birds 1/3

        
There were too many bodies for one woman to bury.  

Reiko set her jaw and tried not to breathe in death through the cloth tied over her face as she searched the house for valuables. There was no point to worrying that she had been exposed to the curse- either she had or she hadn’t, it was clear that nothing to ward it away worked. But the smell of suffering made her head spin. 

Or perhaps it was the awful din of delighted birds shrieking at their meal.  

It had been days since she had given up on chasing away the crows. The best that she could do to care for the bodies was to take everyone out of the houses and into the fresh air, in the center of the stones that marked the cemetery. She had painstakingly collected jewelry, cups, and other favored items and set them beside each person.  

And then she had sat back on her heels and looked at 32 bodies with the cold realization that she could not bury them all. In the first days, it had taken three of them to bury the first victims. 

And now she was alone. She did not have that strength. And she thought they would prefer that she try to live, rather than break her body to care for empty shells. 

It was probably too late for her. She should have fled once the last of her family had died. But her heart had not been hard enough to leave her neighbors to die alone. Despite everything that she had tried, it had been in vain. No amount of washing weak bodies, no food gently hand-fed, and no prayers had made any difference. 

Perversely, she remembered that one moon’s time ago, the village had been in hot discussion over whether their stores of rice would get them through the coming winter. 

Well. Good news, the rice would be sufficient! She let out a laugh. Her voice, hoarse and low with disuse, shocked her. Reiko tried not to think about it. 

Laboriously, she dragged 3 jars of rice out of the storage house and to the outskirt of the village, one at a time. Their weight cut lines into the dirt, wounds to add to the many injuries of this place. Then she went back and laid out her mother’s largest- 

 She winced. She did not think about the bodies whose faces she had covered. She didn't, she didn't, she didn't think.

…Reiko laid her largest cloth on the ground. She put clothes, dried foods, extra sandals, and other small things into it like candles. She tied it shut with rope, and then realized that the rope might be her most valuable resource. She took rope from her neighbors’ homes as well and tied them around the jars. A dog- Choro, she remembered, the dog was called Choro- lifted his head and watched her solemnly from his place of vigil by the door of his home. The other two dogs had run away days ago. Just two days ago. 

She took a moment to marvel at it. Eight days ago, the first person had begun coughing. Six days ago, they had turned blue and died. And then so had everyone else. 

Everyone but her, anyway. “I am a cockroach,” Reiko told the village. She felt like it, scurrying away as she was. She had the idea that she might be able to tug on a rope tied between two jars and pull more than one jar at a time, but- they were just too heavy. Still. 

She left the rope wrapped around each jar, and tucked small things into the snug space between the jars and the rope. Knives, chopsticks, fabric. Over her shoulders she tied a large, water-proof tarp of stretched and sewn leather. 

Reiko paused at the edge of the clearing. She turned her head to the left, and then the right, where she knew the footpath would lead to other villages. A priest had passed through less than a month ago. Perhaps if he’d stayed, he would have been able to pray away whatever curse had fallen on them. 

There was nothing that she wanted more than to be with another living person again. She was so, so tired of chasing carrion birds away from her family and friends. She was young, strong, and at least relatively useful. Surely she could find a place to belong in the world, if she sought out other people. Either pathway would lead to help. 

She dragged one of her jars of precious, life-saving rice into the forest ahead. 

Whatever fate would come, Reiko knew, was hers alone. Perhaps she had only been spared so that she might carry this devilry to a new population that it might eat alive. She could not go to other people. 

It was slow and terrible work. She fell into a pattern of pulling a jar for a time, following the unsteady line back to where the other two jars waited, and then painstakingly putting all three in the new location before she rested. In this way, she made three trips into the forest before she had to rest for the night. 

She set up her protective leather tarp by tying it between two trees and rested on the part that covered the ground. She drank the last of the water that she had, and then she slept. 

In the morning, she followed the lines of her travels back to the village of the dead. She did not look at any movement she saw at the center of the village where she should have buried the dead, though she knew the sky was black with birds. 

She filled her water pouch from the well. She felt hyperaware that it would only last her another day.  Reiko knew that she would not return. She mechanically went through the village to open paddocks, releasing the pigs and chickens that were no longer needed. She caught three hens and a rooster and, over their indignant squawks and struggles, tied their feet to a stick that she balanced over her shoulder, two birds to each side. 

The dog that had watched her leave yesterday perked up, and followed her with a wagging tail. 

She let the rest of the chickens go free. The dog, undoubtedly hungry, caught one bird and killed it. Choro looked at her guiltily, but it didn’t stop him from immediately beginning to tear into the still-warm body. She considered scolding the dog out of habit, but there was no point. 

She walked away, trying not to hear the endless complaints of the birds over her shoulders or the sound of cracking bones behind her. It was perhaps midday by the time she returned to her temporary camp in the woods.  That meant, she knew, that tomorrow she would be too far to walk back to the village to retrieve more water from the well. If she did not find water today… 

Reiko swallowed. She pressed on, but this time she only dragged one jar, eager to cover as much ground as possible. The rice would not help her survive the winter if she died of thirst.  She did not find any water before the sun set and forced her to make camp. She painstakingly fed the chickens by hand, set up her skins, and wondered if she was going to die. 

She ate some of the dried food that she had brought. When she woke up, the dog was sleeping at her feet. Reiko abandoned the rice and traveled with only the pack on her back and the chickens over her shoulders. She finished the final mouthfuls of water and tried not to trip when the dog danced around her legs. 

It was, she noted, a remarkably undignified death march. Her perverse amusement at dying to the symphony of angry chickens distracted her for a time- distracted her so thoroughly that she didn’t realize the trees were thinning. She did notice movement overhead. Monkeys in the trees. 

Reiko blinked and shrunk away, feeling fearful. Feeling the dog’s warm ruff under her fingers helped calm her, as did the fact that the animals overhead paid her no mind. These particular animals didn’t seem to be aggressive. Or perhaps they hadn’t met enough humans to consider her a threat. 

…They were a good sign, though. If monkeys were living here, that meant there was food. Berries, and fruit in trees. She hurried on, glad to see no more monkeys overhead after a short time of walking, but even gladder to see flashes of orange overhead. 

Reiko anxiously looked all around, but the monkeys appeared to be in another area. She picked a tree that looked more plausible and climbed, scraping her skin red and raw to shake down the mikan. They were small and hard, which she knew meant that they would be sour.  That was fine. She tore open the skin with her fingernails, savored the scent, and then devoured the fruit. She ate 4 before she felt content. It satisfied the burn in her dry mouth and the hunger in her stomach. If the fruit were sour, that meant that they were wild, and had not been regularly harvested. 

Reiko looked up at the trees in consideration. If she plucked these fruits, the next year’s harvest would be bigger and sweeter. And the trees would be producing fruit for at least another half-moon.

…She still felt a little afraid, but clearly the monkeys weren’t protective of this food source. So she took down every ripe fruit that she could reach from three trees. Feeling cheerful, she threw fruit for the dog to chase and put the rest in her knotted fabric. It was the happiest that she’d seen Choro since Manako and Hirofumi had died on the sixth day. 

Over the sound of her harsh breathing and the blood beating in her ears, it was hard to hear. That might have been why it took her too long to recognize the low call of a bullfrog and realize what it meant. 

Reiko sat down in the grass and cried, so relieved. When she was done, she tremblingly stood up and followed the sound. She found water- it was wide and slow, but it was moving water under the shadow of a mountain. If she could find where it trickled down from the mountain, that would surely be safe to drink. 

She should have been using the fading light to make a camp, but she stood and contemplated the view for a time. She could see fish moving below the water- and so could Choro. He splashed in with a cheerful bark and came out with a fat fish in his mouth. She envied him, for a moment- and then the dog trotted over to her and made eye contact. His tail wagged wildly. Oh. 

Slowly, dimly, Reiko remembered that Hirofumi had often taken the dog fishing. She had barely noted it, but attributed it to company, not assistance. She had not thought to bring fishhooks or weighted nets. That had been a foolish oversight, but she had been thinking of survival in the terms of the most familiar tasks.  

She put a hand on Choro’s warm, curved head. She gave him a little bow. “Thank you,” she said. And then she took the struggling fish from his mouth. The dog dashed away that instant, wildly happy at his success, and flung himself back into the river. Well. 

Reiko tossed the fish onto the grass and began hastily setting up a camp. This time, she dug a little hole and scavenged for dry twigs to fill it with. Once she had a fire, she took the knife from her pack and cut the entrails out of the fish. She speared the rest on a stick, and set it to lean over the fire.  

She wanted to drink her fill from the river, but she restrained herself. It could be contaminated with anything, from dead flesh to a demon. Reiko judged it to be at least clean enough to wash her body in, which she did with relief as the fish cooked. She shivered in the autumn air even after she put her clothes back on, but it was worthwhile. 

She parched her throat with another sour fruit. She tied the chickens in such a way that they had a length of rope connecting them to the stick, but with enough slack that they could move about and forage for themselves. And then she slept like the dead. 

In the light of morning, she left the chickens behind and hoped that no fox came and ate them while she was away. 

She retraced her steps and was aghast to see that her path was already being obscured by the forest. She had planned to retrieve only the closest jar of rice and return for the more distant two later, but if she waited, she was afraid that she would lose the way and never find the food again. So she brought those two to the location of her closest rice, and then had to run back to the lake and her camp before the sun set.  

“Tomorrow,” she told Choro, “I will be able to bring all three jars to this place.” She stared out over the lake. Fish, fruit. She could make a better shelter in this place, and live here for a time. But she needed to begin preserving food, or she would starve in the winter. Perhaps she had a moon, or a moon and a half, before the fruit was gone and the cold truly set in. 

Reiko made certain to stroke and praise the dog, aware that he had a skill that she did not. Choro preened and contorted under her ministrations, apparently forgiving or forgetting her previous indifference to him. She woke in the night to the sound of barking and distressed shrieking from the chickens. 

Choro was no longer at her feet. She sat up and waited, heart pounding. She stared out into the darkness. There was no chance to see whatever was out there.  She should have made enough fire to last the night. Fear shook her body. 

She couldn’t see anything. 

There was a soft whuff nearby. 

She was frozen in terror until she realized that it was her dog. She hugged him, eagerly latching onto the only friend she could claim in the world. There was no more sleeping. 

When there was enough light, she investigated. It took a while to find something. When she did, she rather wished that she hadn’t. There were prints, in the dirt. 

Some belonged to at least one fox that had clearly crept dangerously near her birds. But there was a single human print not 3 three meters from where she had slept. Reiko lined her own foot up next to it, half-hoping for a match. No. Whoever had left this was much bigger than she was. Her eyes wandered to her dog, who was now napping in the weak morning sunshine. 

“Whoever that was,” Reiko said. She cleared her throat. “Man or demon, you frightened it away.” The dog didn’t stir.  He had deserved his rest. Reiko went to see if the hens had laid any eggs. 

There was one. 

She stared hopelessly at it. “Perhaps once we have settled and they feel safe, they will lay more,” she said. She left it be, hoping that the chickens would lay more eggs as she worked. She took the last of the dried fish and left it for the loyal dog. And then she dragged a pot of rice to her new camp. If she could help it, she wouldn’t sleep there again, so she turned her sight to the mountain and wondered how habitable it might be. 

She found a deer’s path and began walking up. It was cool, and the air was thick with the scent of pine. The first ten minutes of walking was hard, but after that it was less steep and the path opened up in graceful curves.  

After some time, the path widened. Off to the right there was a terrace that overlooked the mountainside. In the center, there was a stone shaped like a short pillar. This place had been inhabited, she realized. The pillar was the height of her waist, and had a short basin carved into its top. When she peered inside, she could see leaves on the water. She dragged them out with her fingers and continued on. 

She was not altogether surprised to find two human-made structures. They were clearly abandoned. There were gaps in the wood through which she could see hay inside the house. The other building was small- a storage shed, she thought. She pulled open the door and found an assortment of stone tools. 

Her eyebrows raised. Stone, not iron? That was old-fashioned. There was also a broom, which she took note of before she propped the door open to air it out. The dog had followed her now, and was laying in the sun. Reiko felt better for his supervision. 

She ventured into the house- and immediately a tanuki shrieked and ran at her from his bed of straw. She stumbled back, but it followed her out of the building. Choro leapt on the tanuki. His teeth closed around the beasts’ neck and he gave several shakes of his head. On the final shake, he let the body fly. It landed with a soft whump on the ground. The dog trotted back into the house to investigate. She could hear his nose sniffing around. 

She put her hand on her chest, trying to calm her heart.  The dog emerged. Choro gave her a put-upon look, as though he suspected she was deliberately getting into trouble. 

“Good dog,” she told him fervently. She knelt to stroke the cream colored fur at his ruff, and slid her hand over the white fur of his belly. “You are the best companion I could have. Good, good dog.” 

He bore her attentions for a time, lazily pleased, but then Choro shook her off to go investigate the tanuki that he had killed. He gave an indignant bark. She turned to see a large white bird hastily departing the clearing. 

Reiko laughed. “Your skills are in high demand, bodyguard,” she told the dog. And then, armed with the broom, she set upon the house. 

Whoever had lived there had not died there- they had left, with most of their belongings. There was nothing of value there, aside from a pot that must have been too heavy to carry. But the wooden floor and ceiling would keep her dry, and the firepit would keep her warm once she filled and lit it. At least, it would after she had patched the holes in the front of the house that let in light. Oh, she realized. That was what should be stored in the hut next door. She would need quite a bit of firewood. Especially once the snow began to come down, and it would be difficult and dangerous to go out for more. 

Reiko began mentally cataloguing what she would need to do to survive in this place. She would put the chickens into the storage hut, temporarily at least. As long as whoever was around did not steal from her, she could easily live out the winter on rice alone. And she had a wealth of sour fruit for the next month or so. 

She would be far healthier and happier, though, if she dried fruits and fish in the sun. Perhaps she could find herbs and wild vegetables in the forest. If she did- well, she would transplant them to the area near her little house when spring came, she decided. 

She didn’t want to go back down into the clearing by the lake just yet, so she swept out the house and scavenged for dry wood to fill the firepit. She gave the heavy pot a despairing look, but it was her only option for bringing up water to boil clean. 

“Choro-Choro,” she said absently. “Surely there is a closer source of water. Who ever made a home here didn’t intend to carry all their water up a mountain.”  

The dog had no wisdom to offer. But he kept her company as she ventured a little further up the path in hopes of finding the mountain stream. There was no luck, so she turned around before she had gone too far. 

She investigated around the back of the house and the storage hut, which overlooked a sharp bluff on the mountainside. She even peered in the bushes. There was no better option to be found. 

…”I’m going to become very strong,” Reiko said. She hefted the pot, which was unwieldy, and headed down the mountain path. She took a rest and walked along the mountain’s face for a while, which turned out to have been a good idea. It revealed the mountain spring, trickling down over rocks. 

Reiko drank gratefully. Then she washed her pot, and filled it halfway. It didn’t seem so heavy now, but she knew that would change as she carried it up a mountain. 

Grimly, she set to her task. The daylight was more than half-gone, after all. She was dizzy and weak by the time that she managed it, but it was success. It was enough water for her to drink over several days- which would supplement what she could drink if she ventured below. She emptied her cloth of supplies in the center of the little house, including all the mikan she’d tucked inside. 

…Imagine what mother would say if she saw this mess. 

It was better not to. 

Reiko tripped back down the path with her empty cloth, and poured out a decent amount of rice into the fabric. She tied it tightly shut before resealing the jar. She was rather proud of herself for the idea- she would never be able to get the jars up the mountain. Or if she did, it would take days for each jar. 

In this way, she could cook rice tonight, when she was inside after the sun had set. With dinner in mind, she collected several straight sticks, with the idea of sharpening them and spearing fish on them. “If you’ll be so helpful, of course,” she told Choro. The dog was intently smelling something against a well-scratched tree. 

That night, with the fire crackling and two fish slowly cooking, Reiko pulled her knees up to her chest and wondered what her parents would think about her choice to run away to live on a mountain. 

They hadn’t given her any advice, of course. The curse had taken the healthy adults first, then the children, and then the elderly. Her parents hadn’t been able to see the scope of the problem before they were dead. Her father’s mother, however, had told her to leave her behind and go to the village to the west. Reiko was loathe to disobey her elders, but she wouldn’t be the one to bring this curse to another town. 

“Or maybe,” she said to the fire. “Maybe the same thing has befallen them.” She stretched her hand out and carefully pushed a stick into the heat of the fire. “Maybe the world ended.” 

…That seemed too bleak to be true. But considering that her world had ended, it was hard to feel horror at the thought. 

Choro sat up. 

Reiko froze at the movement, watching the dog who had proven to be more perceptive than she was. 

He stared at the door. 

She licked her lips. After a moment, she followed his gaze.  The door shuddered, ever so slightly. As if someone had put their hand on it from the other side. She couldn’t breathe. Her body was shaking. 

It seemed impossible. How could there be another human around here? This place was clearly abandoned, and she’d seen no signs of anyone living nearby. Surely her village would have known about a settlement only a few days’ walk away! And even if someone was living on the mountainside, how would they have known about her? Why would they come to her in the night? 

‘It’s a ghost’, Reiko thought wildly. ‘The person who used to live here. Or it’s the demon who drove them away.’ 

Or, horribly, maybe it was another human. Maybe it was a man who had seen a young girl on her own. And who was now approaching her in the night, with just enough noise that a sleeping person wouldn’t notice. Perhaps they were testing to see if she was awake. The door shuddered again. 

The light from the fire could be seen through the wooden slats, Reiko realized. Whoever it was definitely knew that she was in there. “Go away!” she shouted. She was momentarily surprised by her own voice. “I don’t welcome you. And I have a curse.” There was a scrape- the sound, she realized, of someone withdrawing their foot from the stone step outside the door. 

And then silence. 

Choro was still staring with pricked ears. She put her hand on his head, looking to thank him and reassure herself. She did not sleep that night.

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This is the first part of my interpretation of a local Japanese myth that I probably do not understand very well. The actual story itself is very short, attached to a certain mountain near where I live. If anyone is interested, I will provide photos later, although there's obvious human influence now that Reiko wouldn't be seeing. The geography and flora and fauna as described is a match for that area, the curse is a flu similar to the Spanish flu which really did kill entire populations, and the culture as described is based off the Jomon people, at the end of that period when they were transitioning from a hunter-gatherer culture to an agricultural society. A lot of things are undoubtedly far too modern Japanese culture and language, but I'm using what I know. 

Reiko's name, for example, might be too modern. It's written 礼子. Obviously, the nuance doesn't quite translate but it means 'respectful child', or something close to it, like 'thankful child', 'polite child'. "ko" literally means child, but it is a common ending for female names, somewhat similar to the diminutive "y/i" sound ending for some Western names. 

I've only met Japanese women over the age of 60 with that name, so maybe it is going out of style. But there's no evidence as far as I know that it would have been in use anytime remotely close to the time period I've placed this. It is pronounced like 'ray' (as in ray of light) and the 'ko' sounds like the beginning of 'cold'.