Memories of the Past

My friend's story.

That guy who I said can see ghosts, once went with his wife to a newly built, large shopping mall. The shops had been constructed on a large plot of land at the base of a mountain, and as such it was very hard to go around to them all in one day. Him and his wife were tired from walking, and said they would return on their day off the following week, to go to the places they still didn't see. He put their vinyl shopping bags in the car trunk, and was about to get into the driver's seat.

Near the lot, he somehow saw something that didn't match with the location. That was a single-story private house that he thought had been built quite a long time ago. Isn't it peculiar to have an old house near a shopping mall? Feeling uneasy, he couldn't take his eyes off it. And then a woman's face peeked out from the wooden-framed window. Moreover, that woman had a hairstyle he'd never seen aside from in historical plays. He was looking for too long, and met eyes with her. In that instant she laughed and the inside of her mouth was pitch black. He felt a chill and hurriedly got into the driver's seat, returning home just like that.

The next day off. He was being urged by his wife to go to those shops again, but remembered that woman's face and frankly didn't want to go. But even more than that woman, he hated losing to his wife's moods, and reluctantly headed out. When he pulled his car into the parking lot of the shops, he searched for that private house to avoid it, because on the contrary he didn't want to see it.

Nevertheless... The house wasn't there. 'What? How strange... it was surely over there, but could it have been torn down?'
Tilting his head in confusion, he approached a shop entrance and asked a security guard, "Has the old private house over there been demolished?"
The guard told him, "A private house? There was no such thing. Because before the shops were built here, there was just spacious farming fields."

Without hearing any more of that, his wife wanted to get on with shopping.
’Could it have been memories of the past on that plot of land?' he thought, laughing silently.

<Coach's Sermon>

Isshi, you omitted the beginning on purpose. I'll write the reason. Just as you wrote "person who can see ghosts" in a previous story, that label brings with it many incongruities. Seeing ghosts... that is to say, if only people with this special ability are able to witness things, the complete "personal statement" becomes weak when turned into a ghost story. If I say "I saw," then with just that it becomes a ghost story in every way. Furthermore, in the case of this story, it isn't clear what role seeing ghosts plays. Just like anything else, when you see it you'd generally say "What could that be?" and it's unnatural that he didn't look to his wife for confirmation. And if it's a personal ability that he's conscious of, and he sees such things normally, in the moment he saw an unnatural thing it's strange that he wasn't aware of it and instantly saying "I was seeing things again." If I can say more, I don't really know whether he saw the past with his ability, or whether he saw a memory of that plot of land. If he saw it with only his own ability, without the effect of the land, it wouldn't be strange if he saw the past of various other plots of land before this, so I would say that instead of a way to see it, it was natural. Usually he doesn't see things, and it's surely because he can't see anything that it's related to the expression "past memories of that plot of land." Wouldn't you think that, as a ghost story, the existence of a "person who can see ghosts" doesn't really build up a big meaning, Isshi-kun? Although the fact that her teeth are black in this story comes from the ancient custom of married women dyeing their teeth black, this alone is just like a postscript, unrelated to the stranger reality... it seems. Rather, the reality is that he has a state of mind of... not wanting to offend his wife.