I WISH YOU A BETTER EXISTENCE NEXT TIME

I WISH YOU A BETTER EXISTENCE NEXT TIME

Arachnophobia (or arachnephobia) is a specific phobia, the fear of spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions. People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they believe could harbor spiders or that has visible signs of their presence, such as webs. If arachnophobics see a spider, they may not enter the general vicinity until they have overcome the panic attack that is often associated with their phobia. Some people scream, cry, have emotional outbursts, experience trouble breathing, sweat, or even have heart palpitations when they come in contact with an area near spiders or their webs. In some extreme cases, even a picture or a realistic drawing of a spider can trigger intense fear. My name is Hayato Tokugawa and I am arachnophoic.

No, no — I don’t scream or cry or have emotional outbursts, but I get very nervous or uneasy. I had it pretty much under control. Just the other day, there was a small spider scurrying around the kitchen — I suppose looking for crumbs from the previous night’s pizza. “Ok, I was going to pour myself a cup of coffee, but I’ll come back in a few minutes when she’s done.”

They used to say that phobias were “unreasonable fears” but I think in the case of spiders they are quite reasonable indeed. I grew up in Mill Valley, California, a heavily-wooded area, and we had our shares of spiders, and from time to time I had to deal with dangerous recluse spiders. Although there were probably black widow spiders, I don’t recall ever seeing any. Growing up I did have a couple of “pretty good” spider bites” from unknown species but, hey…I was a tough kid! Nonetheless, I didn’t like them and felt uneasy around them, something that was partially relieved by taking Entomology 101 (which included arachnology) at the university. The end result was a certain “clinical” curiosity if encountered but otherwise spiders were to be avoided. Ok…they “creep me out!”

Over the years there really hadn’t been much of a problem as I did tend to avoid them and there always seemed to be a brave cat around to take care of the problem…until last week. Either the spider would run off when the cat’s play was too much or the cat made it disappear, doing whatever cats do to spiders. (I know, I just don’t want to think about it!) That having been said, it was early morning — a warm, peaceful morning — when I stepped outside, coffee cup in hand to breathe in the fresh pre-dawn air and to enjoy the sound of birds just waking up and saluting the day in song. Out the door and over to the gate. There in front of me, suspended in her web at the corner of the gate and the fence, was a large (not unreasonably, neurotically gigantic, but mature-large) black spider, her belly turned outward clearly showing her red “hourglass”, her arms and legs outstretched, waiting for something edible to come by and get caught up in her net. Well, I felt a bit uneasy — nervous but not terribly afraid — and rational enough to go back to the house, get my camera, and take a photo of her…which came out pretty well despite a certain amount of hand tremors. Admittedly I thought about killing her, but only briefly. Despite my uneasiness, she wasn’t hurting anything, she was doing what she does in nature; but more than that, I am a Buddhist and thus really reluctant to kill anything. I’ll even step over bugs just so as not to hurt them.

The next morning she was there again in her web, striking the same pose. She was fascinating and at the same time terrible. Yet, every time I walked by or through that gate, even in the daytime, I felt very uneasy and looked for her. The following morning she was not visible. The wind had come up and it was considerably colder so I decided that she had probably taken shelter. Fine! Good! (For me!) I thought a lot about whether I should “terminate” her “with extreme prejudice). I even consulted a scientist I know, an expert on animal emotions. “Are spiders sentient? I asked.

“Probably not,” was the reply. “Spiders, while they may have swollen bellies, lack the neural apparatus necessary for the evolution of emotions…so probably no. Then again, who knows?” I took that as a “no.”

I resolved that as long as there was no threat, the black widow could stay, with the hope that she would eventually move on. And she seemed to do that. I felt a slight uncertainty but was generally relieved when I didn’t see her for two more nights. Then…the weather turned warm again and there was no wind. I stepped out the door, coffee in hand about 5 am and walked out through the garden gate — no spider — I thought.

Suddenly I was aware of something behind me. Dropping down from the crossbeam — it was her in all her black splendor! She just missed me by inches! I turned and backed away as she lowered herself to the ground and then followed after me, in my footsteps. Maybe it was the warmth from my feet that she was following — warm prey — I don’t know. Then she stopped suddenly, returned to her silken thread, and climbed back up — suspended in the middle of the open gateway about a foot off the ground. It was warm but I felt chills as though it was mid-winter and very nervous. She watched me.

Crap! My way was blocked! The front door was locked. There was no way back except past her and that wasn’t going to happen. I waited. I looked at her, my hands shaking — she looked at me — waiting. This just wasn’t going to work. I really tried but my inner peace was coming apart, and I wanted to go home! With an “I’m really sorry,” I raised my foot (yes I was wearing shoes) and quickly brought it down on her, with the thought “I wish you a better existence next time.”

She lay on the pavement, curled up — dead. Shuddering and probably making some kind of primal sound of fear and disgust, I went back into the house. I was rattled. I hate killing anything but it really had come down to her or me. We had been at an impasse and I had to do something.

Later in the day, I swept her off into the grass, perhaps food for the ants. Just having her there, in the way though dead, I still felt uneasy walking through the gate. I’m still watchful going in or out of that gate. Could there be another?

© Copyright 2017 by Hayato Tokugawa. All rights reserved.

BLACK WIDOW

BLACK WIDOW

at my garden gate

a reasonable fear

widow of death waits

hoping for supper

her orphaned children are hungry

widow of death waits

a warm spring morning

she offers a deadly hug

shivers down my spine

I CANNOT SLEEP

I CANNOT SLEEP

I cannot sleep. The time was 2 am and I am wide awake. Saito the cat is delighted — an extra, early breakfast and unexpected play time. “I might as well work,” I think and move to the kitchen to brew the coffee. While waiting, I step out the front door to breathe the morning air.

It is quiet with not even a sound from the distant railroad — not even a cricket. The street is dark and empty and nothing moves. No wait! Two figures, dressed in completely in black, with black hoods pulled over their heads, pass by on the opposite sidewalk. “Death and his intern on an errand?” I wondered. Perhaps not, but creatures of the night nonetheless. In front of me, a cricket makes his way across the sidewalk to a patch of green grass now gray in the early gloom. I smile. Another creature of the night but one I do not dread.

I return to the kitchen where a spider scurries about the counter, perhaps looking for crumbs from last night’s pizza. I decide to leave the kitchen to her for a while and come back for the coffee later. Musings of Lafcadio Hearn await on my computer.

A FINE MADNESS

A FINE MADNESS

     The singer-songwriter Conor Oberst once said, "There's a very fine line between one person's reality and another person's fantasy." Oscar Levant once said, "“There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.” And Poe remarked, "“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” All of these words came to mind this morning when I woke up to find "Motoko" the little kokeshi doll I had given to tiny Cloe Nekojin in one of my cartoons, staring at me from behind the corner of the nightstand next to my futon, as I awoke. I have no recollection of putting her there in that position (or any position), although I certainly could have done so the other day while dusting. I just don't remember. Yet, as I opened my eyes and saw Cloe's toy, watching me, I felt a bit unnerved. Did I put it there? Or was Motoko there on some other account? I know Motoko is real, and I'm reasonably certain Cloe is a product of my imagination (where sometimes, especially late at night she seems almost too real) and my pen...but still...I had to wonder as I staggered off to the kitchen for coffee...scratching my head.

HŌRAI

Blue vision of depth lost in height — sea and sky intermixing through luminous haze. The day is of spring, and the hour morning.

Only sky and sea — one azure enormity. In the foreground, ripples are catching a silvery light, and threads of foam are swirling. But a little further off no motion is visible, nor anything except color: dim warm blue water widening away to melt into blue air. Horizon, there is none: only distance soaring into space — infinite concavity hollowing before you, and hugely arching above you — the color deepening with the height. But far in the midway blue, there hangs a faint, faint vision of palace towers, with high roofs horned and curved like moons — some shadowing of splendor strange and old, illumined by a sunshine soft as memory.

What I have thus been trying to describe is a kakémono,⁵¹ that is to say, a Japanese painting on silk, suspended on the wall of my alcove and the name of it is “Shinkirō,” which means “mirage.” But the shapes of the mirage are unmistakable. Those are the glimmering portals of Hōrai the Blest;⁵² and those are the moony roofs of the palace of the Dragon King; and their style (though drawn by a Japanese brush of today) is the style of things Chinese, twenty-one hundred years ago. Thus, much is told of the place in the Chinese books of that time.

In Hōrai there is neither death nor pain; and there is no winter. The flowers in that place never fade, and the fruits never fail; and if a man tastes those fruits even once, he can never again feel thirst or hunger. In Hōrai grow the enchanted plants So-rin-shi, Riku-gō-aoi, and Ban-kon-tō, which heal all manner of sickness — and there also grows the magical grass, Yo-shin-shi, that revives the dead; and the magical grass is watered by a fairy water of which a single drink confers perpetual youth. The people of Hōrai eat their rice out of very, very small bowls; but the rice never diminishes within those bowls — however much of it be eaten — until the eater desires no more. And the people of Hōrai drink their wine out of very, very small cups; but no man can empty one of those cups — however stoutly he may drink — until the pleasant drowsiness of intoxication comes upon him.

All this and more is told in the legends of the time of the Shin dynasty; although, that the people who wrote down those legends ever saw Hōrai, even in a mirage, is not believable. For really, there are no enchanted fruits that leave the eater forever satisfied — nor any magical grass that revives the dead — nor any fountain of fairy water — nor any bowls that never lack rice, — nor any cups that never lack wine. It is not true that sorrow and death never enter Hōrai — neither is it true that there is not any winter. The winter in Hōrai is cold — the winds bite to the bone, and the heaping of snow on the roofs of the Dragon-King is monstrous.

Nevertheless, there are wonderful things in Hōrai; and the most wonderful of all has not been mentioned by any Chinese writer. I mean the atmosphere of Hōrai. It is an atmosphere unique to the place, and because of it, the sunshine in Hōrai is whiter than any other sunshine — a milky light that never dazzles — astonishingly clear, but very soft. This atmosphere is not of our human era: it is enormously old — so old that I feel afraid when I try to think how old it is — and it is not a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. It is not made of air at all — but of ghost — the substance of quintillions of quintillions of gener- ations of souls, blended into one immense translucency — souls of people who thought in ways never resembling our ways. If a mortal man inhales that atmosphere, he takes the thrilling of these spirits into his blood; and they change the sense within him — reshaping his notions of space and time — so that he can see only as they used to see, and feel only as they used to feel, and think only as they used to think. Soft as sleep are these changes of sense; and Hōrai, discerned across them, might thus be described:

Because in Hōrai there is no knowledge of great evil, the hearts of the people never grow old. And, by reason of being always young in heart, the people of Hōrai smile from birth until death — except when the Gods send sorrow among them; and faces are then veiled until the sorrow goes away. All folk in Hōrai love and trust each other, as if all were members of a single household — and the speech of the women is like birds singing, because their hearts are as light as the souls of birds — and the swaying of the sleeves of the maidens at play seems like the fluttering of wide, soft wings. In Hōrai nothing is hidden but grief, because there is no reason for shame — and nothing is locked away, because there could not be any theft — and by night as well as by day all doors remain unbarred, because there is no reason for fear. And because the people are fairies — though mortal — all things in Hōrai, except the palace of the Dragon King, are small and quaint and strange — and these fairy-folk really do eat their rice out of very, very small bowls, and drink their wine out of very, very small cups.

Much of this seeming would be due to the inhalation of that ghostly atmosphere — but not all. For the spell wrought by the dead is only the charm of an ideal, the glamour of an ancient hope; and something of that hope has found fulfillment in many hearts — in the simple beauty of unselfish lives — in the sweetness of women.

Evil winds from the West are blowing over Hōrai; and the magical atmosphere, alas, is shrinking away before them. It lingers now only in patches and bands — like those long bright bands of clouds that trail across the landscapes of Japanese painters. Under these shreds of the elfish vapor you still can find Hōrai — but not everywhere. Remember that Hōrai is also called “Shinkirō,” which means mirage — the Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading — never again to appear except in pictures and poems and dreams. 

(From The Annotated Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn, Edited and Illustrated by Hayato Tokugawa, Copyright 2017 by Hayato Tokugawa and Shisei-Do Publications.)