isn’t that so?”

He glanced at his wife. Okusama agreed with him, saying:

“Yes, certainly. It wasn’t like that before. 

It used to look kind of more blurry…”

I entered the room after them. 

What I saw then, literally floating in mid air, was an object which looked nothing like the gravestone that Tsan had drawn for me; but rather, it bore a strong resemblance to a chrysalis of a moth or a butterfly. 

“True. The shape has changed so much that it’s totally different from the drawing you made earlier…”

Hearing that, T san and Okusama both went:

“Eh?”

“What?”

T san:

“No, it still looks exactly the same as the drawing. Is it not appearing to you as a grave-like object?”

“Eh?”

How could this happen?

“Er… I see a sort of a chrysalis of a moth or a butterfly, with some patterns on it.”

T san and Okusama:

“What?”

The same phenomenon that we experienced with the man in workwear was happening to us again. 

206(OP): 

I felt there was no point in trying to figure out the cause of the phenomenon under the present circumstances, so I said:

“Please let me take a picture,” and took out my mobile.

(I forgot to write this but at the time I was still using a normal mobile phone, not a smartphone, made in 2014.) 

I didn’t think it was possible to take a picture of it, but the shutter did make the click sound.

However, as soon as my phone clicked, the chrysalis started vibrating. 

T san:

“Oh!”

Okusama:

“Ahhh!”

It appeared that the thing had undergone some sort of transformation in their eyes too. 

Hurriedly putting the mobile back into my robe, I held my prayer beads with my palms pressed together, just like I had done in the garden, while keeping the dokkosho in place by both thumbs; and I chanted the myogo and called the name of the principal image in Sanskrit. 

Some moments later, we heard the loud Bang! and felt an intense vibration such as the one I had experienced when I first entered the sitting room, and soon my nose caught a waft of foul odour in the air. 

“It stinks…” I thought, as I continued chanting, and T san said: 

“Obōsan, something is smelling so bad. What a horrid smell!”

I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing or not, but I was definitely causing the thing to react in some way.

207(OP):

“Kusai (Note: it stinks)”

“Kusai.”

T san and Okusama said, over and over again. 

But they didn’t try to run away.

Meanwhile, the loud Bang! sounds and vibrations continued.

I couldn’t have known what were the right ways of dealing with it, so I just kept on chanting. 

It felt like this situation lasted for about five minutes, even though the time must have been much shorter, but it still felt so long to me.

As I focused more and more on chanting, I closed my eyes and brought up the principal image in my mind’s eye, praying fervently, not with the intention to vanquish some evil spirit, but with the sincere hope to help a poor soul find eternal peace. 

Then, still with my eyes closed, I felt the space surrounding me tangibly twist and warp.

“Oh! Disappeared! Obōsan, it disappeared!” 

T san shouted. 

Relieved, I opened my eyes to find T san and Okusama holding hands and hopping together. 

Okusama:

“Ah… it has turned into such a sweet scent…”

T san:

“True… amazing…”

This is just my guess, but I think it was the scent of byakudan (Note: sandalwood) that I had burned in the garden. 

Okusama, while muttering“what a lovely scent” to herself, began to open all the windows in the room. 

“I’m sorry that I have to open the windows when we have such a lovely scent in here.

But it has been nearly half a year since we last opened them.” 

“Obōsan, thank you so much for everything. I’m at a loss for words… you’re simply amazing,” T san offered his hand. 

“Uh, no, just as I explained, it’s a fluke. I was only lucky. 

So please don’t start imagining that I have some special abilities or something.”

T san:

“But the fact is you have single-handedly cleared up the problems in the garden and this room, and ended our misery.”

“Well…in my humble opinion… in our school’s doctrines, the conception of ‘vanquishing evil’ does not exist. So, in the garden, as well as in this room, I only prayed so that those souls may all find their ways to Jōdo (Note: Buddhist heaven) and rest in eternal peace. Perhaps that has turned out to be the right thing to do — so, could both of you please pray with me again, for the repose of their souls?”

I said, and we again performed the same kind of ritual we had done for the garden.

(To Be Continued….)

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