49. The Taste of Tea (Cha no aji)

"You know that pond you often go to? That area used to be a forest. Folks here called it the haunted forest. And so, well... dunno, maybe kids these days don't believe in haunted forests, but... I guess... Anyway, er... Oh, yeah. So I was in 6th grade... No, in 5th... about 5th grade. Right, where I took a shit outdoors for the very first time. For some reason, there were lots of wild chickens out there, maybe they flew the coop, dunno, but kinda having no money, I used to go there to find eggs, y'know? And on that day of my first outdoor shit, I didn't go to the bathroom all day. Even after school, I was wandering about, looking for a good spot. I ended up going to the forest, but still couldn't decide where to do it. It's surprising how much you struggle in spite of wanting to go for it, y'know? Anyway, I soon came across this egg. It was half-buried in the ground, like somebody had tried to hide it. It was weird, but somehow gave me the impetus. And I badly needed to go. So, I did it, right then and there. Because I'd kept it in for so long, it was quite a dump. I felt great afterwards, 'til I noticed how dark it had gotten. I suddenly felt scared and went home. But on the way back, I started thinking... What the hell was a huge egg like that doing there? And why did someone try to bury it? And on top of that, why did I have to shit on it? Normally I'd have brought it back home, a big egg like that... And thinking like that made me feel really miserable. But I let it pass for the day. After that I kept going back to look for it, but it just... disappeared. It's not like I wasn't familiar with the forest, y'know? But I couldn't find it. So I finally gave up looking. And that's when this guy showed up. A guy covered with tattoos, bleeding. He'd be watching me at every turn. It was freaky. He'd be there whenever I let my guard down. Like when I'd be cleaning up at school... raking the school yard... cleaning out the chicken coop... He also appeared when I was studying, right here in this room! And when I visited the shrine... Anyway, he'd show up, no... He'd just be there, watching me. Anyway he was all bloody, tattooed... And had shit on his head. Yeah. Shit, blood and tattoos..."

"Wait, does that have anything to do with you shitting in the haunted forest?"

"Dunno... probably not. Anyway, so this guy... Hey, it's a pretty good story, right?"

"Yeah, weird... but cool."

"So he's watching me, till one day, he suddenly disappears. I was recording podcasts. Going for hours all night, while he stared on. I'd sorta gotten used to him by then. So I thought what the heck and kept recording. Then, when I finally recorded a 50-minute podcast, he disappeared. Just like that..."

Next week we will be back to talk about Paris, Texas!

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