The White Shadow in the Rice Field

There's a story like this that has been passed around on Japanese internet for many years, called "くねくね", meaning something that writhes and twists.

One summer, during Obon, two brothers were sent by their parents to their grandparents' house in the countryside to stay for a few days. The older brother was older, the younger one was younger. The village was surrounded by rice fields on all sides. It was scorching hot during the day, so the two children ran wildly along the field ridges, catching bugs and grabbing frogs.

That morning, the sky was bright white, and there wasn't a breath of wind in the fields. They ran to the edge of a rice field, and the younger brother suddenly stopped, pointing into the distance and said: "Brother, look."

Far away in the rice field, there was something white. It stood there, tall, not quite like a person, nor like anything else. It was twisting, constantly twisting, now to the left, now to the right, as if a string was pulling it up. You couldn't see its face, you couldn't see its hands, just a patch of white.

"Is it a scarecrow?" said the older brother. But there was a scarecrow standing still beside it, while that white shadow was twisting. The younger brother said it was moving. The older brother said it was the wind. But there was no wind.

The older brother went back to the house, took out the telescope his grandfather kept on the cabinet, ran back to the field's edge, raised it, and aimed at that white shadow. The younger brother stood beside him, looking up at him. The older brother looked for a long time, and the color drained from his face bit by bit.

"Brother, what is that?"

The older brother didn't answer. He slowly lowered the telescope, his mouth twitched, and suddenly he opened his mouth and said a sentence. The younger brother didn't understand a single word of it, like a few words broken apart and pieced back together, sounding like "still—not—clear—is—good—". After saying that, the older brother began to laugh, laughing very strangely, his eyes fixed straight ahead into the distance.

The younger brother was terrified, turned and ran home, calling for his grandfather as he ran. His grandfather rushed out of the house, didn't ask a single word, grabbed the younger brother, pressed his face against his chest, and wouldn't let him look back. Grandfather pushed the younger brother into the house and turned to run toward the field.

That night, grandfather carried the older brother back. The older brother no longer recognized anyone, smiling on his face, muttering incomprehensible words in his mouth, his hands and feet still twisting gently. Grandmother looked at him and said: "That thing, you can't look at it. People who understand it become like this. Only those who don't understand are fine."

When dad and mom arrived, the older brother didn't recognize anyone anymore. The doctors examined him many times but found no cause. Later, grandmother told the adults to let the older brother stay in the countryside, to stay with grandfather and grandmother, and every few years send him back to the field, and he would understand it himself.

The younger brother grew up and always remembered that day. On the day of departure, he sat in the car and looked back once. The older brother was standing at the edge of the field, in front of the rice field, twisting his body bit by bit. In the distance, in the rice field, that patch of white was also twisting.

#Paranormal #短篇故事 #日本怪谈