2010年9月30日木曜日

Invitation From a Dream - 現代怪談

I have always had extremely, exhaustive vivid dreams.

Some have felt like epics.
Some have felt like video replays, like they have happened before.
Some have yet to happen.

As the Chinese philosopher 荘子 (Soushi) once said, you begin to wonder, is the one in the dream the real me, or is the one in the waking state the real me?


Invitation From a Dream
A Modern Japanese Kaidan*



original story copyrighted by author @ syarecowa.moo.jp/231/5.html
translation copyrighted by M. L. Mills, 2010


***


I wonder if there is such a thing as to repeatedly see the same house, the same place in your dreams?


For the most part, places in people's dream are of the past homes they lived in, of their friend's or relative's houses.
But even places for which you have no memory at all, often appear in dreams.

***

From a long time ago, there is a place I have seen in my dreams.
It is a two-story house that one would commonly see around, yet just slightly European.
Although I don't remember when I first started to see it, by the time I had entered Junior High it was already conjuring up that feeling of “Ah, here again.”

I had a very close friend whom we shall call 'K'.
Being that we were neighbors and our mothers were also good friends, we were back and forth to each other's respective homes on a near daily basis.
The comics we liked, the characters we used in our video games... they were all the same.
Our grades too were more or less the same, as were our heights and weights.

One day during our first year of junior high we were hanging out as usual when the topic of dreams came up.

"I Always dream about the same house.”
'K' was all over that as soon as I the words left my mouth.

According to 'K', he had had similar experiences.

Writing on a piece of scratch pad paper, I explained the layout of the house from my dream.
To which 'K' responded, “It's the same one!”

As we talked we came to feel that that house was indeed exactly the same in both of our dreams.
Our curiosity was propelled on by this peculiar happenstance and we began to talk of our dreams more frequently.

The house was fairly large - a place big enough for a family of four or five to live in.
And yet, neither of us had ever been into the one corner room of the first floor.

With everything else at that time and given we were at that curious in-between age of early adolescence, we decided on a competition to see which one of us would be first to make it into that room.

From that time on I had only nightmares.
I was chased around the house by a knife-wielding manic; I was pursued by a ghost whose form I couldn't see.
In the end, I wasn't able to get close to that corner room.

'K' reported the same problem.
At first we were all excited remarking, “I bet we were brothers in our former life!”

Then gradually we stopped talking about the dreams altogether.
Because we were too similar and that was frankly too creepy.
It's not that we looked alike, but it felt like there was some kind of “sympathy” shared between us that only we understood.
'K' seemed to feel the same way and so choose to go to a different High School when the time came.
Even so that didn't change our status of best friends and we often talked on the phone.
But again, when it came time to choose an after-school club activity or our future university, there was an unspoken understanding that we would choose differently from the other.

About the time we entered university, we gradually fell out of touch living in our different environments.
Then during winter vacation when I returned home, I found a New Year's greeting card from 'K' had arrived.
His pet dog was on it.
It was very nostalgic for me to see that he was still alive and well.

Beneath the standard printed “Happy New Year!” was a small note in 'K's handwriting:
"I've been called to that room. I'll see ya.”

I felt my blood drain at those words.

In a dream I had had just a few days earlier, I too, had been called to that room.
As usual, I had been seeing that house-dream on a regular basis, but at that time there was something subtlety different about the atmosphere.

Walking around through the empty house, I had the impression - “Ah, NOW, I can go into that room.”
Except I didn't go.
I couldn't go.

Just as I was heading for it my cell phone rang and woke me up.


***


Awhile after school had resumed a call came from my mother.
'K' had apparently gone missing.
The story was that one day he had just unexpectedly disappeared from the apartment where he had been living alone.
'K''s parents naturally came over to ask my mother if she knew of anything.
Of course, there was no way I could mention the dream, so I also could only say that I didn't know anything about it.

Since then more than six months have past.

'K' still hasn't been found.




***



*Kaidan – a traditional Japanese “ghost” story usually involving the unexplainable, a flexible concepts of time and space, strange meetings, love gone wrong, the supernatural… Curious and sometimes terrifying stories, but never centered on nor featuring either gore or sex.

Original text story:syarecowa.moo.jp
(Japanese only.)

Audio recording:www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12257253
(Account with nicovideo required. Japanese only.)



Stay tuned and happy listening~! (^_-)-☆


☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆
All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

2010年9月28日火曜日

The Third Person - 現代怪談

Kicking off round 2 of seasonal ghostly fun with a recent favorite・・・


Master Series : The Third Person
A Modern Japanese Kaidan*


original story copyrighted by author @ syarecowa.moo.jp
translation copyrighted by M. L. Mills, 2010


***

In a 2nd grade elementary school classroom, the assignment of “draw your family” came up one day in Art class. Chatting happily, all the children drew away with colored pencils, filling up the construction paper with their pictures.

A mother, a father, and a daughter lined up in a field smiling cheerfully.
Two children playing on what looked like a slide with mother and father watching.
Pictures included grandmothers and grandfathers, too. Not just mother and father.

Many children also added pictures of the family pets – dogs and cats – in their drawings. The feeling that the family pet was also a family member was strong at this stage in their life.

After class, the teacher examined every picture, one after another, then suddenly paused, tilting her head when she came upon the drawing of one student. The picture was drawn by the most well-behaved, quiet boy of the class and at first glance a very lively, merry picture done with an abundant number of colored pencils.

And yet, there was a strange sense of something being 'off' about it.

Drawn on the construction paper was a family sitting around a table-like structure. It was likely a scene from some past pleasant mealtime. Everyone was facing outwards, towards the viewer, but there was something funny in the makeup.

Starting from the left, there was a father-like adult wearing glasses, then a mother-like adult with permed hair, followed by the one boy. But at the far right edge, there was one more person.



Everyone was laughing. She could tell from the exaggerated use of red inside the open mouths, yet only the person on the far right edge sat expressionless with mouth closed, eyes thinly drawn like line of string.

She could tell it was an adult from the size of the body. All the children in class very obviously
distinguished themselves as children from the adults by differences in size.

However, although she could not very well tell the age of the person on the far right, there was not a single “wrinkle” line so at the very least it did not seem to be an elderly person.

Three adults and one child.
… …

It was a picture that made one feel somehow uncomfortable.

The teacher recalled the makeup of the boy's family. The family lived in single room apartment in a large housing complex and consisted of a mother, father, and their only child, the boy.
That would make them only a family of three.

So, whoever was this third adult?
Perhaps a relative had come by for a visit recently?

Considering that, she shook off the lingering unpleasant feeling.
Once she got her mind back on track, she flipped over to the next picture.

Yet way in the back of her mind she could not help wondering why in the midst of that laughing family should only the third adult be drawn without any expression?

Two weeks passed.

It was Class Observation Day – decoratively dressed adults lined the back wall and the children were in a state of distraction. Even the children who were forever up to no good, this one time they were well-behaved, stiff as a rod with nervousness.

At the end of class, the teacher addressed the children.
“Recently in art class we drew our family picture, didn't we?”

The children yelled in excitement.
The teacher gestured to the wall behind the participating parents. “The pictures hung on the wall behind you are those very pictures.”
Simultaneously all the parents turned around and began searching for the picture their child drew, relying on names written at the bottom.

The mothers protested in exaggerated embarrassment.
The fathers grinned wryly in silence.
And each of the children burst into excitement and activity.

Gazing contentedly at the scene before her, the teacher began to step down from her podium and walk to the back of the classroom in order to speak with the parents.

At that very moment an earsplitting scream rang out.

It vibrated throughout the classroom. All movement stopped, both children and adults held their breath. The scream came from a woman with permed-hair looking at a picture hanging at the corner of the wall.

The teacher ran over to her, but the woman continued screaming, eyelids peeled back, fingers like hooks and pressed against her mouth.

As she followed the woman's direct line of sight, the teacher saw the face of the expressionless third person sitting at the edge of the table.




“... a ghost story like that.”, spoke the 'master'.
It was the spring I had just entered university.
He was an upperclassman in my college social group, but completely unrelated to group activities he had a serious dose occult-mania and I tottered along behind him like a disciple or a child.

“Where is this place?”
I asked yet had some inkling of what the answer would be.
We had snuck into one of the (for all intents and purposes) 'abandoned' rooms of a deserted mass apartment building,

On the straw floor mat we crouched upon were old tracks left from shoes, empty cans, marks of things burned. It looked like it had been at least over five years since anyone had lived there.

The master answered. “This is the room that the child lived in with his family. The one who drew the third person ”

“So, it was a real story?”

He nodded when I asked, “Originally, this tale did not spread as an urban ghost story. I collected it through my own connections.” , then switched off the flashlight that had been illuminating the room.

It was past 1AM at night. We were surrounded in blackness.
Why would he turn off the light?, I thought as a creeping sensation of fear raised its head.

“You understand the meaning of this story, yes?” came his master-like voice from the darkness.
In some vague way...yes, I had understood.

In the end, she screamed out because it was strange for that third person to be drawn in there.

It was not someone she absolutely did not know. If that were the case, at most she would have tilted her head and thought, “Who is that?”, not shown such an extreme reaction.

It was someone she knew.
Someone who should never have been there.

But again, if it was a member of the family who had passed away, she would have gotten teary-eyed at her son's display of empathy, certainly not have screamed in overwhelming fear.

Someone she knew.
Someone not in the family.
Someone who should never have been sitting at that table.

The light of the moon bled into the dark room, only faintly illuminating the walls, the pillars, the profile of the master who was supposed to be sitting right in front of me.

I sat stiffly in the cramped living room where once that table stood.

In the darkness, I had a feeling that a pale-white, expressionless face was looming up and was
overcome by an uncontrollable chill.

The master spoke softly, a mere vibration filling the tense air.
“Actually, you may not be aware of this, but there is a natural effect that occurs upon those that hear this story.”

There was a sound of breath being gently expelled.
I, too, breathed in; breathed out.

“Why, having only heard this story, are you already imagining that face?”
My heart beat louder, enough so that I was spurred on by the impulse to cover my ears.

“Why, having only heard it was an adult, are you imagining that face as not the face of a woman, but that of a close-lipped, expressionless man?”

I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes.
On its own my mind was imaging that face floating in nothingness.

From someplace a voice came to me.

“That face is the face of the third person. The one who should not be here.”





***


*Kaidan – a traditional Japanese “ghost” story usually involving the unexplainable, a flexible concepts of time and space, strange meetings, love gone wrong, the supernatural… Curious and sometimes terrifying stories, but never centered on nor featuring either gore or sex.

Original text story: syarecowa.moo.jp
(Japanese only.)

Audio recording: www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11600093
(Account with nicovideo required. Japanese only.)



Stay tuned and happy listening~! (^_-)-☆

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆
All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

2010年9月25日土曜日

'tis the ♪season ♫♪


One of the innumerable reasons to ♡♡♡ Japan (if you already don't) is the fact that you get to celebrate Halloween TWICE a year! .~*・°☆

So while you are just getting into the Halloween spirit, I have been riding along with the fear festival since August when the Japanese celebrate Obon (お盆). Obon is basically a similar idea to Halloween - spirits of the deceased returning to walk the Earth - except that Obon normally lasts several days whereas Halloween is just that one night stand. So you ride the Obon wave in until the end of August, then find yourself wading around in shallow waters for a week or two in September waiting for that next Big One to start building up just beyond the horizon. Before you know it, the Halloween waves start rolling in and you are back out surfing for those bigger, deeper, darker scares.

In anticipation of such joyous events and previous to the first kaidan release (see previous post), I have compiled a list of potential translations to usher in "part two" of the season. All are in Japanese, all previously untranslated.

So just to wet your whistle, our potential candidates are as follows...

♡ 師匠シリーズ:三人目の大人, "Master Series: The Third Person"
♡ 鍵穴の向こうの赤, "The Crimson on the Farside of the Keyhole"
♡ 師匠シリーズ:海, "Master Series: The Sea"
♡ 猫町, "Cat Town"
♡ 婦人の黒猫, "Madame Vauson's Black Cat"
♡ お下がり, "Handme-downs"
♡ 死の連鎖メール, "Chain-mails of Death"
♡ 夢に誘われる, "Invitation From a Dream"

If there are any in the above list of which you have information about and want those in particular translated or a story just sounds interesting from the title OR you feel tantalized by a title and would like some more info....
drop a note in the comment box.
Those will get first dibs.

Stay tuned and happy listening~! (^_-)-☆


☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°
All translations copyrighted and owned by myself. All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.

2010年9月22日水曜日

Really?!?

Did I say back in business? Really?!

In spirit I was.

But now I REALLY AM.

I have the first draft (raw translation) done for a favorite Kaidan of mine.
For those who can understand spoken Japanese, you can hear it here: www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11600093

For those who can read Japanese, you can read the original story here: syarecowa.moo.jp/
under the title 師匠シリーズ:三人目の大人。

The rest of you will just have to make yourself another cuppa and wait awhile longer.

(^_-)-☆


☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°
All translations copyrighted and owned by myself.
All copyrights of their respective owners. No part of this web site may be produced, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner.