The Egg — Kami-machi Girl and the Snake’s Curse

――I pressed my back tightly against a vending machine. It was warm. Warmer than people, I thought.

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On my way home from school, I found the corpse of a small snake.

I dug a little into the dirt at the edge of the road and buried it.

I placed a small stone on top, as a makeshift gravestone.

There was a nameless weed with tiny purple flowers. I plucked one and laid it on the stone.

“Hey, did it hurt when you died?”

I asked the snake beneath the soil. Of course, it didn’t answer. Then I realized — I had just killed the flower I had picked.

“It’s your fault for blooming,” I muttered.

As usual, I slipped into the alley behind the pachinko parlor, where vending machines stood in a row.

I pressed my back tightly against one. It was warm. Warmer than people, I thought.

Still, the December chill crept up from my bare feet into my skirt, biting hard. I rubbed my legs together, trying to endure.

Luckily, after about an hour, one of the men leaving the pachinko parlor spoke to me.

“You’re in high school, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’ve got nowhere to go, you can come to my place.”

“Will you feed me?”

“Cup noodles, at least. But in return…”

“I know.”

“Good girl.”

At school, teachers always called me a “bad girl.” But here, the men called me a “good girl.”

――That night, I dreamed.

I was walking alone down a pitch-dark road.

I was naked. As if I had swallowed the moon, white light seeped from inside me, faintly illuminating the space around.

I stopped. High above my head floated two enormous blue stones.

(Why are stones floating in the sky?)

As if hearing my thought, the stones replied:

“They are not floating.”

I strained my eyes into the darkness. Slowly, outlines emerged. They weren’t stones at all.

They were a pair of snake’s eyes.

Though much larger, I knew it was the same snake I had buried that morning.

Its tail suddenly coiled around me, lifting me up. My body dangled helplessly before its blue gaze.

I writhed, but the snake only tightened its grip.

“It hurts. Why are you doing this?”

“You showed me mercy. Therefore you must bear my curse. That is the law of recompense.”

I groaned. “What a cruel story.”

――I awoke.

It was still before dawn. The man beside me made no sound. No snoring. I pinched his nose, shook him. Nothing. He had turned to stone.

I stood and switched on the light. Something rolled to the floor.

Under the fluorescent glow, the man’s mouth hung open, his face as vacant as when he had been on top of me. Around his neck was a purple mark, like the trace of strangling.

The thing that had fallen from me lay beside his face.

I stared at it.

It was a small egg, fitting neatly into my palm.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the man’s gaping mouth. “It must be because I’ve been cursed by the snake.”

Still naked, I put on my only high school uniform, a summer one.

“This will be my charm,” I said, picking up the egg and slipping it into my breast pocket. “A curse as a charm — what a cruel story.”

――Since then, a small egg has always rested in my pocket.

I think it must be the snake’s egg. But I’m not really sure.

Someday, something will break through its shell. I wait for that day.

Lately, I feel the egg has grown just a little.

The grudge of the snake crushed beneath the car, and the curse seeping from me every night, are feeding it.

Surely…

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Thanks for reading.