Inaka

Exposure therapy, I have heard, is an excellent way of curing phobias and other minor ailments. This piece of essential pop psychology struck me like a bolt out of the blue as I was riding to the gym this week, and I was forced to a sudden screeching halt on my quaint little bicycle. True, it may have been a dragonfly the size of a rock dive bombing my head which actually caused me to stop my bicycle, or the stunning view of the Koyama pond (which can be seen from the illustrated archives), but minor details of this story are probably going to prove irrelevant when viewed in the yellow glow reflected from the hairy bum of its main antagonist; so please, dear reader, trust me when I tell you I had many reasons to come to a screeching halt.
There are in fact many dragonflies zipping about Tottori at the moment, so many that they could be classified as a public health hazard. These dragonflies are so large that from the 5th floor of my accomodation I can see them scooting low over the paddocks of the neighbouring farm, and when they land I can discern the shape of their bodies from a good 30m away (this is probably not an exaggeration). The dragonflies move in gangs, they listen to loud music but they at least obey the Japanese prohibition on eating while moving - the other day one landed in front of me and took the time to spitefully bite the head off a fly that it had slung under one jaw. I swear it would have spat it on me if it were not busy sucking out the juices. But at least it wasn't moving! This is a big no-no in Japan.
But I digress! It takes more than a mere dragonfly, or even a horde of dragonflies the size of small dragons, to scare a man as robust about the cheeks as I have become. No, only one thing scares me - trees. Evil, malicious, leafy little bastards which sneak around the edges of roads waiting to hurl sinister biological agents in my face, exuding the stench of evil fertiliser and eyeing passing foreigners balefully from beneath their oh-so-pretty canopies. I don't trust any of them! Not since I developed my special case of arboreal tuberculosis! Which has of late been fading away, and hence the exposure therapy. I decided to confront my nemesises, the trees, and prove that it takes more than a threatening wave of a leaf to keep me in my place.
With this thought firmly in mind I decided to dismount from my very manly bicycle and venture into one of the many forest-hills that are scattered about Tottori's urban landscape. Tottori is spread around these hills, which burst thickly forested from the middle of schoolyards, suburbs and roadways with impunity. They are part of the reason that the town is a little bit inconvenient, because it has to spread around them. From outside they look completely impenetrable, but there is usually a pathway leading into them, and often a shrine, or a rope hung around the biggest tree (which is essentially a shrine). The particular forest-hill pictured here has a little pagoda stuck on top of it, and the whole edifice emerges between a small stretch of allotments and a high school. It clearly is the motherlode as far as asthmatics are concerned, so it seemed ideal that I should penetrate it, roughly thrust myself inside its cool and sheltering canopy, and so pierce to the heart of its hidden secrets, thus proving that my rude and intruding manhood is more than a match for the dark and shadowy heart of nature.
Having girded my loins I marched along the pathway past the high school and forced myself upward into the forest hill. It was really rather pleasant inside, as one might expect if one were to carry this metaphor to its conclusion. It was cool, the trees seemed not to intrude overmuch on the path but spread their sheltering boughs above it, and someone had recently mowed the lawn. The pathway wound upward around the hill and onto a small plateau, which formed a kind of pretty glade completely covered by forest canopy. The inside was throbbing and pulsing with the song of the cicadas, and the sound of the outside world was muted by the thick, lush trees. Strangely, everything smelled of cut grass, and there was not even the smallest hint of weakness in my lungs. I redoubled my efforts, and pushed further towards the secret heart, the pagoda of joy which promised so much at the end of my hard and ruthless intrusion into the inner sanctum.
At this point, however, the forest became a little less pleasant. Pushing past some trees, I felt something brush against me and suddenly found myself dusted with cobwebs. Ah! I thought, the feeble defenses of inchoate nature! See how in its formless weakness it tries to frighten me away with weak tricks, the careless brush of a spider web, the buzzing of a distant insect. It would take more than a play on my weaker senses to drive me from my ultimate heady goal! Not when I was so close, and pushing ever upward!
Still, passions can weaken even the most resolute of invaders, and I found myself checking the path carefully for secret spies and sinister many-legged agents of the darkness. Soon, however, I broke into the light and there, ahead of me, situated in the edge of a pleasant glade of overhanging trees, was my final goal, the pagoda! Oh sweet, secret resting spot, respite from the buzzing throbbing insects, the clinging heat and the cloying fear of rude nature, that Other which all brave men are raised to despise and to crave - here it was! With a spring in my step I advanced to my final, ecstatic destination ...
... only to find myself confronted by the spider you see at the top of this post, the nastiest, meanest, yellowest-arsed, most ugly piece of pure long-legged death I have yet seen in this rather overly arachnified nation. There she sat (and I have no doubt it was a she!), fat and golden in the middle of her intricate web, expertly wrapping a fly in her inescapable and terminal webs...
... the same webs, I realised, as had perhaps scattered on me earlier - what if one of those great fat yellow things had fallen on me, and was even now stealthily making her way downward to my manhood, all eight sinister eyes focussed on the goal of wrapping it up and taking it away. Oh ultimate, ungodly fear! Sinister nature's secret agents invading the most sacred sceptre of my masculinity, stealing away my power! And all because I had the audacity to penetrate to her lair, seeking her innermost secrets! In horror I dropped my bag and hurriedly brushed the cobwebs away, desperately seeking the great, evil creature which surely must have beset me.
Fortunately I found none, but now my nerve had failed me. Pausing just long enough to take several shots with my trusty camera, so that I could record my bravery for posterity, I turned and ran screaming back towards civilisation, and emerged moments later back on the road, shrivelled and shrunken and cowering in fear, the goal of my intrusion once more whole, intact, unsullied, simultaneously inviting and yet deadly ... and all set up to guard that horrible hidden inner sanctum, where the evil one waits ...

... still, at least my allergy seems to have gone!

ps nemesises was a joke ... just in case you think my english has been decaying here in the land of the penultimate verb.

pps no animals were harmed in the making of this analogy