Eden
A story of my male cousin.
My cousin, living in Hayama in the Kanagawa Prefecture, had a strange personal experience when he was young.
On his way home from the primary school, he usually walked straight up the mountain trail alone. His house was built on land cleared out of a slightly elevated mountain, so the route zigzagged many times, but the quickest way was to take a straight path from the bottom to the top.
Although in the summer days were long, it got dark around evening all the same. It was even darker up in the mountains. He ascended while looking down at the ground, but when he suddenly glanced upward on a whim, there was a vast field extending outward before his eyes... He was astonished at seeing this spectacle for the first time, and for a while stood there with his hands on his hips and not moving. But somehow or other he felt like he wasn't able to move forward on his own and hurried back down to the original path to return by the school route.
As soon as he got home, he told his mother about the field he had seen some time ago, but she wasn't really paying attention. Anyway, one would expect that up in the mountains there were no such fields, nor was there any level ground...
For a little while after that he commuted via the school route, but when the lingering enthusiasm awakened he tried taking the mountain path once more, although that spectacle never did appear a second time.
Even now that more than twenty years have passed, that image is burned into his mind and will never be forgotten.
My cousin, living in Hayama in the Kanagawa Prefecture, had a strange personal experience when he was young.
On his way home from the primary school, he usually walked straight up the mountain trail alone. His house was built on land cleared out of a slightly elevated mountain, so the route zigzagged many times, but the quickest way was to take a straight path from the bottom to the top.
Although in the summer days were long, it got dark around evening all the same. It was even darker up in the mountains. He ascended while looking down at the ground, but when he suddenly glanced upward on a whim, there was a vast field extending outward before his eyes... He was astonished at seeing this spectacle for the first time, and for a while stood there with his hands on his hips and not moving. But somehow or other he felt like he wasn't able to move forward on his own and hurried back down to the original path to return by the school route.
As soon as he got home, he told his mother about the field he had seen some time ago, but she wasn't really paying attention. Anyway, one would expect that up in the mountains there were no such fields, nor was there any level ground...
For a little while after that he commuted via the school route, but when the lingering enthusiasm awakened he tried taking the mountain path once more, although that spectacle never did appear a second time.
Even now that more than twenty years have passed, that image is burned into his mind and will never be forgotten.
<Coach's Instruction>
It's a good story, Isshi. It gripped my heart.This is a good chance for me to teach you one trick with scary stories. I think scary stories are like paintings that have been converted into words. In this case, I wouldn't say that he glanced upward "on a whim." Because it's a dark mountain path, I'm certain that he looked up when he came to a world where light was overflowing all at once. This situation paints such a picture. The change from darkness to light, from narrow to spacious, gives a little advance recognition of the scene which suddenly appears to him... So don't forget this. Another important point is what did he see when you say "field"? I think that a "field" could be a wasteland, a grassy plain, or a farm, so what could be your reasoning for it? I would also think that even when he's standing around and not moving, his state of mind must be active, and surely "somehow or other" isn't enough. The feelings of the person who experienced the situation are important, right? However, you're a Romanticist in that you expressed this story as "Eden."