This story was written because of recent comments I heard about an art piece I did about 2 years earlier, and a successful storytelling debut at Heliopolis cafe. The picture is of the Shirime, an unusual Japanese yōkai. The original was done in pencil and I have it framed in my bedroom. I recently brought another one of my old works into the digital world (MILF BBC) and thought, what the hell, why not the shirime? In any case, we can all thank Julius for this forward momentum. This story takes place during my time doing the Shikoku Henro. You can watch videos of that here, the video linked is the morning of all this bullshit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV4IDaDAF2A&list=PLzWreHopjJbzu7Gq-E2-58oNh9hvVGrGj&index=6

The Shirime Yōkai
by Joshua Linvers, December 9th 2024

I was about 5 days into my pilgrimage on Shikoku’s 88 Temple route, passing through a small town called Kokufucho in Tokushima prefecture—that’s around Temple #16, Kanon-ji, though I guess that doesn’t really matter. It had been raining lightly that morning, and I’d made the bad choice of wearing a combination of synthetic pants and underwear that didn’t breathe. By evening, after trudging some 30 kilometers, 18km of it in the wrong direction, the fabric had chafed my skin raw. A sharp rash flared between my buttcheeks, so constant and miserable it drowned out almost every other sensation, only toppled by my shitty mood of navigating with google maps so poorly.

By the time I checked into my wonderful ryokan, I was too tired to care much about it. I’d declined dinner service to save a few thousand-yen, reasoning that a drug store is just down the street. I sat up on my futon and finished the bottle of sake I’d been carrying. I just needed to reset; a bit of sleep would do wonders.

After an hour or so editing my video footage for Instagram, I realized I still needed something to treat my chafing, and probably better sooner than later. The thought of going out again felt like torture, but I still needed to eat too. The rain had mostly stopped, leaving a slick sheen on the narrow streets, and I pulled on my damp runners and headed outside with the buzz of sake coursing through my veins.

Side streets in Shikoku can be surprisingly dark at night as there are a lot of little patches of farmland between houses. There are streetlights, but they’re sometimes far apart, and their halos are swallowed by the profound darkness. The convenience store’s neon sign was a distant glow. The air smelled fresh, almost sweet, after the rain. I stumbled along, listening to the patter of my footsteps. My butthole was throbbing, making me wince every few steps.

As I passed through a particularly dark stretch of road, along a retaining wall of a property, I heard it: “Sumimasen…” A quiet, polite voice. I stopped. I hadn’t noticed anyone as I was passing. I pivoted, peering into the void. “Hai…?” I replied, concerned, but cautious.

There, just outside the circle of streetlight, someone stood hunched over next to the wall, their back turned toward me. I could barely make out their silhouette. I asked if they were okay. The figure didn’t straighten up; instead, it seemed to shuffle towards me backwards, closer to the light. I found myself stepping back instinctively, feeling uneasy. The shape moved with a stiff, unnatural gait, its feet dragging as if reluctant to reveal itself.

Then, in the dim glow, I saw it more clearly: the figure’s kimono hitched up, revealing a big, naked ass—and not a normal one either! Where there should have been an anus, there was an eye. An enormous, bloodshot eye, surrounded by irritated, swollen flesh. It strained outward as though trying to escape its own socket, the lids slick with some disturbing moisture. It blinked with a soft, wet sound. I was taken aback, and too stunned to even cry out. My stomach lurched, and I just stood there, mouth half-open, not sure if I was awake or trapped in some drunken nightmare. “Can I have a moment of your time?”

Before I could move, a sudden beam of intense light hit my eyes. I flinched, half-blinded. A car’s headlights had cut through the darkness—just an ordinary sedan passing through the otherwise deserted street. As I blinked away the spots in my vision, the monstrous figure was gone. There was no hunched silhouette, no bulging, blinking anus-eye. Only the tires of a car crawling across the wet pavement and the hum of distant vending machines.

My heart hammered in my chest. For a long moment, I stood there, replaying what I’d just seen. Had I dozed off and dreamed while walking? Did the sake hit me harder than I’d thought? Could it have been a yokai? — A Japanese ghost.

With no answers, I continued onwards, COSMOS was just a few hundred meters ahead. I got some instant noodles, ice cream, a can of Yebisu, and the vaseline I’d come out for. As I walked back under the same quiet darkness, nothing happened.

Back in my room, I wondered: should I ever tell anyone about what I saw out there? The memory was like a fever dream. Maybe it was best left as another surreal footnote of my long pilgrimage. Or maybe I’d share it with someone one day—an odd traveller’s tale to break the silence. I applied a generous amount of vaseline and went to sleep.

Looking back on it, I wonder if our imagination can be a link to another world, and that somehow through fatigue and alcohol I bridged the gap to it. Guess I’ll have to experiment with that more.