GOTO HIDEKADO

I

 

It was the myth that told the truth: the real story was already only a falsification.

(Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos And History, 1954.)

 

 

Incidents in 2019. At the time, I was the manager of an alternative exhibition space called "Mito no Kiwamari-so". I had been doing this for so long that I decided it was time to step down and planned my last solo exhibition, called "Chance resemblances between Mountains". It was to be a mixture of the history of Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, the war, the earthquake, the activities of people close to me, and personal events, without distinction. I did not have an idea yet, but I thought that if I were to include "history" in this Mito location, I could not leave out the name of Seishisai Aizawa (1), and without much knowledge, I included his name in the exhibition flyer that I was roughly making. The next day, I received a call from my brother, whom I did not see very often. He told me that our parents’ cat had died. It was still a young cat. And on the following day, my partner, M, was badly injured by skateboarding and severely fractured the tibia bone in her right leg. ...Could it be that I got a "bachi (divine punishment)" for trying to treat Seishisai Aizawa carelessly here in Mito? No, no, no, there is no way that could be...it is all just a coincidence. True random numbers are biased and go against people's naive senses. It is a bad human habit to find some intention, meaning, or story in chance events....

 

......, I hurriedly looked up the location of Sir. Seishisai Aizawa 's grave. It turned out that his grave was in the same cemetery as my maternal ancestors, not far from where I live, and right behind my family grave. I remembered that there had always been a signboard at the entrance of the cemetery that read "Grave of Seishisai Aizawa," and that I had seen it every time I visited the grave as a child. The next day, I delivered the necessary items to M following her instructions, who was being carried to the hospital. She had a yellow-green face, but seemed to have calmed down for the time being. M said that she was afraid of that her wishes she just said did come true recently. The other day, she had told her friend that it was interesting to get hurt, and on that day, before leaving home, in front of her altar (a shelf with her favorite things, her father's belongings, things given to her by friends, etc.), she said that something interesting would happen today. So, I got hurt, she said. And, she also said that “I was going to be “Sujigane iri no (a hardcore)” skater”, so that she happened to implant a metal rod to her leg bone, as “Sujigane iri” literally means “metals inside the muscle”. She laughed to say that my god was not good at Japanese and that maybe he didn't know the difference. M was finding cause and effect from a completely different perspective than I was. I couldn't help but laugh, too, at the idea of a god who didn't understand the metaphor of "Sujigane iri." The god M was referring to was a Native American God that she had been unusually interested in her childhood for some reason. She often said that "the past and the future are in the same bag," and I told her that there is no word for past and future in the language of the Hopi tribe of Native Americans, which made her very happy. Later that day, I visited the grave of Sir. Seishisai Aizawa. It was large, unlike most, and looked like a monument. It was surrounded and supported by iron pipes for construction. When I looked at it closely, I found that it was cracked from the base, and there were signs that it must have fallen over at least once. It was probably caused by the recent earthquake. By the way, Toko Fujita, a Confucian scholar who founded the Mito school of thought along with Seishisai, was killed by the Ansei earthquake in Edo, pinned under a house. Nariaki Tokugawa, the lord of the Mito domain, believed that the earthquake was caused by the sorcery of Western powers.

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Ⅱ

 

"It was like crawling through a dark, dark tunnel for 30 years." At present as of 2023, Ms. M is a woman in her late 60s. She spent a very long time rebuilding a small temple that once existed in a certain place in Ibaraki prefecture, all by herself. (2) Ms. M was a former nurse. She had no previous connection to this area and came here as a bride, and until then had simply fulfilled her duties as a wife, mother, and nurse. However, one early morning 30 years ago, Ms. M heard a mysterious voice that changed her destiny. It was a low, commanding voice that said, "Gondaisozuhouin..." twice. After that, as a result of her own investigation based on stories from her husband's great-grandfather and the repeated mysterious "oshirushi" it became clear that the house had been a Jinguji (a combination of a shrine and a Buddhist temple) that had existed from the Muromachi period (1333-1573) until 1842. As Ms. M feels the mission to rebuild this temple, she moved her house and prepared the vacant land. Her husband, who did not believe in supernatural things, oddly did not object. For the next 30 years, she was subjected to various obstructions and rumors from her neighbors, but she never gave up and continued to make offerings to her ancestors and to the Gods and Buddhas alone. Finally, at around 18:00 on February 27, 2016, a white mist-like light appeared from her hand as she was going out in her car. It must have been some kind of cosmic power to repay her for her 30 years of making offerings to the Gods and Buddha, Ms. M says. Through her mysterious power, some people who had been unable to walk because of knee pain were able to walk on the place, while others had blood clots in their brains disappear. Owing to her activities over the past eight years, many people have recovered from serious illnesses with the help of Ms. M.

She is very cheerful and upbeat. It’s fun to hear her says that her hands and the affected area become like "warm and sticky like a soft sweet potato (satsuma)" when she is treating them. Every evening, her waist becomes "as warm as a fluffy satsuma" and she is replenished with power from the universe. She also does not take a fixed amount of money, and her neighbors sometimes bring her vegetables instead of money. Ms. M has only followed mysterious dreams and signs, and has continued her offerings and quest, and is not a qualified monk. One woman who recognized her power and became her first patient was also psychic, and Ms. M learned many things from this woman. This woman dreamed one night that many people lined up to visit this temple. Ms. M believes that this dream will one day come true. The aim is not profit or prestige, but rather she anticipates that in the near future there will be a rapid increase in the number of people suffering from mysterious diseases that cannot be cured by modern medicine, and hopes to save them. She has accepted this fate and continues her groping practice, worrying and thinking daily about the relationship between the human mind and illness.

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Ⅲ

 

My father was a design engineer for a video equipment company. He had been interested in dismantling and repairing machines since he was a child, and during the Korean War, he had a part-time job repairing radio equipment sold by the U.S. military and selling it to the Korean army. At the company where he later worked, he was involved in designing not only video equipment but also various other genres. He once designed the internal mechanism of a photocopier, a negative ion generator, and so on. My father was born in 1937, the same year that the National Mobilization Law came into effect. He was a thorough modern scientist, critical of all religions, occultism, and pseudoscience. After retiring 25 years ago and spending most of his time at home, my father used his yard as a workshop to build various things. He built a record player, a bathroom cabinet, bicycle and radio repairs, and a small garden in the yard and so forth. Most of the things he made were mundane and utilitarian, but this slingshot made of aluminum and wood was a little unique among them. Perhaps he wanted to update something he used to make for fun as a child with his current technology. It is quite elaborate, with a mechanism that allows the tension of the rubber to be adjusted at the serrated part of the framework, thereby changing the power of the slingshot. Sometimes he used it to wander around the yard to scare away stray cats and crows, which he hated. My father boasted, "If I use the maximum power and heavy enough bullets, I could probably kill a cat”. Of course, he didn't really kill them. He used only light bullets, such as pebbles and acorns.

I was thinking to receive this slingshot if my father passed away, but one day he gave it to me by himself, saying he would not use it anymore. My father has now developed a mild cognitive impairment and can no longer retain short term memories. He no longer wanders around the yard or builds or repairs anything. He now spends most of his time sleeping and eating with his cat.

Some time ago, I went to my parents' house to see my father. We had a rather friendly conversation and shared a meal together, but according to my brother who lives with him, he forgot about it a few hours after I left. When I heard this, I felt as if myself who went to see my father disappeared getting like a little ghost, or more simply put, I felt that there was no point in going to see him anew, and I have not seen him since then until now.

My father was always a difficult man and never expressed his emotions in a very loud way except for anger. He was what is called a "stubborn father," often getting angry when younger people used words he had never used before, and for some reason disliked the word "cute". When my mother passed away a few years ago, he was angry and upset about everything, but it’s only for the situation of her death and the complicated procedures and he never showed any signs of regret over the forever farewell to his partner. My father never knew any other woman than my mother. After the funeral, when things had settled down a bit, my father suddenly picked up a small lacquered container (was it a toothpick holder?) from a shelf in the living room, where my mother used to put seasonal decorations, and showed it to me. He told me that he had put half of my mother's ashes in this container and a small bell in it. My father held the container close to my ear and said, "Shake it like this and it makes a sound. Isn’t it nice.” I said, "Oh, that's cute". He laughed a little. The last time I saw and asked him, he no longer remembered that he had been hospitalized for prostate treatment when my mother was still alive. So, it wasn't just his short-term memory that he was losing.

I wonder if he still remembers that little container and the bell he put inside. I will ask him next time I see him.

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Ⅳ

 

The fibula was reinforced with a metal plate, the top of the knee was cut open, and a metal rod was inserted into the center of the tibia. M, now "SUJIGANE - IRI," was unable to sleep through the night due to postoperative pain, and the next morning she called a nurse because she couldn’t stand for it. The nurse, unable to bear the sight of M's suffering, decided to use the drug, saying "It's a strong drug and I don't like to use it too much”. When the drug entered M's vein through an IV, her vision instantly became square, small, and distant, "like when you put on VR goggles," as she put it. For a brief moment, M was looking straight up at a nearly 2m high shelf standing next to her bed. She studied the top of the shelf closely. The next thing she knew, this time M was standing in the gap between this shelf and the wall behind it. The gap was about 1cm. Again, she observed the back of the shelf, which she had never seen before. To get this perspective, one would have to be inside the wall, or one's body would have to be less than 1cm thick. Amazed at how impossible it was, and the next moment, she was looking at herself lying in bed, this time from the air. She was not sure what on earth was happening, but the pain in her leg was gone and she felt an irresistible sense of freedom. When she looked out the window of hospital room, under a bright blue sky, a beautiful mountain could be seen beyond the city of Mito. It was Mount Tsukuba. Ah, it would feel so good to get out of the room, M thought. But at the same time, she was afraid that once she got out, she would never be able to go back in. Soon she became aware of the vibration of the machine attached to her leg, and as the sensation grew louder and louder, she found herself lying on the bed with her broken leg.

It could have been only a matter of minutes, or tens of seconds, or all of it just a fraction of a second. The pain in her leg seemed so far away. M fell asleep. That was the only time she was given "strong painkillers," so she spent the next few weeks dealing with the pain of her wounds for the rest of her life. When she could barely sleep, she dreamed of a glowing, white, symmetrical face with no scars or distortions, and a silent image of herself. During these days of seemingly endless pain, M wrote letters to her God, whose Japanese was not good enough in English (as she did not know the Native American language) to tell him that injuries, accidents, and death were not interesting things. She also needed rehabilitation. M thought that if she had suffered a similar injury 150, 200, or so years ago, she would never have been able to walk again, or worse, she might have died from an infection.

After about three months, she took up skateboarding again.

 

Pas Pavan Powa

Puuwi Puuya-

Qeni Qalalni

Pötskwana

Naat ...Ngyaw!

 

 

"by no great step to belief in bewitchings, and magic charms and mirrors, and other fantastic, superstitious nonsense from an age of ignorance that is out of date now.' "'Oh, no, my incredulous friend,' interrupted the medical student. 'No times can become out of date, and still less has there ever been an age of ignorance, unless you admit signorant every age in which men have ventured to think.

(Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, The Deserted House, 1817.)