Japan has its own version of mystery.

Well, the mystery of mysteries; it is the “bloop”.  This sound is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by NOAA several times during the summer of 1997. What created that sound is debatable as the source of this phenomenon remains unknown. And although no convincing explanation has been given, the general consensus seems to be that the origin is almost certainly biological. Could it really have been an animal? If so, the “animal” in question hasn’t been heard since the summer of 1997? Or that the US Navy had recorded them, but refuses to release any further information. But why didn’t the Navy release them? Is there something too scary to know?

In my attempt to understand, I wrote a novel on it and right on Chapter 2 of Over Mount Fuji have the following excerpts:

After placing his laptop on the table, he switched it on and pulled the antenna from its port. He put on his headphones and plugged in the wire to his computer, which he dubbed EQ-Lun. Connected to underwater hydrophones, the spectrogram danced on the screen. The sound increased in volume, signaling a phenomenon had intensified across the Pacific Ocean. It couldn’t have been linked to earthquakes, since it had been continuous even in the absence of seismic activities. He leaned forward, but another sound startled him. A babble like gurgling water, a blo-o-op replaced the hum.

During the last recording, the blo-o-op sound—indicated by the thick cluster of red pixels—was most intense about a thousand miles south of Kyushu Island. He clicked several times until a map of the Pacific appeared in the background, then he superimposed the ambience over the map. Now, after ten hours, the source of this sound had moved further south, its color changed to pink, indicating the intensity of the sound had subsided. He listened to his headset. Yes, the sound had abated. But why? Could a link with a sea creature be possible? Moving. Retreating.

My attempt is just an attempt, hence it’s through a novel rather than a textbook, but I have spent considerable time on it. Maybe it was a special guest “bloop” appearance or something. According to scientists who have studied the phenomenon it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound. If it is from an animal, the mystery deepens as the creature would have to be several times the size of the largest known animal on Earth, the blue whale. Then our minds are stretched from some mega-fauna cryptids to cryptozoology. Giant squids. Leviathan.

~~

And in Chapter 22, the bloop mystery continues:

Eileen startled when the laptop beeped appeared. Then a hum accompanied the beeps.

Wulfstein narrowed his eyes when the sound persisted. A sheen of sweat covered his wrinkled face.

“Listen,” she said, “the hums are more audible.”

“Yes, indeed,” he said, grabbing EQ-Lun closer. “Most of our equipment is set to detect any irregularity around the archipelago.”

“Why is it getting louder?”

Wulfstein analyzed the reports for a moment, then paced back to the window and squinted over the horizon. “The bloop sound has retreated to the Mariana Trench, but the hum is everywhere.”

Still puzzled, she prodded. “How can you be sure?”

“No one can be certain, Eileen. Something’s stirring—the hum remains a mystery, but the movement of the bloop sound indicates it’s a creature. Only this much I’m sure of.”

Eileen knew that Wulfstein’s laptop link to the laboratory tracked every sensor. Could this be a crucial time to find a breakthrough for earthquake precursors?

“A man’s imaginative power will shrink if not used,” he said. “The mysteries of Ma-no Umi will soon provide the key.”

“How did the sound move? Can you show me?”

“Give me a minute, and I’ll retrieve my database.”

After Wulfstein had reset EQ-Lun, the spectrogram danced on the screen and the familiar babbling bloop sounded. He clicked a key and the spectrogram transformed into a small red ambience radiating toward the top left corner of the screen as the map of the Pacific came into view in the background.

“This is where I started recording the sound last December,” Wulfstein said, pointing to the sea off the coast of Kyushu Island. “Now the horizontal bar shows the time changes during the last nine months I’d tracked this sound.”

Eileen studied the signal on the horizontal bar. During the first week of December, it started when the red ambience moved northward to Honshu, then it slowly circled the seas there in a Big 8 formation. By January, it began to pick up speed, moving south, but its color faded into pink. At the end of the month, the ambience reached the Mariana Trench. Moment later, it collapsed and disappeared. During the first week of March, the ambience reappeared. It moved southeast, passed the Equator toward Fiji, and headed south.

“What does this ambience mean?” Eileen asked.

“It signifies the source of the sound.”

“So it’s heading south?”

“That’s right.”

Eileen stiffened. How could the sound move with such peculiarity? Before hitting New Zealand, the ambience turned east toward the Galápagos Islands. After rounding the islands at the end of April, it headed north. By the second week of May, the sound moved along the Coast of California, but this time, staying very close to the shorelines. And just before San Francisco, it paused for a long moment. After emitting louder than normal, it turned west toward the Hawaiian Islands, and stayed there. It circled the islands anticlockwise before heading for the Japanese archipelago.

~~

In June, as it approached the archipelago, it slowed, but the sound intensified. Just east of the Izu peninsular, it moved north, then halted.

“What does this mean?” Eileen asked, startled.

“It seems some seismic activities there had troubled the creature.”

After the long pause, the sound turned east and then headed north, following the coastline. Near the north end of Honshu, it slowed, then stopped. The ambience softened as it turned west and headed into the Strait of Tsugaru Kaikyo. But it halted again, and then retreated, as if sensing danger. Making a U-turn, it headed northeast. Again, it followed the coastline, rounding the island of Hokkaido in an anti-clockwise direction. Once it returned to the southern tip, it slowed, then stopped. After a short moment, it proceeded east, but moved at a snail’s pace. Just before the Strait of Tsugaru Kaikyo, the ambience faded, and then vanished.

Eileen watched, studying and keeping her composure.

After a long while, the ambience restarted, but on the eastern side of the Strait. Slowly the pulse regained its strength.

When it reached the open sea to the east, it picked up speed, its ambience finally returned to normal. For a brief moment, it moved well into the sea, but it hesitated, stopped, and returned to the coastline, proceeding down south along Honshu Island.

Once it reached the town of Tateyama, it slowed. And just before Oshima Island, it stopped. Then it circled the island in a clockwise formation, pausing intermittently and moving back and forth, as if examining and re-examining the seascape.

After a long hesitancy, it continued its southward bound, gaining speed, bypassing the Ryukyu Islands and returning to the Mariana Trench by the end of June. Again, the ambience faded and disappeared from view. But during the second week of July, a seismogram spurted out suddenly on the screen as the ambience reappeared with the sound intensified.

“What’s this suppose to mean?” Eileen asked.

“It means the creature was troubled by another seismic activity.”

“Instantly?” Eileen asked.

“That’s right. There must be a linkage.”

Eileen recalled Jerry’s paper was centered on his conjectures of Ma-no Umi. This mystifying section of the Pacific, a topic so baffling and raw, had always drawn media interest. So she grasped the opportunity to be more specific. “The sound is so loud at times. You mean a greater sea creature than those we saw?”

~~

“Without a doubt. I still do not have all the specifics, as mysteries remain mysteries until we see them before our eyes.”

“And is this how science and the arts meet each other?”

“Possibly. Neither of us really believes in the monster. But surely those ancient tales aren’t total fabrication.”

Interestingly one commentator expressed it as a Leviathan in this way: “It is said that at one time there had been two alive. But God killed one so that if this had not occurred no man would be left alive. In the last days it is written that the creature, upon arrival on the coast of Israel, will be killed, and its skin large enough to cover the nation of Israel.” Sobering thought, but no one can be sure; hence I dub the Bloop as the mystery of mysteries. But then there is a stunning passage in Isaiah 27:1. “In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan, the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”

Incidentally the Japanese has a century-old legend about a namazu that lives in the sea (see picture above). All these mysteries may be connected, or they may not, but if anything, the mysteries deepen.

©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available through Amazon and Barnes&Noble)

Or if you like to write to me, my email is (no space): eqlunn at gmail.com

“Geophysicist Kenneth Hudnut, who works for the U.S. Geological Survey, told CNN that the quake moved part of Japan’s land mass by nearly 2.5 meters.

“Experts say that the huge shake, caused by a shift in the tectonic plates deep underwater, also threw the earth off its axis point by at least 8 centimeters.

“Thousands of people were unaccounted for in Japan on Saturday, a day after the 8.9 earthquake shook the country and giant tsunami waves crashed 10 kilometers inland in the northeast” (Voice of America news.com, March 27, 2011).

By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times March 19, 2011

What hath God wrought?

In the Bible, that’s an exclamation, not a question (Numbers 23:23). Still, it’s a common response to any natural disaster, especially one on the scale of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, now compounded by the unnatural disaster of a nuclear crisis.

If there is a God, and if He (for the sake of convention) is all-powerful, what in God’s name was He thinking?

This is perhaps the oldest of theological questions — the one that may, in fact, explain the nearly universal human yearning for faith, what evolutionary psychologist Jesse Bering calls “the belief instinct.” How can we explain the inexplicable? How can we make sense of suffering?

Atheists say we can explain life’s complexities through science, and that there is no meaning in suffering. It just is, and we should do our best to alleviate it.

Monotheists see it somewhat differently. Faith offers answers, if only the unsatisfying: “It’s a mystery.” But there is little consensus among the faithful.

In the days following the 9.0 earthquake in Japan, some saw the punishing hand of God. Others saw a sign of the end of times, the coming of the apocalypse. Still others saw, well, an earthquake.

On Fox News, host Glenn Beck said he was “not saying that God is, you know, causing earthquakes,” but that he was “not not” saying that.

“Whether you call it Gaia or whether you call it Jesus, there’s a message being sent,” said Beck, who is Mormon. “And that is, ‘Hey, you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out real well.’”

The governor of Tokyo prefecture, Shintaro Ishihara, was compelled to apologize when he was quoted after the quake as saying that Japanese politics was “tainted with egoism and populism,” causing “tembatsu,” or divine punishment.

Those remarks, theologians say, reflect a natural human desire to make sense of a disaster whose force and scale are difficult to comprehend. But many Christians, Jews and others profoundly disagree with the idea that the quake can be explained by the “doctrine of retribution,” the idea that God punishes evil in the world.

“I think that’s a common, almost instinctive, knee-jerk reaction,” said Warren McWilliams, an ordained Baptist minister who is a professor of Bible studies at Oklahoma Baptist University. “The danger, I think, is in moving backwards — moving from effect to cause. It’s what I call the thinking process of Job’s friends.” The reference was to the biblical figure whose trials helped create the archetype of a good person forced to endure inexplicable suffering.

“So long as he prospered, they thought he was good,” McWilliams said of Job. “The moment he suffered, they thought there must be some sin.” When Hurricane Katrina struck, he added, “a lot of conservative Christians said, you know, New Orleans is a sin city, and so God judged them. I don’t think it’s my place to make that judgment. I think it’s a dangerously simple way to think of a complex situation.”

Certainly, the Bible is full of examples of divine retribution: Noah’s flood or the plagues that afflicted the Egyptians. And Jesus warned of earthquakes (Matthew 24:7-8) as “birth pains” before the end of the world.

Erik Thoennes, a professor of theology at Biola University and a pastor at Grace Evangelical Free Church in La Mirada, said he believes that human iniquity does, in fact, play a role in natural disasters. But he does not want to cast blame on the Japanese.

“Is God judging Japan?” he asked. “Well, no more than He’s judging me.”

Thoennes added that events like the Japanese earthquake can bring people closer to God. It “calls us back to rethink the biggest questions of life,” he said.

Siroj Sorajjakool, a professor of religious psychology and counseling at Loma Linda University, has written about the religious response to the 2004 tsunami that struck his native Thailand and other parts of south and southeast Asia, and said different faiths have divergent ways of dealing with disaster.

The Buddhist explanation, he said, boils down to: “People die; life is impermanent. You can’t control it so you have to let go.” Christianity, he said, “has greater challenges dealing with this kind of question.” As a Seventh-day Adventist, he prefers not to dwell on that which is unanswerable.

“The challenge,” he said, “is not how does God make all these things happen. The challenge is, in a world where bad things happen, can Christians hold onto hope and continue to practice compassion?”

That isn’t far from the theology expressed by Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, an organization of Conservative Jewish rabbis.

God created the world but isn’t micromanaging it, Schonfeld believes. “I live in a real world of science and technology,” she said. “We know that these things happen, and we are humbled by them.”

“As Jewish theology has evolved, it has focused more on what people can do to help each other,” she added. And with that in mind, she said the earthquake image that made the deepest impression on her is not one of endless devastation.

Instead, Schonfeld keeps thinking of “these workers who have stayed with the reactor. What heroes! That’s the immense, for me, faith-provoking image.” What that tells us, she said, is “that people have a concept that there’s something greater than their own life that they’re willing to work for and sacrifice for.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs-quake-20110319,0,4390890.story

All morning, heavy fog slowed the traffic from Manhattan to Boston and obscured much of the scenery. But after four exhausting hours, the muck lifted, and reporter Eileen O’Neill whispered a word of thanks to the offshore wind that had done the trick. Now, skirting the Charles River basin, her eyes couldn’t resist straying off the road to glance at the chunks of ice and debris floating in the muddy expanse. The messy aftermath was the result of fierce storms and heavy rains that had spawned flooding across Massachusetts.

What a relief! The milder day that thwarted the forecasted chilly winds was a welcome change. Yet she shivered, recalling a surge of strange weather that had stymied the world’s finest meteorologists. Not that she was a weather nut, but she had a niggling feeling that what was happening must be more than just Mother Nature throwing off a fit. A new and unprecedented global nightmare—gales raged, temperatures plunged. For twelve weeks, sleet pounded New York’s LaGuardia, Newark and JFK, halting all flights. And blizzards blitzkrieged the northern hemisphere from Paris to Moscow to Beijing since early October.

But most bizarre of nature’s furies, seven fighter jets had disappeared above the Pacific, east of Kyushu Island, just before a typhoon struck the Japanese archipelago. Made for a good ‘How they vanished?’ article for a new up-start monthly magazine, the Raging Planet. With fishermen’s claims of seeing flashes of light during the incident and no trace of the crash having been found, alien abduction enthusiasts had fielded numerous speculations in tabloids and were taking a foothold in the universities.

On the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Eileen parked her Honda Civic besides the Geology Department. She scooped up her bag and tucked her digital recorder into her pocket. But the moment she opened the door, a gust of wind slammed into her.

“Dammit,” she muttered, hugging her bag tightly.

Eileen stumbled across the parking lot as scraps of paper flew and fluttered around with the newly fallen evergreen leaves. Gathering her strength, she broke into a quarterback’s zigzagging run as a cluster of broken branches headed toward her. If the towering walls of the Institute made her feel insignificant, this Arctic squall just increased its intimidation. Now its immense buildings and the wide swathes of lawn seemed to be braced for a battle to the death. Mother’s Wrath appeared far more threatening as another branch crashed-landed where she’d been a split second earlier.

“Well, at least something’s on my side,” she said to the boggle-eyed security guard who’d opened the door for her at just the right moment.

Finally in the elevator, on the way to the upper reaches of the edifice where the loftier echelon of genius held court, Eileen blessed the wall mirror for being kinder than she deserved. Once she finished straightening her jacket and smoothing her skirt, she gave her blonde hair a quick brush and reapplied her lipstick. Her green eyes glimmered with satisfaction. Not bad for thirty-four; she could still pass for a mid-twenties.

The moment the doors swooshed open, her heart pounded. This really had to work. Her career might not hinge on it, but if she could get to the nitty-gritty of Nature’s rage, her article would bump into the frontlines. Out and down the hallway to the right, she clickity-clacked her way along the oak parquet in rhythm with her racing heartbeat.

The gold-stenciled sign on the clear glass door read: “Professor Wilhelm Wulfstein.”

She knocked. No answer. She knocked again and pushed the door open.

“Come in,” a gray-haired secretary said with a motherly smile from behind her desk.

With a sigh of optimism, Eileen strode inside. “I’m Eileen O’Neill. I’ve an appointment Professor Wulfstein at two-thirty, I believe.”

“I’m sorry, he’s running a bit late.” The secretary gestured toward a couch at the corner. “Please take a seat.”

Eileen sat down and looked around. It was a memorable sight. Opposite her, a glass cupboard of shelves held plates, awards and other commemorative items. Leaning forward for a closer look, she became startled over an oil portrait hanging on the wall; its caterpillar-like eyebrows struck her attention right away. The personage was Wulfstein, an eminent Professor that had graced every major newspaper. His sharp face, aquiline nose and narrow chin looked too familiar, but it was his alert eyes—piercing and intense, inexpressibly staring back at her—that sent a chill down her spine.

She closed her eyes, recalling her turmoil. Even after three years, the loss of her late husband Jerry was as painful as in those early days. All her dreams and expectations had vanished. How different life would have been if he had survived that expedition to Mount Unzen on Kyushu Island. She’d warned him to give the volcano more space, but he’d persisted in venturing to the very heart of his research. Still, it came as a shock when Jerry disappeared during that burst of pyroclastic flow.

Calm down, her inner voice said, preferring to savor the good fortune of being granted this interview. Many journalists had tried, but Wulfstein turned them down. She checked her watch—2:46. Has he forgotten? Why so late?

The sharp-tongued weather wizard had been on time for her interview a year ago. She cringed, recalling his response to a Christmas cocktail party invitation by the Dean of his faculty: “I’d rather stroll through a morass of literature than through the twin towers of Babylon.”

Babylon! Since then, everyone had been anxious about Wulfstein’s statements. His talk around the academic circle about the pulse of the planet and his unorthodox comments on the weather had created scorn and division among his associates. As a result, he’d become withdrawn and moody, giving his Jekyll and Hyde reputation some credence. Now it was rumored he had an interest in the transcript of the missing Hornets. Odd. Why should a seismologist be so concerned in a sky-based incident?

“I’ll be right back,” the secretary said, stepping into the hallway.

Silence, except for a ticking clock.

When Eileen stood and tiptoed to the portrait for a closer look, Wulfstein burst from his office and headed toward the exit.

Her heart jumping, she moved after him. “Excuse me, Professor. We have an appointment.”

“We do? It’s not on my calendar.”

“I’m Eileen O’Neill . . . I made the appointment three weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. O’Neill, it’s not on my schedule. Next time, verify before you come.”

“We have an appointment, Professor.” Putting out her hand, she tried to block his path, but he bypassed her and headed for the hallway. She followed.

Wulfstein held the door open for her to pass through and hurried off.

“What’s up, Professor?” Eileen asked, feeling dejected. “And where are you off to?”

“Not that it concerns you, but I’m on my way home.”

“I can interview you while you drive,” she said. “I have a transcript that will interest you.”

He stopped and turned back. “You mean the Super Hornets?”

She waved some papers before him. “My contact in Tokyo faxed me a translation.”

“I’ve gone through hell trying to get that. Who sent it to you?”

“I’ve my contacts.”

Wulfstein sighed heavily. “Okay, come on then,” he said, quickening his stride. “But I don’t intend to bring you back.”

“Fine, I’ll call a cab.”

Once they reached his weather-beaten Volkswagen, Wulfstein signaled for her to get inside. When he leaned forward to put his files and laptop on the back seat, a magnifying glass dropped from his shirt pocket.

Eileen picked it up, and after handling it to him, she pressed the ‘record’ button of her recorder. “Some scientists are saying the Hornets disappeared because of atmospheric anomalies. What’s your opinion?”

“No comment.”

“You’ve said it’s a bad omen.”

“So you already have my opinion.” He drove out the parking lot as the wind still howling.

Eileen weighed her options while more questions flooded her. But a couple of bleeps sounded from his laptop, interrupting her thoughts.

Wulfstein stopped the car at the side of the road. He reached for his computer and switched off the alarm. “It’s nothing serious, only some seismologic activity from Sakhalin Island.”

‘Bloo-oo-oop! Bloo-oo-oop!’ another sound replaced the first.

Eileen looked at the Professor and noted a moment of uncertainty in his eyes. “I’ve heard of this bloop sound before, but what does it signify?”

“Nature has many mysteries, young lady. You may Google this ‘bloop’ and find all the speculations you want. What’s strange is that the source of this signal has been on the move.”

“So, what does this strange movement mean?”

“Right now, your guess is as good as mine. But my work is not only on seismic activity. I’m picking up underwater soundwaves with the hydrophones in the Pacific and incorporating changes of animal behavior into my analysis.”

“How can you record this sub-oceanic sound over such distance?”

“I’ve linked up with Japan’s Earthquake Prediction Center and relay via satellites all data to my computer here.” He set the laptop back on the seat.

“And what’s your prediction?” she asked the moment Wulfstein put his car into gear.

“I’m predicting an unprecedented earthquake will soon hit the Izu Peninsula.”

“What sort of timeline are we looking at?”

“Within twelve months.”

Eileen looked at him—the dark shadows around his eyes made him look like a tormented soul. Izu Peninsula lay east of the Kanto Plain, and a major hit would be catastrophic to a highly populated Tokyo. “Can you be more specific?”

“Sorry, I’m still looking into that. I haven’t been able to collect all the data yet. There’ve been too many distractions in the office, so I’m doing most of my analysis at home these days.”

“How can you be sure that your analysis is correct? Isn’t it true that whatever the computer says depends upon what you’d programmed it to say?”

“That fallacy could easily be avoided if you give the computer some intelligence.” He let out a derisive snort when the car stopped at a traffic light. “In integrating seismic activity with changes in animal behavior around Japan, I’ve projected a logical chain of events that could eventuate into my prediction. So I am trying to give the computer, based on its own experience, a mind of its own.”

Feeling his smugness, Eileen decided to take a more confrontational route. “The scientific community has called your hypothesis science fiction.”

“Science fiction?” Wulfstein laughed. “No, it’s scientific heresy.”

“They say it’s a product of your imagination.”

“If it’s only my imagination, that’s fine.” His tone grew serious. “But my colleagues are so closed-minded. I couldn’t resist stirring them up by poking their asses with a stick.”

“You mean you don’t even care if your science is flawed?”

He stomped on the accelerator when the light turned green. An edgy silence fell between them, as though he was fighting an inner war. Only a month ago, a tabloid listed Wulfstein as the most intriguing scientist, a dubious honor, making him the brunt of endless ribbing from the scientific community. Today, the accolade had surfaced to haunt her.

“You may not like to hear this,” Eileen said, “but your statements have created lots of negative reviews.”

“Lots of censure too, but to hell with that. On what criteria have they based their criticisms?”

“They described your hypothesis as unscientific.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m here to get your perspective, to give you a chance to defend yourself.”

Eileen grimaced at his belligerent face and felt inclined to calm down. She gazed across the street. The view, lush and grassy on previous visits, was now covered in white. Snow had blanketed the sidewalk. Wide, hulky and fearsome, a snowplow worked its way like an insatiable insect grinding on its squatty feet. Finally, she decided to change tactics by questioning him on issues that were more familiar. “I’m interested in your view on the world’s seismic hot spots.”

“For the foreseeable future, there are three places to watch. First, along the coast and the southern Alps of Chile. Massive earthquakes occurred during the 1800s and, since then, it has been silent. Second, around the islands of Indonesia, with Java the main focal point. Third, the gridlock of tectonic plates southeast of Tokyo.”

“Why these places?”

“Besides forming a ring,” he said, “all three regions sit on the edges of deep trenches, yet no scientist has had the vision or courage to admit a catastrophe is on its way.”

“These scientists have no vision?”

“Not only do they lack vision, they’re ignorant, too.”

“I’ve interviewed them, they are normally experts with decades of experience. Though they have extensive data, their conflicting hypotheses rarely settle into a final viewpoint. Not enough imagination, perhaps, but aren’t these scientists the best in their field?”

“The best?” He sighed, then  steered the Beetle through two more turns, maneuvering expertly around icy corners. “In a climate of playing-it-safe, they predicted such quakes could happen during the next twenty-five years, or else, the next hundred years. With that time span, no one can prove the blind wrong.”

“The blind? Won’t calling them names provoke them even more?”

“If they’re provoked, that’s good.” He tightened his grip as the Beetle bounced over numerous potholes, spraying roostertails of water. “Now that you’ve heard my prediction of the Big One, you’re entitled to write more nonsense on the issue.”

Frustrated, Eileen could relate to other journalists who’d enjoyed taunting him. His bloated self-assurance would alienate even a friend or colleague.

Wulfstein made another turn and stopped his car on a hillside in front of a short driveway facing a cottage. “Now that I have answered all your questions, Mrs. O’Neill, can you show me the transcript?”

“Certainly.” From her bag, she took the transcript and thrust it at him. “You can read it for yourself.”

Wulfstein scanned the contents. “Mayday . . . mayday. We’re having an unexpected strong tailwind,” he whispered. “This isn’t working. This isn’t working. A damned blitz of light. Mayday . . . mayday . . . Can’t do it manually.” He turned to her. “Do you have any idea what this means?”

“No, not really.” She shook her head. “I was hoping you’d know.”

“It seems bizarre there was a sudden blitz of light.”

He stared away from the transcript to meet her eyes. His face scrunched as he turned back to the manuscript. “None of the electronics are working. This is bad. This is . . . ” His eyebrows furrowed. “Unreadable. Where’s the master tape?”

“The Japanese have it. The planes just went off radar.”

He flinched. “But what was that blitz of light?”

“Nobody knows. There were lots of gaps and static between transmissions which might have provided some clues.”

“Damn.” Wulfstein jumped from the car. He slammed the door, rushed into his cottage, and slammed the cottage door as well.

What a frosty response. Eileen gathered her belongings and strode up the path. The brightly painted homestead wasn’t what she had expected. All was silent, except for the dog barking inside the cottage. She knocked, then pounded, and the barking grew louder.

Weird—there hadn’t been a chance to ask him how such an atmospheric incident could be linked to his geological work, or why scientists had been thwarted by a spurt of climatic oddity.

Eileen turned back and gathered her thoughts. She’d interviewed a psychologist who told her a person’s environments revealed the personality and character of its inhabitants. So she studied the Professor’s homestead. In the soft haze along the forecourt of cobblestones, a few mighty oaks from the adjacent neighborhood cast long shadows. Snow covered the quaint surroundings, but trimmings of purple and red from a genus of maple still dazzled the garden with a surreal aura, creating a haunting effect in the dead of winter. Although crystalline flakes still whirled about, a sense of tranquility prevailed.

In solitude, she looked around for inspiration. The chestnut trees lay barren, and the wind had calmed. And while thunder rumbled in the distance, it was the dusky twilight that reminded her of the dangers that might come after dark.

She searched her handbag for her cell phone.

“Damn it,” she muttered, realizing she’d left it in her car. Seized with foreboding, she tried to be positive, comforted by the thought of a stormy article for the monthly magazine. She had little time left—there was that interview with Mrs. Okino in Tokyo. Hoping the trek back to the Institute would clear her mind, she turned and headed to the street.

A taxi pulled up, startling her. “Are you Eileen O’Neill?” the driver asked, smiling. “I’m here to take you back to MIT.”

Puzzled and confused, Eileen stood still for a moment. Finally, she asked, “Who called for your service?”

“Professor Wulfstein.”

©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)

Festival

Autumn

Under a velvet canopy of glittering stars, icy winds roar in Wulfstein’s ears as he hurls through space on the beast’s back. Far below, a necklace of islands rears up from the indigo sea like a string of black pearls. A voice whispers to him, “You’ll be there soon.”

Near a snowcapped mountain, the beast dives through a blur of clouds, crooning soft words of encouragement. Pitching awkwardly, Wulfstein can’t ignore the fear swirling in his head: No, I can’t continue.

“Don’t be afraid,” the beast replies. “Just hold tight.”

The instant they fly over the mountaintop, red streaks of light slash the night sky. A deafening explosion sends shock waves through the atmosphere, followed by another rumbling. Bearing the searing heat, Wulfstein glimpses through the wisps of cloud—the mountains and valleys dissipate into rivers of flame and sink below a series of broiling waves.

The beast accelerates through a white plume of smoke, dodging a barrage of meteors, and plunge into the dark depths of the sea.

“I am King of the Deep,” the beast growls as he leads the way to the seabed, transforming into a bearded man with silvery hair.

Ahead, something stirs—sparkling jewels and gems lit the way. For many hours, the King of the Deep shows Wulfstein more diamonds and precious stones, some strewn on the floor, others embedded along the palace walls. When Wulfstein tries to leave, the King stops him. “Stand here and wait for me.”

The King enters an onion-shaped cavern and returns with a jewel-studded sheath. Hand steady, the King draws a glittering sword and presses the tip against Wulfstein’s chest. “Henceforth, you have a new mission. One edge of this sword is for you to cut truths from lies, the other to cut lies from truths.” The King pauses, nudging the sword. “If you fail, I will plunge this through your heart.”

Startled, Wulfstein awoke, sweat dripping from his forehead. As dawn’s rays flooded the curtains, something cold brushed against his face. An agonizing spasm shot through his back; every muscle screamed in pain. It had crept into his body like a nagging witness in his failure to understand. Last night, it had been close to 3 A.M. when he stumbled into bed.

The dream had haunted him for a few days, with this morning’s being worse than ever. A sword? To cut lies from truths? And truths from lies?

In the shower, he shivered despite the water’s pounding heat. The recurring dream, the same troubling dream that he’d tried to forget during childhood, kept creeping into his mind and intensified in severity—a bizarre blitz of light that hit him head on.

Finally dressed, he staggered to the kitchen and drummed his fingers on the coffeemaker. He made the coffee so potent it would have floored a weaker man, yet he was hardly aware of either the aroma or the heat.

Forcing his mind back to reality, he reread the reporter’s transcript. A flash of crimson across a blue sky—a missile? Was it feasible for one missile, or even several, to bring down seven jets? Simultaneously?

And they disappeared without a trace!

Wulfstein stabbed a finger at the transcript. If his thought had been conventional, he would have cited the initial problem and written a conclusion based on a series of observations and hypotheses. But to mix anything up with his subconscious mind—especially his dreams—would be more than unconventional.

After placing his laptop on the table, he switched it on and pulled the antenna from its port. He put on his headphones and plugged in the wire to his computer, which he dubbed EQ-Lun. Connected to underwater hydrophones, the spectrogram danced on the screen. The sound increased in volume, signaling a phenomenon had intensified across the Pacific Ocean. It couldn’t have been linked to earthquakes, since it had been continuous even in the absence of seismic activities. He leaned forward, but another sound startled him. A babble like gurgling water, a blo-o-op replaced the hum.

During the last recording, the blo-o-op sound—indicated by the thick cluster of red pixels—was most intense about a thousand miles south of Kyushu Island. He clicked several times until a map of the Pacific appeared in the background, then he superimposed the ambience over the map. Now, after ten hours, the source of this sound had moved further south, its color changed to pink, indicating the intensity of the sound had subsided. He listened to his headset. Yes, the sound had abated. But why? Could a link with a sea creature be possible? Moving. Retreating.

Could this be the same leviathan that had inspired fantasy since antiquity? His shoulders slumped while he shoved the transcript into his briefcase.

When he strode toward the door, XiaoLun groaned beside him. Wulfstein bended to pat his golden brown Pekinese, then rubbed his stomach and long ears.

“Be good,” he said after giving his pet two pieces of bone and a bowl of grains. “I’ll be back soon.”

Wulfstein closed the door and proceeded to his Beetle, his thoughts on the office politics awaiting him.

The moment he reached his office, a summons from Devonport appeared on his desk and he hurried to see him. Though his tenure was up for review, he’d conditioned his mind to accept any outcome. The worst scenario would be a discharge, but why should he be afraid?

The Dean’s office had often been the center of academic activities, but today Wulfstein trembled. The insipid décor and stale air reminded him of a dungeon.

Hunched in his armchair, the normally immaculate Dean had his tie askew and his suit crumpled, looking as if he’d slept behind his mahogany desk. Unshaven, the astrophysicist wore a forlorn expression, making him look older than his seventies. He stared blankly, hands fingering the beads of a rosary.

“I’m disappointed that you have sullied your reputation with this . . . fantasy,” the Dean said without preamble, slipping the rosary into his suit pocket. “The grapevine is buzzing about your dragonology.”

“Knowledge is a field without boundaries,” Wulfstein said. “In the search for truth, we mustn’t neglect the arts.”

“Up to a point. We shouldn’t merge different fields that have too diverse foci.”

“But a scientist is often regarded as a naïve specialist, who has no insight into literature and is utterly pathetic in the fields of in mass psychology, philosophy or mythology.”

Devonport stood up. “Obviously there’s a limit.”

“A limit, yes.” Wulfstein paced toward the window, then turned back. “We’ve misled our students into thinking science develops without leaps of imagination.”

“Look, your research doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny, and if I don’t stop this nonsense, you’ll bring the whole geology department into fairyland.”

“If we want to stretch the limits of our knowledge, it’s thoughtless to ignore the richness of our human experience.” Wulfstein frowned at the fluffy flakes falling outside. Swirled by the wind, the snow brushed against the window and coated it before dripping away. It reminded him of his life’s work: falling apart, melting away.

“Despite all my efforts, endowments are disappearing fast,” the Dean said. “Reluctance by our Budget Committee for new funding means you’re the one to go.” He picked up a crumpled memo from his desk and waved it before Wulfstein. “You know what this means?”

“I can hardly believe I’m hearing this from you. You, of all people.”

The moment Devonport strode to a portrait of William B. Rogers, Wulfstein reminded himself the Dean was a man of contradictions, and his long suppressed paradox, albeit a mythical one, might rise again. So he waited.

“Our founding fathers debated and established their scientific reputation here,” Devonport said. “But your fanciful approach is destroying our name.”

Wulfstein stared at the Dean. “Our founding fathers had initiated only the beginning of the sciences, but they had left us the legacy to open up all fields of investigations. So my holistic approach must be the next challenge.”

“We can’t. I’ve a dirty job to do, difficult people to answer to.” Devonport trudged back to his desk. “I won’t tolerate this situation.”

A long pause followed as Wulfstein waited, reluctant to respond. Had the Dean already set up something?

“For any breakthrough,” Devonport said, “we need a man with Big Ideas who frequents his research in the field. You might be a Christopher Columbus, but he didn’t discover anything by sitting on his butt.”

“Unless we free ourselves from our predispositions, the obstacle to any Big Idea is ourselves. It is a misconception that a discovery starts with something physical. Like Columbus, the first thing he needed was a mind shift, that he could discover a new route to India by turning west. For a year now, my call for more funding into aquatic cryptozoology has fallen on a dead brain.”

“Oh, well, a bubble in your mind. So typhoons are caused by dragons with infinite wingspans.”

Wulfstein shrugged. “You’ve made your point quite clear, but there’s no need to take that tone.”

“You can prove your theories in a more favorable environment on the other side of the Pacific. In a culture with a mindset more affiliated to yours, a people who believe in a mythology you’re interested in.”

Wulfstein held his breath as a tense silence fell between them.

“We all know your prediction concerning the Izu Peninsula,” Devonport continued. “And I’ve a request from our former associate for your expertise in Tokyo. You would be a consultant in Japan’s deep-sea operation.”

Wulfstein took a step back.

“Please take a seat.” Devonport reached for his appointment book. “We will make the arrangements. And, by the way, you are entitled to take an assistant.”

“I guess I have no choice, particularly if my absence will save your neck.”

“Your absences from staff functions have become too conspicuous,” the Dean shot back. “Don’t you prefer I give you a far more dignified way to exit than by bringing your tenure into revocation?”

©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)

Books, books and more books—Wulfstein wondered how he came to own so many. Relieved he had cleaned his office and finalized a visiting professor to cover his classes, he checked off a list of things-to-do. He had everything covered, including someone to mind his cottage, XiaoLun inspected, vaccinated and given a microchip implant. Then he made onerous quarantine arrangements for his pet’s shipment to Tokyo. It seemed like everything was done. Yet, that evening, a feeling troubled him. Had he forgotten something?

He checked his Rolodex on the desk. Damn right he did.

Wulfstein raced to the Sport Center and found his student in a Shaolin martial art session. Clad in a black robe with a white sash, Byron Lambert leapt back and sideways, avoiding and blocking a man with a two-yard staff. His opponent took several paces in quick succession, but Byron darted with greater speed, sidestepped and leaped to avoid contact. The attacker cornered him, thrusting the staff at his chest. Byron shifted sideways, and the staff bounced off, allowing him to throw a back-fist at the attacker’s face.

“Tein!” the Master shouted.

All movements stopped. The Master gave further instructions, and more actions followed.

Wulfstein admired the agility of Byron’s sidekicks and frontal lunges, in pairs and then in groups. The six-footer’s shift movements looked impressive, reminding him of Bruce Lee.

At the end of the workout, Wulfstein waved, and Byron strode over to greet him.

Wulfstein stepped forward. “Would you like to join me for coffee?”
     
“SURE,” BYRON REPLIED. Flattered by the Professor’s interest, Byron rushed to his bag and put on a jacket, wondering why Wulfstein wanted to see him. Something crucial must have come up, for lately the Professor had been reclusive. Byron took the lead, gesturing to the doorway. “So, what’s on your mind?”

“Japan’s Earthquake Research Institute has offered me a one-year fellowship.”

“Congratulations,” Byron said, crunching through the snow toward the Bookends Café. “Why did you want to see me?”

“I need an assistant, and I’d like you to come along.”

Byron chuckled, then stopped when Wulfstein’s brow crinkled. “Are you serious, Professor?”

“Very much so, Byron.”

They sat at a corner table and ordered two Hawaiian Roasts. Although Byron knew Wulfstein would rise to any challenge, he hadn’t anticipated a twist of such magnitude. “Is it because of the Hornets’ disappearance?”

“Certainly, and what better place to study than the interlocking mysteries surrounding Japan?”

A waitress brought two mugs of aromatic coffee and plunked them on the table. When she left, Byron stared at Wulfstein’s tired face through the steam.

“Many consider me old, though I’m only fifty-six,” Wulfstein said, looking annoyed as a chilling breeze slammed through the swinging door. “They want to get rid of me, claiming there aren’t enough funds.”

Byron remained silent. He sipped his coffee, suspecting politics had more to do with Wulfstein’s decision.

“I hope you’ll consider it.” Wulfstein leaned forward and gripped Byron’s arm. “You need an educational adventure. A year overseas would be invaluable.”

Byron squirmed, thinking such an opportunity was sudden. To be uprooted from a familiar environment and forced to adapt to a new culture would be more than hitches. But the thought of Japan raised fascinating images in his head—the mysterious East, the exotic culture—and a land he only dreamed of. Being a graduate student, the time was right for a new adventure and an opportunity to study a chain of volcanic islands with the prospect of a challenging experience at the end was more than a bit exciting.

“To be honest, Byron, our critics will consider our intentions ridiculous. Blackmore has already called me a crank, and our assignment in Tokyo will make quake prediction even more controversial.”

The thought of Professor Blackmore made Byron sigh. As an established professor of an elite university, Blackmore had been criticizing research on earthquake prediction at conferences and in journal articles, calling for an end to this line of study. Earthquake prediction, he proclaimed, was doomed to fail. Japan’s wide-ranging programs had cost billions of yen and produced nothing of substance.

“Even if we can’t predict the exact time a fault will give way,” Byron said, “we can at least improve our hit rate with better sensors.”

“The Chinese had taken a synergy approach to quake prediction, but the west has ignored it,” Wulfstein said. “At the cutting edge of scientific discovery, we often see a mismatch between theory and data, just as there’s a mismatch between the arts and sciences.”

“No one can learn all the arts, or the whole of science. So who could possibly claim the mastery of both?”

“It’s time to take a step back. A scientist too specialized in his field is prone to poor judgment. Unless his knowledge encompasses other disciplines, he is like the blind man holding the wiggly trunk of an elephant. ‘This is it. I’ve got it. It’s a snake.’ It’s misleading to think that one segment of an autonomous knowledge represents a portion of the whole truth.”

Baffled by the unfamiliar territory of philosophy, Byron decided not to argue.

“I want to free myself from all critics so I can devote my full energies to research.” Wulfstein’s voice intensified. “There are certainly a series of factors and precursors that seismologists have ignored, seemingly unrelated, that suggest if you join the dots, they are linked. But first, we need to discard all blinkers and paradigms.”

Byron hesitated, knowing that the crisis of the lost Hornets had triggered a passionate interest in the geologist. Wulfstein’s frown, and his mood, which had been deep and intense, now turned anguished and soulful.

“Besides taking a new approach,” Wulfstein continued, “there’s evidence to suggest the Chinese approach is viable. Why not? The soundings of marine creatures, more so when they are strange ones, can tell us when an earthquake is imminent. In fact, warning signs abounded right before that fateful day in 1995 when the Kobe earthquake struck.”

Byron remembered the warning of the earthquake that struck Haicheng was issued thirteen hours before. Although wholesale evacuations were carried out that saved thousands, he knew Chinese methods were strictly empirical and came with the benefits of hindsight. “That prediction could’ve been a fluke.”

“Possibly,” Wulfstein said. “But the real test is if they can predict an earthquake and call for an evacuation before it hits the Three Gorges Dam.”

“Their engineers gave assurance that the dam had been built to withstand a major quake.”

“Not if it’s over 7.0 on the Richter scale, or if the epicenter is right beneath the dam.”

“Ak . . .” Byron straightened his back. “And the water would stream down like a monster.”

“Exactly,” Wulfstein said. “And then Shanghai might find itself washed out twenty miles into the Pacific Ocean.”

“That can’t be that bad, can it?”

“Shanghai is only sitting on a sheet of soft soil,” Wulfstein said. “The whole mudflat plain could easily slip into the sea when a sudden torrent of water come crushing down from the inland.”

“Is it that bad?” Byron shook his head.

“It is, as there isn’t any granite or solid foundation to hold the city. And sitting up river lies a reservoir of 400 miles in length waiting to be unleashed.”

Stunned, Byron remained silent for a while. After a long moment, he asked, “Won’t you present a paper on what you’d just said?”

“Maybe I should.” Wulfstein frowned, looking somewhat uncertain for a moment. After sighing, he squirmed, his eyes showed worrying lines that seemed to indicate that would be a Herculean task ahead. “But I’m already committed to the Tokyo assignment. This is more impending as schools of fish had been detected swimming uncharacteristically in the seas south of Japan. And now, many fishing vessels are reporting they lost their electronic signals for a few minutes every now and then.”

“Yes, but how does these swimming creatures tie in with the lost electronic signals?”

“That’s the missing piece in the puzzle, Byron. It sickens me to think that these electromagnetic interferences were not even collated until recently.”

“I can accept certain concepts of the naturalist theory, but it’s as unfounded as speculating on some mythical islands disappearing over the millenniums.”

“I’m mystified by the disappearance of Atlantis. Like the island of Santorini, its misfortune is similar, but only bigger. What if the sinking of Atlantis is rooted in truth?”

With a mention of mythical Atlantis, Byron shook his head, feeling an odd tingling sensation. One sensible possibility would be the diving tectonic plate theory—that the earth’s crust is capable of opening up in a major quake. Had Wulfstein fallen off the deep end?

Now that the Professor had shown such passion for mystery, it reminded Byron why everyone considered his mentor an outcast. “Reckless. We’ve modern sensors. Our state-of- the-art instruments are supreme. But where is the proof to substantiate all their speculations?”

“That’s where the challenge lies. Look, the Japanese have wired practically every island and all the surrounding seas. And I can access this data online. Now, combined with my new programming, I can analyze and interpret the data right from my laptop.” Wulfstein paused to take another sip. “Besides, something odd is happening.”

“What’s that?”

“Observation wells have not only detected significant movements in the earth’s crust, but the mysterious ‘blo-o-op’ sound has intensified around the seas south of Kyushu.” Wulfstein slammed his cup down, spilling some coffee on the tabletop.

Byron had heard of the strange unidentified blo-o-op picked up by undersea microphones from the depth of the Pacific. For years, NOAA had been stymied, called it ‘bloop’, though not knowing whether the auditory effect originated from undercurrents, volcanic activity, or even some mysterious beasts of the deep. “South of Kyushu Island? That’s where the Hornets disappeared.”

“Not quite. The sound’s origin is a couple of hundred miles further south.”

“But why can’t seismologists draw any conclusion from such findings?”

“Good question.” Wulfstein motioned a waitress for refills. “Since this data isn’t made available, the only way to substantiate it is to conduct a study at its source.”

Byron pondered, rattled by the tricky turn of situations.

Wulfstein sighed. “Everybody scoffs at me whenever I mention the certainties of more beasts under our oceans, but why limit our imagination?”

Ill at ease about Wulfstein’s remark, Byron gulped more coffee. It seemed strange that the presence of sea creatures could have any relevance in the field of quake theory. What if the Professor was mistaken? He’d already gained a reputation as an odd old quack! For a long moment, Byron remained silent, not knowing what to make of it.

“Look, Byron,” Wulfstein said. “Don’t you realize that the deep ends of our oceans haven’t been stirred by human imagination?”

Byron smiled, feeling bemused by Wulfstein’s tint of philosophy. It dawned on him that the deep end of the oceans—unstirred and untouched—hadn’t been much explored compared to our planetary system. And what if the Professor’s instigation of expedition there would lead to some discovery?

“I’d like you to come along, but such an adventure has its perils. We may well be in one of these expeditions where scientists fail to return.”

“Fail to return?”

“In the extreme, Byron, only in the extreme.”

Byron stiffened at the thought of such peril. For a moment, the image of Cindy flashed before him—his sweetheart who’d left him for a glittery city career. The last time he heard from her, she was dating a New York stockbroker. “You’re just not exciting enough, Byron,” were her parting words. To lessen the pain, he’d diverted his mind and energies into the world of martial arts. And now another opportunity arose—an exotic adventure in Japan.

“But just what do you mean by ‘in the extreme’?”

©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)

As the days grew warmer and cherries blossoming in the foreground, Mrs. Chiyo Okino strode into her garden. She took some fresh air and studied the surroundings. Against a blue sky, the conical shape of Mount Fuji had become more magnificent over the horizon. She smiled, glad that the end of winter had brought a sense of tranquility and optimism.

But four days later, the sky darkened at noon. A wreath of clouds hid the peak of the sacred mountain, and thunder rumbled across the sky. Chilly winds slashed through the shrubs, and branches creaked. Scattered birds flew in all directions, squawking and cackling.

Chiyo stood, transfixed. It reminded her of her son, Captain Okino, had disappeared off the coast of Kyushu. She still couldn’t understand the cause of it, after seven weeks ago. No trace, no word, no explanation. And nothing about any of his compatriots.

A crow fluttered past, breaking her reverie. It flew into her house through an open window, and she rushed after it. Perched on a shrine, the black bird flapped its wings. It cawed and strutted around, overturning a jar of oil, a packet of incense and scrolls of sutras. Worse, the scavenger’s wing knocked over the urn containing her father’s ashes, spilling a portion. Chiyo clapped her hands and tried to shoo the crow away, it but refused to leave the prayer alcove.

She frowned, her gaze riveted on the crow. Was it conveying a message from her son? Or were the gods feeling uneasy on the mountains? “You bring bad news.”

“It’s only a silly bird, Obaachan,” her ten-year-old grandson said. “It’s just frightened by the noise of the airplanes.”

Chiyo turned to see her grandson with a neighbor, Mrs. Toshi Nishimi, following behind.

“Maybe the gods are reminding us of their dominion,” Toshi said. “And these are signs of their displeasure.”

Chiyo shook her head. Not only had a new series of eruptions rocked Mount Fuji, but dormant volcanoes had awoken. “If they were only earthquakes, perhaps we shouldn’t panic, but the rest of nature has gone berserk.”

“Nature has its cycles,” Toshi said. “It declares war on humanity, but it always affirms peace later.”

Chiyo squirmed, pointing at the crow with its head under its wing. “But what about the birds? They’re lost, they fly in circles and cower in people’s homes.”

Silence, except the intermittent rumblings from Mount Fuji.

For the next few days, Chiyo serenaded her home with Shinto melodies. But even as she prayed and meditated, the weather worsened. Like Amaterasu-Omikami simulating the sea and winds when typhoons sank the ships of Kublai Khan, she called upon other goddesses with a sound only she could make, a sound her grandson said was nothing more than the reverberation of planes flying overhead.

“Surely this is the Land of the Gods,” Chiyo said. “A similar typhoon is picking up from the South. They’re sending us the same message.”

“It’s nothing unusual, Obaachan.” Her grandson laughed. “You’re seeing things.”

A naïve laugh. “The birds are afraid of something.”

After another week of rumination, Chiyo paced the room and squinted out the window, mediating on the fact that she was a descendant of a samurai. But when a humming sound started to loom through the breeze, she felt as if the weather was conveying a message, a message from her lost son at sea. Emotions and pains gripped her, and she felt compelled to consult the Goddess as to why her son was taken away. To accomplish that, she needed to purify her soul.

Early the next morning, Chiyo carried an offering of sake, water, salt, fish, vegetables and fruits into the Akaishi Mountains, forty miles west of Mount Fuji. She also took the remaining ashes from her father’s urn. In the undergrowth, an eerie silence descended with the morning mists while she trod the familiar sodden trail. She climbed halfway up Akaishi-sanmyaku where she turned from the trail onto a hidden path concealed by thick scrub. In the primal gloom, she shuddered when she heard the lonely howl of what could be a wolf. She slowed, and when an owl hooted nearby, she paused.

After another twenty yards tall bamboo, covered in snow, cast shadows along her path. A load of snow thumped to the ground as the wind rustled the leaves and poles squeak in their grove. She gathered her courage and walked past. An aged red torii marked the gateway to a small temple; twin bronze fox statues sat on either side of the entry, one with a paw on a ball, the other baring its teeth.

After entering the temple, Chiyo placed the incense sticks around the altar. She measured and mixed the various ingredients with care as her mother had always done when producing the Smoke of Mount Fuji. It released a scent of camphor and sandalwood. From the urn, she emptied her father’s ashes and blew out the residue into the bowl. A pungent fragrance filled the temple.

“Is there a special purpose for coming to pray in this shrine?” the priest asked in a monotone from behind the altar.

“No, not really . . . just thanking the Kami.” Chiyo couldn’t keep her lips from trembling.

“And what is that thankfulness for?”

She bowed her head lower. “For taking care of me . . . and my grandchild.”

The priest raised his arms and chanted the sutras.

Chiyo said her prayers, inhaling the lingering scent and feeling the essence of her ancestors and the absolution of the gods. When she finished, she bowed, stood and left the shrine, traversing the same path back to her home.

A week passed, but the wind didn’t abate. Ferocious gales swept and whipped waves to lofty heights that crashed upon the coasts, tearing away rocks and eroding shorelines. The ground started to rumble. A succession of powerful blasts roared through the mountain, brightening the sky. Like colors from a thousand festive lanterns, the sky glowed smoky red over Tokyo. The sacred mountain raged and smoked more fiercely, presiding with a titanic smugness over the ruin it had made since its last explosion hundreds of years ago. Chiyo felt the evil spirits hadn’t been repelled, nor the gods appeased. Karma! Aren’t we all predestined?

On March the thirtieth, just after midnight, Chiyo awoke to her grandson’s screaming and explosions erupting in the distance. Sirens shrieked and temple gongs clanged, amid dogs howling far and near. She ran to the window see plumes of fire shooting out of Mount Fuji, heralding an event with terrifying red pumice and black ash.

Chiyo felt a bewildering fear as an image of Amaterasu-Omikami appeared over the sacred volcano. Tasting bile, her stomach flipped, but the image brightened in the darkness. She squinted behind her grandson. Did the Goddess have a message for her, or for him?

She turned to look at her grandson’s pale face; he stared blankly, unable to speak. She turned back to the sky, but the image had vanished. Darkness resumed, and the eruption stopped.

Silence loomed in the eerie stillness.

She listened to the news on the radio, but heard no mention of any scene over Mount Fuji. By dawn, she’d learned the tolling of the bells wasn’t just a warning that the sacred volcano had erupted, but that two earthquakes registering a nine-point-one and nine-point-two on the Richter scale had struck six hundred miles southeast and northeast of Tokyo.

Clinging to the TV remote, she surfed through the channels.

“The twin jolts were ferocious,” the announcer said. “Seismologists estimate millions of cubic meters of rock had been dislodged from a seamount located at the edge of the Japan Trench.

“In less than an hour, the first two of a series of tsunamis hit the Japanese coast. They joined forces with a violent typhoon that culminated in even more gigantic waves, smashing seafront homes, plucking away piers and erasing beaches. The hardest hits are Kamakura and Katsuura on the eastern coast of Honshu, where the tsunami converged to create a hundred-foot wave that obliterated the towns.”

Why is the Goddess so angry?

Through radios and television, scientists reported more aftershocks. Seismic activities continued as far as the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench in the north, and the Mariana Trench in the south. Giant waves had inundated the coastal regions like monstrous sea caterpillars munching noisily from the ocean.

In regions considered safe from tsunamis, torrential rains brought floods and ruined crops. Landslides destroyed roads and houses, taking lives with them. The city of Hokota in eastern Honshu was submerged. Onlookers on nearby hills watched helplessly as a new lagoon formed after the carnage. Across all media outlets, people talked of destruction of homes and loss of loved ones.

Television broadcasts showed the mayor of Hokota holding a copy of the Japan Times. “The occurrence of two seaquakes at the same time is no coincidence,” the reporter quoted Wilhelm Wulfstein as saying. “This sinking is not just a catastrophic event. It is a bad omen.”

The next morning, seven crows flew into Chiyo’s house and landed on the shrine, dropping their wings and refusing to eat. She tried chasing them away, but couldn’t. Nauseated by the sight, she shivered. Within an hour, they died one after another.

Chiyo wailed while burying the birds in her garden.

An Omen! Her heart ached at the reversal of providence—her son’s disappearance and the unbearable torment caused by the changing weather patterns. Everything that happened in life was reward or punishment for one’s deeds. Her son must have died, so had her hope. Now, she sensed her own end and, for a moment, felt glad. Only the ignorant resented their destiny.

The following day, after a bath, Chiyo donned two layers of ceremonial yellow and white kimonos in a rite of purification. A sword and a dagger she had carefully removed from the family chest lay on the silk-covered table. She avoided fingering the blades, for conventional wisdom said that even a single touch might mar their perfection.

The blades of antiquity had been made by the master sword-smith, Miyoshi-Go, centuries ago, and once belonged to the famous warrior, Minowara Yoshitomo, the first of the Minowara Shoguns. Her ancestry could be traced back through her maternal grandfather to the scion of the great Fujimoto clan. Only a samurai could wear the two swords—the long, two-handed killing sword and the short, dagger-like one.

Feeling an august calling, Chiyo thought of herself a sacrifice. Although she’d done nothing to warrant the Goddess’s anger, she would perform this ritual to prove her earnestness.

Chosen to be her second, Toshi came to her house.

In silence, they bowed low to each other, their faces expressionless. Chiyo handed Toshi the long sword as she kept the dagger in her sash, reminding herself not to fear the outcome of her mission. After pouring two cups of sake, she gave one to her friend. They bowed again and drank in unison. Now, Chiyo was prepared for her most important undertaking.

She meditated upon the procedures and tradition of her samurai heritage, struggling to overturn its two ancient codes—that women commit seppuku with a knife to the throat and that this should be done in private, not as a public spectacle.

A white car stopped in front of her house.

Chiyo glanced at her wall clock and noted her time had come. Tense, yet determined to settle the rumblings of the Goddess, she stepped out the front door and slid into the back seat of the car, with Toshi beside her.

HAVING JUST FLOWN into Tokyo, Eileen puzzled over the flurry of activity along the streets, telling her that something unusual was going on. After she’d checked into the Daiichi Hotel and brought her suitcases into her room, she rushed back to the concierge. “What’s happening?”

“There is a seppuku underway,” the hotel concierge replied. “You need to hurry if you wish to watch its progress.”

Eileen dashed out the hotel and joined the crowd in time to see a white car whiz by. She hopped into a taxi and directed the driver to follow the white car. Already tired from the long flight, she forced herself to remain composed.

When her taxi reached the temple with its distinctive curved roof, she paid her fare and alighted, inhaling a cloud of incense rising from bundles of joss sticks. The temple bell tolled, sending pigeons off in all directions. The red torii gate towered over her as she passed through.

New leaves sprouted amidst ancient maples. Clean-shaven Shinto priests meditated, chanting sutras, rubbing beads between clasped hands while waiting in front of the shrine.

Around the courtyard, newsmen mingled with spectators but Eileen hung back, her nerves rattling. When the temple bell stopped tolling, she could hear her own heart pounding.

The woman in her yellow kimonos looked familiar.

Damn, the operation was deliberate. But why had she planned this? It would be a horrific way to atone a wrong. And why was everybody cooperating?

Before the temple, the lady undid her obi with help from her friend, allowing the yellow kimono to fall. Under the outer layer, she wore a most brilliant white kimono and obi. In this ceremonial outfit, she paced a few steps forward and knelt on a tatami mat facing the shrine. She removed the dagger from her sash and placed it on a tray in front of her. To the right stood a bamboo pole with fronds.

Stupefied, Eileen stared at the woman’s small nose, her almond-shaped eyes, her round face with a slightly pointed chin. Why was she so familiar?

Eileen trembled. Her head began to pound; her temples throbbed. Surely it was Chiyo Okino-san—her landlady ten years ago, the one she needed to interview.

The priest came forward, poured a cup of omeeki, a purifying sake, and offered it to Chiyo, who took it. He bowed and departed, but Chiyo looked up vacantly, sipped her omeeki, and placed the cup on the ground.

Eileen shook her head, wondering why the priests were cooperating with her.

A brief hesitation loomed in the calmness before Chiyo pulled her long broad sleeves out and tucked them under her knees to allow her to fall forward instead of sprawling. She held her dagger firmly by its paper-wrapped hilt with both hands at a short distance from her body, blade pointing inward.

Mrs. Okino! Eileen felt faint as certainty rushed in. “Stop this! Stop this!”

All eyes turned to her as she rushed forward.

“Don’t do this. Okino-san! Please stop it. I’m Eileen . . . Eileen Hewitt, remember me?”

Two monks grabbed her arms.

“Let me go. Get the hell off me!”

Eileen’s arms were locked, one monk on each side.

She struggled. “Get the hell . . . ”

They dragged her to where she’d stood before.

After lifting her head, Chiyo paused for a moment, as if her eyes registered recognition, then swiftly plunged the dagger into her belly, below the navel. Her face contorted as the blade cut across horizontally, concluding with an upward jerk.

Toshi stood behind Chiyo, a sword drawn and poised. She completed the final ritual of seppuku with a single slashing arc.

Blood spurted as Chiyo’s head thudded to the ground but still attached by a strip of skin at the throat. With a white cloth, a priest rushed to collect the head, severed it with a cut, wrapped the cloth around and put it in a basket.

Eileen cursed and screamed as everyone from the crowd grimaced in silence. Once the mumblings subsided, dark clouds rippled the sky and the humming sound returned.

©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)