| Snow Woman |
November 11, 2016
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| Long long time ago, there was a father and his son who were hunters and lived in a small village in the northern district. One day, when they were hunting, it suddenly started to snow heavily, and they decided to stay in a small shelter hut for the night. While they were sleeping, a young woman came into the hut. She was standing there in her white clothes. She looked like a ghost. The young man, who was in his early twenties, couldn't move out of fear, and pretended to be asleep. The woman went to his father. She put her face close to his father's face. The young man glanced over at her. The woman was beautiful. Her skin was as white as snow. The woman breathed in deeply, and then breathed out strongly against his father's face. His father's face looked frozen but he couldn't do anything because he was so frightened. Next, the woman came up to him. He closed his eyes. He felt her face approaching. He thought, "She did the  same to my father who was sleeping, and my father looks to be dead. Pretending to be sleeping is meaningless." He open his eyes. Her face was very close to him. Her face looked to redden a little. Strangely he was calm. She was beautiful. He was staring at her. She shook her head subtly and released her face and said, "Maybe you are too young to die." She stood up and continued, "If you don't tell anybody about me, I can leave you untouched. Do you understand?" Of course, he nodded in agreement. She added, "But if you tell anybody about this, I will kill you. Do you understand?" The guy nodded again. And the woman left. After the woman left, the son rushed to his father. The poor father was completely frozen to death. The son cried and cried. The next day, he went down to the village and asked the villagers to move his father's corpse. The villagers asked him what happened, and he said that his father couldn't reach the hut and died in the heavy snow. The villagers wondered why the young man survived and only his father died. One of them whispered that after the mother died of sickness, the father and son had sometimes quarreled. The young son knew some of the villagers doubted his story. But he had no other option. If he told them about the woman, he would become like his father. A couple of years passed. One night, it was snowing heavily. A young woman knocked at the young man's house and asked him to let her stay the night to shelter from the storm. She was a beautiful woman. He soon realized that this woman looked like the woman who killed his father. But he couldn't accept that. He allowed her stay. She introduced herself. Her name was Oyuki, meaning snow. He had lost both of his parents. They were alone. They felt intimacy to each other. It had been snowing for days and he offered her to stay another night. She accepted it. Naturally they started to live together. Eventually they had a baby together. For a few years, the family had been living a happy life until one day. On this day, the guy became drunk. It was rare that he drank because he didn't have a habit to drink alcohol. But on this day there was a party, and he was constantly offered a drink and couldn't refuse. At home, he said to his wife, "I haven't said this to you because you might think it would be ridiculous." The wife looked tense at his remarks. She said, "If you think so, I hope you won't say anything." The husband said, "I was told not to say this, but recently I really want to say this. I can't bear it anymore." The wife said, "If you say it, I might have to leave you." He had been thinking that his wife might be the woman who killed his father because sometimes her appearance reminded him of the woman. He was daring because he was drunk. He said, "But I wonder why she entered that day. She didn't need to enter because she was not that type of person who needed shelter." She said, "She might have needed a rest." He looked at her and said, "Who?" She said, "I don't know. You said 'she'." He shook his head, "If so, she should have rested. Why did she need to do that?" She said, "She might have been upset." He said, "Why?" She said, "She might not have been expecting it." "Expecting what?" "Expecting … the situation." He said, "But how could she know if I told somebody about it or not." The wife said, "She might have said it just as a precaution." "Just a precaution? … Just out of precaution, and I have been suffering because of it." She said nothing. He said, "And, another thing. When she came again, didn't she think that she would have been found out it was her?" She said, "Women can put make up on." He said, "But, why did she choose that name? Did she want me to realize that it was her?" She said, "Maybe, maybe not. You should know about women's minds." Finally she said, "Anyways, if she said you shouldn't say anything about it, you should not say anymore." As he became sober, he gave up to ask anything more. After all, nobody knows whether or not his wife was the woman who killed his father, except her. She could be a common woman, and just didn't want to hear about his old girlfriend. |
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*corpse :死骸、なきがら
*precaution :予防
*sober :さめて