When I left the house, Grandpa looked up and posed the same as before, hand raised high in the air. “Tomiko asked me to run this down to the store. I’ll be back later.” Still no answer. I had no idea what volume to use when talking to him. Whenever Tomiko spoke to him, he nodded — or even gave full responses — so he couldn’t be completely deaf. I never had the impression that she was speaking any louder with him than anyone else. Maybe there was some secret to it — an ideal tone or speed. He stared at me for a couple of seconds, then turned away and started watering again.
I went back to our house to grab a few things and shut the windows. I slipped my wallet and Tomiko’s envelope into my bag, put on my hat, and left. As I started to walk, it seemed like nothing around me was moving. The trees were as still as in a photograph, and the windows of all the houses were shut tight. There were no people around. No cats, no dogs, no crows. There wasn’t a single sparrow in the sky. My eyes were tingling from the heat. Once the water from Grandpa’s hose was too far away to hear, the only sound left was the cicadas: brown cicadas and another kind I don’t think I’d ever heard before. The heat from the asphalt passed through the soles of my shoes, filling the space between my toes.
I knew where the 7-Eleven was, but hadn’t been there since the move. Everything I needed was at the supermarket, and that was closer. I never bought magazines or made copies. The walk between our house and the 7-Eleven was probably beautiful in the right season. There were even a couple of signs describing the view when migratory birds visited in the winter, but it was summer, and no matter how scenic it was, a paved path in the middle of this heat was too much to take. The lack of breeze wasn’t helping, either. The cries of the cicadas made the air feel even stickier. To the right of the path was the river, and to the left was a row of houses, each with its own garden and walls covered in goya and other vegetables. Beyond the leaves and vines, no signs of life. No one was making a sound — no TVs, no vacuums, no children. The riverbank was covered with grass, and so were parts of the river. There were a few birds on the water. They looked like herons, large and gray. The place was overgrown with susuki, kudzu, and other kinds of grass I’d seen before but couldn’t name. Parts of the river were murky blue, stagnant green, or totally black from the blinding sunlight. The dry grass almost smelled baked. There was a big pile, brown and wet, on the path in front of me, probably left by a dog. On top of it were a couple of silver flies. For them, it was a mountain of food. It got me wondering — what would it feel like to sink your limbs and face into your lunch like that? Even the flies weren’t moving. Maybe they were dead, knee-deep in dog crap. I kept an eye on the path as I walked. I passed a half-eaten Cup Noodles, an empty box of tissues, a work glove, a broken mosquito coil, and a few other sun-bleached artifacts. The cicada cries drilled into me with every breath I took. How many were there? How far can the cry of a cicada reach? I didn’t see any dead cicadas around, but spotted a few abandoned husks along the path. From the sound of it, the area had to be full of them. It’s not like they lived very long, so where were all the bodies? Just then, a grasshopper as big as my fist leapt from the bushes onto the path. It quivered as it folded its wings. It crept closer, then spread its wings and jumped away. When I looked up at the path ahead, I saw a big black animal.
At first, I thought the extreme heat was making me hallucinate, but the creature was really there. It was obviously a mammal — but not one I’d ever seen before. What I saw wasn’t a weasel, and it wasn’t a raccoon. It had to be as large as a retriever, maybe bigger. It had wide shoulders, slender and muscular thighs, but from the knees down, its legs were as thin as sticks. The animal was covered in black fur and had a long tail and rounded ears. Its ribs were showing, but its back was bulky, maybe with muscle or with fat. Slowly, it moved down the path ahead of me, barely casting a shadow, probably because the sun was right overhead. There were no birds, no dogs, no cats — just this black animal. I could see cars on the street on the other side of the river, but it was too bright to see the faces of the drivers or passengers inside. I was sure they couldn’t see me or the animal. It wasn’t looking at me, either. It was walking ahead of me, almost guiding me. And it didn’t seem to mind being followed — it didn’t look back and didn’t speed up. I couldn’t hear anything except the droning cicadas. I couldn’t hear the river or the cars. After some time, the animal turned toward the river, cutting through the tall grass in a spot that had been well trampled. Without thinking, I did the same. As it headed down the slope, I heard something like clopping. Maybe it had hooves. The black water ahead of me glimmered in the sun. The grass clung to my skin as I walked, crushing things as I went. Plants, trash, crap, flies. They all broke or bent underfoot. Over the cicadas, I could hear a child shouting gleefully in the distance. There were old magazines and empty cans strewn among the weeds, but by this point they seemed to be as much a part of the riverbank as everything else. I saw the animal’s tail slip through the grass, and I leapt after it, but there was nothing there to catch me.
I fell into a hole. It was probably four or five feet deep, but I’d managed to land on my feet. I looked around the grass — now at eye level — but the animal was nowhere to be found. I heard the grass rustling nearby, but before long the sound stopped.
At the edge of the hole, a click beetle flew up toward my face. When it landed, I could see streaks running down its black shell. The antennae on its head looked bent. It was making a clicking noise, but I couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. As I tried to move, I realized how narrow the hole really was. The hole felt as though it was exactly my size — a trap made just for me. The bottom of the hole was covered with something dry, maybe dead grass or straw. Looking toward the river through a break in the grass, all I could see was white light. The beetle flew away. I couldn’t hear it anymore. The cicadas were the only sound. Cicadas cry to find a mate. They hear other cicadas crying around them and use what they hear to choose a partner. To my human ear, they sounded like a bunch of machines, a spray of emotionless noise. Maybe that’s how we sound to them, too. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t even uncomfortable. I could smell something, maybe the grass or the river. I let it fill my lungs and body. There were a few rocks and bits of plastic on the flat grass surrounding the hole. I could see some black ants and red ants in lines, soldiering around. Their lines broke apart and intersected, the tiny red ones marching over the bodies of the larger black ones. My bag was there, near the ants. Most of them went around it, but a few crawled over it. I grabbed the bag and shook the ants loose, then checked inside to make sure everything was still there. Nothing was missing. A black ant took one of the red ones in its mandibles while other red ones bit its legs. The red ones looked softer than the black ones. I could feel the top of my head starting to bake in the sun. I had to get out of this hole, but it didn’t look like it was going to be easy. I put my hands palm-down at the edge of the hole, and tried pushing myself up, but I barely got off the ground. My heart sank. On the opposite bank, I could see the gray chimney of what looked like some kind of factory.