their stupidity, to the conclusion that Ojii-san’s bright, shiny wen is a rare treasure, and they decide that if they keep it, he’s sure to return. They’re ignorant, yes, but after living deep in the mountain forest for so long, perhaps they have indeed learned some of the wizardly arts: they pluck the wen clean from Ojii-san’s cheek, leaving not so much as a scar, or any other trace.
Ojii-san is stunned.
“Wait! You can’t take that! It’s my grandchild!” he cries, but the only response is a triumphant cheer.
Morning came.
Dew glistened on the mountain path.
Ojii-san walked homeward,
rubbing his smooth, flat cheek.
Ojii-san’s wen has been his only confidant, and he’s conscious of a certain loneliness without it. But the early morning breeze doesn’t feel so bad tickling his suddenly unencumbered cheek.
“
“Well, well,” is all Ojii-san manages to say. He’s thoroughly flustered, and the two of them part ways with no further exchanges. Seeing that his father’s wen has disappeared overnight, the Saint is inwardly somewhat puzzled, but since he believes that to offer any manner of critique of one’s own parent’s features is to stray from the true path, he pretends not to notice.
When Ojii-san reaches home, his wife calmly and rotely welcomes him back, without even touching upon the question of where he’s been all night. “The miso soup is cold,” she mutters under her breath as she sets the table for his breakfast.
“That’s all right. I’ll eat it cold. No need to warm it up.” Ojii-san shrinks guiltily into himself as he sits down. He’s dying to tell his wife about all the marvelous things that happened last night, but in the stern and austere atmosphere of her presence he finds the words sticking in his throat. He eats with head bowed, feeling perfectly wretched.
“It looks like your wen has dried up,” she says, in her matter-of-fact way.
“Mm.” Ojii-san has lost the will to speak.
“It must have broken open,” she says indifferently. “Water came out, I suppose?”
“Mm.”
“It’ll probably fill up again,” she says.
“I guess.”
In the end, Ojii-san’s wen is not a matter of much concern to his family. There lives in the same neighborhood, however, another old man with a similarly large and bothersome wen. This old man’s wen is on his left cheek, and he considers it an unspeakable nuisance and firmly believes that it has held him back in life. He looks in the mirror several times each day and bitterly thinks of all the laughter and scorn he has had to endure since youth, just because of this wen. He once grew a beard in an attempt at camouflage, but, sadly, the red dome of the protuberance peeked out from his new white whiskers like the sun rising amidst the foamy waves of the sea, creating an even more spectacular prospect.
Let us note, however, that aside from the wen there is nothing repellent or questionable about this old man’s appearance or bearing. He is powerfully built, with a prominent nose and piercing eyes. He speaks and comports himself in a grave and dignified manner and always gives the impression of being sensible and discriminating. He dresses meticulously and is said to be well educated and to possess a fortune far beyond anything the drunken Ojii-san, for example, could ever dream of; and everyone in the neighborhood holds him in the highest regard, referring to him as “Sir” or even “Sensei.”
In short, the old gentleman is blessed in many ways, but that large, jiggly wen on his left cheek makes it impossible for him to enjoy his good fortune. Because of the wen, in fact, he suffers from a chronic melancholia. His wife is surprisingly young-just thirty-six. She is not especially pretty but fair-skinned and plump, and she’s always laughing in a cheerful if somewhat crass way. They have a daughter of twelve or thirteen, a lovely but rather impertinent child. The mother and daughter are very close and forever giggling together, so that in spite of the husband’s perpetual scowl, the household impresses one as being full of sweetness and light.
“Mother, why is Father’s wen so red?” The impertinent daughter expresses herself frankly and freely, as always. “It looks like the head of an octopus.”
“Ho, ho, ho, ho!” Far from scolding her daughter, the mother just laughs. “It does! That, or a polished coconut shell.”
“Shut up!” the old gentleman shouts. He leaps to his feet, glaring at his wife and child, then retreats to a dimly lit chamber in the rear of the house, where he peers into the mirror.
“Damn this thing,” he mutters.
He’s begun to consider slicing the wen off with a knife-so what if it kills him?-when he catches wind of the news that the old drunk from down the street has been mysteriously relieved of the same affliction. That evening he slips out to visit the drunken Ojii-san’s thatched hut, where he hears the whole story of that mysterious moonlight drinking-party.
“This is wonderful news!” he said.
“I’ll have them take
The old gentleman is thoroughly braced. Fortunately, there’s a moon tonight as well. He sets out with a glint in his eye and his lips tightly pursed in an inverted V, like a samurai scurrying to the front.
Such are his ardor and enthusiasm as he makes his way deep into the mountain forest with shoulders squared, clutching his fan in his right hand, that it’s difficult to tell whether he wants to dance for the ogres or exterminate them. When an artist is pumped up with the intention of creating a masterpiece, however, the work generally comes out poorly, and this is to be the case with the old gentleman’s performance. He’s so frightfully inflated that it’s destined to be an utter disaster. He steps solemnly and reverently into the circle of wine-guzzling Oni and clears his throat.
“Inexperienced though I may be at this sort of thing…” Saying only this much to introduce his art, he flips open his iron-ribbed fan with a flourish and strikes a pose, glaring unflinchingly up at the moon. After several long moments of this, he lightly taps the ground with one foot and slowly begins to moan his song:
With that, he turns ever so slowly, then once again freezes in position, glaring up at the moon.
The Oni were puzzled and frightened.
One by one they jumped up and fled
back into the forest.
“Wait a moment!” the old gentleman shrieks, and chases after them. “You can’t leave me now!”
“Run! Run! It’s Shoki, Queller of Demons!”
“No, no! That’s not who I am!” The old gentleman finally catches up to and prostrates himself before one of the Oni, clinging to its leg. “Please, I beg of you! My wen!”
“What? The wen?” The ogre, confused by all the excitement, misunderstands him. “That’s a treasure we were holding for the other old man, but-all right, you can have it. But no more dancing like that, please! You ruined a perfectly good drunk, and now we’ve got to find a new spot and start all over. Let go of me! Hey, somebody give this crazy old man that wen from the other night! He says he wants it!”
The Oni attached the other wen
