Koji Suzuki - Dark Water

There was little need to check the map. The underground water that welled up from this stretch of mountains fed a tributary of the River Tama, and upon swelling to much greater proportions, flowed into Tokyo Bay. Beneath the rock that felt so rugged to the soles of his feet ran the groundwater in streams formed of rainwater that had percolated through the hard rock. As Fumihiko Sugiyama thought of that crystal-clear water, something struck him as strangely incongruous. He lived in a high-rise condominium with a magnificent view of Tokyo Bay. He gazed upon the River Tama every day and could clearly remember the colour of the water. The water was quite filthy and could only be described as a dirty blackish gray. He wondered how the unsullied, crystal-clear water flowing from the source could be transformed into such an unsightly mess by the time it reached Tokyo Bay. As he stood atop the tiny crag, Sugiyama wondered how fascinating it would be to observe every subtle and detailed change in the colour of the water as it flowed from the source to Tokyo Bay.

Sugiyama was about to jump down from the low crag when he found himself faltering. It was not that great a drop and could have been jumped easily. Yet he felt a surge of unease. The ground at the bottom of the small cliff was covered with leaves, which made for a strangely uncertain footing. Fallen leaves had frequently caused him to slip in the past while traversing mountainous terrain. Wet leaves stuck to the surface of rocks were a particular hazard because a hiker could easily slip and fall. Although the layers of leaf mould that lay under the leaves posed little problem, the leaves could also conceal a hollow in the rock or a tree root, which were often the cause of sprained ankles. Sugiyama was not concerned about spraining his ankle, however. He had visions of something like a bottomless dark pit lurking beneath the leaves. As he thought of the terrible consequences of jumping into something of that nature, he stepped back from the edge. Behind him could be heard the rustling of bushes being pushed aside. Suspecting that it wouldn’t take Sakakibara much more than a minute to catch up, Sugiyama decided to wait for him on top of the ledge. Sakakibara was out of breath when he arrived where Sugiyama stood. Sugiyama thrust his chin in the direction of the ledge to call Sakakibara’s attention to what lay below. Sugiyama thought his expression would have sufficiently conveyed to Sakakibara his dilemma as to whether they should jump down. However, with a display of characteristic obtuseness, Sakakibara sprang off the edge without so much as checking his footing. He landed with a thud on the fallen leaves below. Due to the slight downward slope of the ground below, Sakakibara had landed on his rump. Sitting there with both arms extended behind to support himself, he pointed his jaw upwards and grinned at Sugiyama as if challenging him to stop wasting time and join him on the double. A man of hefty build and the antithesis of agility, Sakakibara was also a reckless character who had not infrequently provided Sugiyama with hair-raising moments in the past.

“Are you all right down there?” asked Sugiyama.

As if prompted by the question, Sakakibara started to rise to his feet, the sardonic smile still visible on his face. At that moment, however, his foot slipped on the leaves, dropping him down heavily again on his rump. Sugiyama laughed out loud. Preoccupied by something all of a sudden, Sakakibara crawled face up to directly under the ledge and started to investigate the surroundings with a look of grave concern on this face.

“Say, look at this!”

He raised his hand aloft and signaled to Sugiyama to hurry and jump down. Gauging the steepness of the incline below, Sugiyama jumped and landed on his feet; he had managed to keep his balance and only needed one hand on the ground to steady himself. He turned to find Sakakibara now lying on his stomach, his face close to the bottom of the ledge. Right next to Sakakibara’s rotund face gaped a dark hole similar in proportion to his friend’s face. Crawling up to Sakakibara, Sugiyama peered into the hole.

“Could it be the entrance to a cave?”

Sugiyama’s tone suggested that he was not so much asking Sakakibara as himself. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, only for them to be dashed, so he suppressed the excitement he was beginning to feel. They had hiked the mountainside for half a day now and the only openings had been fissures in the rock, cracks hardly wide enough to insert his arm, let alone his body. Thus, trying not to get his hopes up, Sugiyama found himself believing that this aperture, too, was probably nothing more than the den of some animal.

With an earnest air, Sakakibara began brushing aside the leaves with his hands. At length, a soft, damp patch of earth was revealed, but Sakakibara continued working with his hands. There were signs of the air outside being drawn into the opening. Apparently, a current of air flowed through the inside of the cave. The opening was not small. Sugiyama’s hopes began to rise slightly.

Impatiently lowering his backpack to the ground, he removed a collapsible shovel and began scooping away the dirt from the lower part of the opening. After digging away for less than ten minutes, he managed to sufficiently widen the opening for one man to crawl through. Both of them then took turns crawling halfway inside to examine the interior with a flashlight.

“We’ve done it! No doubt about it this time!” Sakakibara almost shrieked with excitement.

Sugiyama finally allowed himself to be convinced. Opposite the opening was an expanse of immeasurable proportions. Air rising up the mountainside was being drawn into the opening. If they listened carefully, they could hear the faint echo of water dripping somewhere in the depths of the darkness.

“Could be.”

Although convinced that they had finally found what they were after, Sugiyama expressed a kind of reserved ambiguity; it was no simple matter to discover an underground cavern into which no man had ever set foot before.

Ever since his son had been born two and a half years ago, and especially now that his wife was expecting their second child, Sugiyama felt his appetite for adventure ebbing. He didn’t find such a development totally unnatural; with two children to support, he was no longer able to throw caution to the wind in pursuit of adventure. He was almost resigned to never experiencing that ultimate adventure.

A young man just over thirty, Sugiyama was already seeing his youth slipping into shades of maturity, and this fact rankled him from time to time. Of late, he increasingly found himself releasing his grip on the accelerator on his motorbike, conscious of the risk of an accident, when he could go a lot faster and still remain within the speed limit. He’d only begun behaving this way after he’d gotten married and become a father. Such caution would have been unthinkable before. Intoxicated by the thrill, he would intuitively seek out danger and push his luck to the limits. During his teens and early twenties he’d lived for the thrill of living on the edge between life and death.

However, his hunger for adventure had waned once he realized how little he would leave his wife and children if anything were to happen to him, given his meager savings and such. At thirty-one, there was no way he could be described as having had his fill of adventure — there were so many things left to do. It hadn’t helped being stuck in the same old job at a newspaper-affiliated research firm for most of the past decade. Had he avoided getting mired in that kind of rut and been constantly alert and on the lookout for a better position, his footwork would no doubt have been more nimble now. At best, he had learned self-restraint; at worst, he’d become overcautious. The challenge he now faced was whether to let the sight of the cave gaping in front of him be governed by an emotion of self-restraint or by daring initiative.