“Please help us move a grave-like object”… A monk receives a bizarre and mysterious request - Part 4

If you would like to be notified of future posts, follow me on:

My Instagram:

Main

My Artwork 

My X:

Main

My Artwork 

❤️Updating Every Saturday Evening (Japan Time)

Picture unrelated to the story lol

__________________

Read the previous episodes from here:

PART 1

PART 2 

PART 3

__________________

(Translated and Arranged by Saya)

171(OP):

I’m back.

While I was trying to figure out what to do, my mind drifted towards the bones under the blue tarp. 

I wondered if the bones had disappeared alongside the man in workwear. 

I shared my thoughts with T san, and asked him to turn over the blue tarp — the bones were still there. 

Then, the man in workwear and the bones were unrelated? 

I became even more confused. 

Okusama suggested us to return to the sitting room. I pressed my hands together and offered a quick but formal prayer right where I stood, before going back inside the house.

I could see that what I had just done had given a wrong idea to T san and Okusama, and now they expected me to act like some sort of an exorcist from a manga. 

I was straight with them and told them that I had never been trained to perform that kind of thing, and that what had happened earlier was a sheer fluke. 

But I guess that the relief they felt after months of stress was so huge that it was making them overly optimistic about my abilities. 

They poured me more tea, and I suggested we reflect on what had happened so far. 

It all began when they found the bones in the garden last summer, and from then on, they started experiencing those strange sounds and rattling windows, and sightings of the man in workwear. 

What is more, even though the bones could be photographed, and they were seemingly tangible, real objects, they disappeared the moment the town office workers came to the house. 

“Is there anything you’d like to add?”

T san: 

“Well… We sometimes hear someone’s voice from empty rooms.” 

“Can you understand anything they say?” 

T san:

“It just sounds like ahh ~ or mmm ~. 

Sounded like a man’s voice, Isn’t it?” 

He asked his wife.

Okusama:

“I have never heard any intelligible words, but it definitely sounds different from any cries of animals. 

Just as Shujin (Note: 主人 head of a household, husband. She is referring to T san) says, it’s a sort of sound similar to a person’s voice.”

“Hmm… well, anyway, about what happened earlier in the garden — I thought I saw a man wearing grey workwear. 

Actually, it’s not that I think it. I clearly saw the grey workwear.”

T san:

“We have only ever seen him wearing a dirty T-shirt, isn’t that so?”

172(OP):

Okusama:

“That’s right. In the case of the man, I always see him wearing a dirty T-shirt, too.”

Why are there differences in the way we perceive the man? 

Come to think of it, when I first saw the window rattling, there was no one outside the window. 

That seems contradictory too… If it was the man who was shaking the window, he should have been visible from inside…

But even though I thought at the time that the way the window rattled looked as if someone was shaking it, I would never have imagined there would actually be someone shaking it… 

“What kind of place was this land before the house was built?” 

T san:

“That was bothering me too, and I did some research and found a record that said this was originally a cultivated land, which later was turned into a residential land. 

The previous owner told me he once had a hut built on it, just for the papers, but never built anything as big as our house. 

It doesn’t seem like any incidents have ever happened here that would cause a bad karma or something.”

“But I don’t see any houses around here apart from yours.”

174(OP):

T san:

“Yes, but that was part of the reason why we liked it here, so that never worried us before.”

“Have you not approached your neighbours — well, not exactly neighbours but — anyone who live close by and asked if they knew anything?” 

I was sounding more like a detective than a monk now. 

T san:

“Yes, but as we are outsiders in this countryside community, we only dared to ask questions in a roundabout way. We wouldn’t want go around sprouting unwanted rumours, you know. 

But so far, we haven’t heard anything that might help us in solving this problem.”

Okusama:

“The townspeople here were never really friendly to us to begin with. 

But we were so in love with the beautiful nature and landscape here that their attitude was never a problem to us — until now. 

As Shujin said, we are outsiders, so we have resigned ourselves to solitude, and it hasn’t been too bad, because at least no one has ever actively tried to meddle in our affairs…

So when the nearby temple and shrine refused to help us, at first we thought it was just part of their usual indifference.” 

180(OP): 

“Er… so, do you recognise the man in workwear or have any ideas about who he might be?” 

T san:

“As I said in the car, no. I don’t think he is connected to us in any way.” 

“I tried to see the man’s face but failed in the end.

Have you ever seen it, T san and Okusan?”

T san: 

“Obosan couldn’t see it too? We also have never been able to see the face, although we are sure the person is a man… but he has never once appeared to us in workwear, I think.” 

Okusama:

“Yes, that’s right. always appeared in T-shirt.”

I felt there was something odd about some of the things they told me, but at the time, I only wanted to find a solution, move whatever things I needed to move, be done with it all and go home as soon as possible. 

While I was thinking that, suddenly, a nasty theory popped up in my head.

Although I was a scaredy cat, I loved reading about mysterious stories, scary stories, UFO, UMA and so on, and perhaps I got inspiration from those things — but the fact that T san and I see the man wearing different clothes, and his face remained invisible, led me to arrive at one theory. 

What if there were human remains buried among the animal bones in the pit under the blue tarp? 

What if the man was causing those strange phenomena to draw our attention to the fact, because he wished us to hold a kuyo (Note: a prayer for the repose of the soul) for him? 

If that were the case, wouldn’t simply holding a kuyo put an end to these phenomena?

That was my reasoning process. 

But I was also concerned that we would have to call the police if we ever discovered human remains. 

181(OP): 

I communicated my amateurish speculation to the couple. 

T san: 

“If we found human bones like Obosan says, that would require us to report to the police…” 

Okusama:

“What? You mean, someone got murdered  here?”

“No, I don’t think it would necessarily have been a murder, but I just had a feeling that these phenomena were manifested by a soul that hadn’t been given a proper burial…”

T san:

“That would make sense.  No one would suspect to find human bones if they were buried along with so many other kinds of bones and shells.”

Okusama:

“Eh?”

T san:

“Obosan, what exactly would you suggest we do? 

“Er… I am not quite sure myself, and I don’t know what would happen to be honest, but how about we dig up as many bones and shells as we can from the pit?” 

Okusama:

“What would we do if we really found human bones?”

T san: 

“We can’t know anything unless we do it. Maybe it would be worth trying.”

I regret that I could not give them a hand, because I was wearing a monk’s robe, but they began digging up the bones under the blue tarp, and sorted out whatever they found according to their shapes and sizes.

182(OP): 

As for myself, I stood by the pit and kept chanting sutra with my hands pressed together in prayer. 

The couple kept on digging probably for an hour without rest. 

Eventually, they gathered together the amount of bones and shells which would perhaps cover about a four-tatami mat worth of space. 

(Note: See tatami mat measurements below.

The size of tatami mats vary according to the region in which they are produced.

“Jo” is a counter, meaning one tatami mat.

This might come across as a bit disrespectful, but it could have solved the mystery had we unearthed a skull. However, we found no skull and such, and I am no medical doctor, and the bones being in such a state of disarray, I couldn’t tell which were human bones, or if there were any human bones at all among them.

I told the couple:

“Frankly, I don’t know if we have any human bones here among them. But it’s still abnormal that we have unearthed so many bones. 

So I suggest we hold a kuyo for them all today, and perhaps after that, we could bury them properly in one corner of the garden, and you could take care of it. 

How does that sound?”

T san: 

“I would never have thought we would dig up this many bones. 

But what even stranger is, this is not making me want to leave the place and move to somewhere else. 

Of course, we don’t have enough money to move house anyway, but above all else, it’s making me feel sad to see that they were discarded in such a callous manner … the oyster shells may be irrelevant, but at the very least, these animal bones deserve a proper burial, as you say.”

Okusama: 

“It seems strange, but I am also feeling sorry for the bones now.

I only felt disgust for them before, but now I feel pity for them.” 

183(OP): 

I could also feel the air surrounding us, which was heavy before, was becoming lighter and softer. 

T san went over to the edge of the garden and, stopping under a broad-leaved tree (I’m sorry but I don’t know the name of it), asked me, “would this place be suitable for it?”

“I think that would be perfect. The tree would act as a grave-marker.”

T san and Okusama respectfully carried each group of bones, classified by size, to the tree, and then moved the oyster shells to there, too. 

Soon, they set to digging under the tree.

I felt somewhat relieved, and was letting my guard down.

But the next moment, all of a sudden, T san exclaimed “Oh!” quite loudly. 

“Are you alright?”

I started walking towards T san, when Okusama, who was carrying the soil from the pit to some place behind me, also shouted “Oh!” 

What? What’s happened? I cast quick glances in both directions, but being unable to decide which way to turn, I froze again. 

I’m sorry. I need to leave again. 

184: 

>>183

Oh!

He ended it at a crucial moment!!!

185:

Obosan, I’ll be waiting. 

Reading your story is my favourite pastime right now. 

187:

I thought it was their neighbours that were harassing them, but it appears I was wrong 

188: 

Btw, what was the grave-like thing they were talking about before? 

189:

>>188

They must have meant the place where the bones were buried.

191: 

>>189

Really? I see ~ 

—————————

⭐️Video of the Week

Heavy snowfall in Aomori, November 2023.

Aomori 青森 by the way, means “Blue Forest” (Ao 青　means blue, and Mori 森 means forest).

Serene and beautiful!