When I was traveling the country last August, I heard an impossible story. 

In one of my fits of loneliness I sought to venture to places where men did not normally travel. A habit of mine, to find reprieve in the sanctity of solitude as though it were the cure to such things. Places untraveled were not normally the goal of such walks—after all, my one good memory of having met a like-minded man atop the Skytree remains ever nostalgic despite the tourism of such a high-profile location. However, as I had been away from home for a week by then, my head wandered to an idea of watching the boats pass into and out of the docks of Osaka. In such a singular desire, I drove late at night into the ports. I passed warehouses with interminable darkness and felt the eyes of God reaching out to me through them. That was farce, of course. I despised yawning portals like that from the time I was a boy, so seeing that it was already near four in the morning as I glanced at the silhouettes in the darkness made some vague impression on my heart that I should feel fear. I did fear, but it was an intangible and unactionable fear. The open door of the garages and warehouses faded away into the night as I drove. 

I came beneath the Nanko Sky Tower. I parked the rental car at the entrance lot and made my way to the water. A long dock stretched on, and I recalled having been there once with a classmate during our high school trip. He had caught a small fish and paraded it as a trophy, a good memory. The year before that same classmate had moved to Hokkaido, an unfortunate consequence. The sight of the dock made me miss him, so I turned and walked north. There, amid the darkness, I could see the lighthouse at the end of the southern Nanko breakwater. It pulsed far away and I recalled liking such things as lonely lighthouses. Ah, I could think, there alone is a soul like mine. I admit that recalling such things is quite embarrassing, but were it not clear the uncertainty of my grasp on my own malaise, perhaps my listening to the story may itself seem odd. I was in a particular mood that night, and so did not dwell on other particular things which, much later, took me aback. 

I did not rush across the breakwater. Indeed, it was probably better that I did not. Wind battered my neck fiercely, trying to drag me over the rocks and into the swelling bay. A ship's horn seemed to impress upon the wind with such dedication, though ultimately my flesh remained stronger than invisible forces like that. A rogue wave would occasionally crash against the breakwater and send foam into the air, spattering me with salt. Nevertheless, my self-imposed exile from the world of man bade me on until at last the whole of the kilometer of the breakwater was at my back. Except for the streetlights surrounding the tower, the shore from where I had come was just as black and un-endearing as those maws which had been left open to the cold of night. I sought to spite such darkness. I looked out at the water. 

Yet no sooner had I captured a distant freighter in my eyes than a voice came to me. 

“Are you going to jump, sir?” 

I looked down to see a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, staring up at me from the edge of the lighthouse platform. A six pack of beers sat beside him to one side and another six cans lay strewn on the concrete to the other. He had a mild face with little impression, but his hair was flat and dark of a certain punk style I did not favor. He had spoken politely, despite his hair, but I did not return the favor in my reply. 

“I hadn’t planned on it.” 

“So, are you going to take me back?” 

“Back where, exactly?” 

“Why, to the hospital?” 

We stared at each other for a few moments, illuminated by the red beacon of the lighthouse. The thought occurred, trite though it was, that I could kick him into the water and steal his beer. I would probably get away with it too. It passed with the salty wind and left us alone again, staring at each other. I could see a grain of fear pass from his right eye to his left and fancied I could imagine it flittering away from within his ear. If I was a villain I would have victimized him sooner. He laughed first, clearing the tension and holding up a can of beer. 

“Would you like to hear my story?” 

“Something devised by a drunk guy before dawn? I don’t fancy that to be something worth hearing.” 

“Then would you drink with me? I’ll speak, if you don’t listen, then so be it.” 

Having said the word dawn, the idea of watching the sunrise from the breakwater appealed. In my forlorn mood and desiring to glimpse such providence, I took the beer and sat at an arms distance from the man. I introduced myself as S-sensei, and, in doing so, I heard the length of his story, though I had not listened at the time. 

*

The deaths occurred in a bar near the docks in lower Osaka. It was no place of great note, neither bereft of morality nor lacking dinge. It was a bar near the docks. The small business had only a single door to face the road—which followed along one of the flood-walls of the waterfront. So close was it to the water that on a handful of occasions policemen had been called to let rope down to drunks who had tripped into the shallow waters below. The bar itself had no name, but due to the hazardous proximity to the retaining wall, most predictably called it The Drunk Swimmer. Such a name held about as much weight as the words of a prophet in a minefield. Many in the area only wanted the liquor and felt little else for the water than a drawn compulsion to tread upon it again in search of money and fare. Most of the men who went there were travelers and boatmen. 

The mistress, Kodetsuno Kobo, had inherited such a thing from her late husband—the late Kodetsuno Shinichiwabe, who had built his fortune in textiles near Kofu before moving to Osaka and finding poverty. Kobo kept only a single employee; a woman named Shishiwabari Izuki who flirted and only sometimes slept with the more handsome customers. Izuki was half-age, having lived for no more than thirty-five years and yet carrying herself as a woman a decade younger. Such was the consternation of her mistress, but Izuki could carry a tray straight and she demanded little in terms of wage. So the terms of her employment were agreeable to both women. Under Kobo’s shrewd management the bar remained as it was before her husband's death, and she never agreed to meandering men offering love-addled investment or expansion. 

On one particular night near the end of April, a man wearing a cotton-white hakama entered the bar. Kobo was first to notice him, welcoming him with a smile while internally critiquing his choice of dress. She thought he must have been a very arrogant man, and indeed she resented such eccentric customers because it was they who most often wanted to take her away or uplift her from her work. Izuki next noticed him, though she merely glanced from her stool while sliding a glass of whisky to one of the bar's customers. The man who had been prescribed drink did not immediately notice the man in the white hakama, for his name was Katsuhara Kinpo and he had no need to notice frivolous men like that. He was much too busy admiring Izuki’s substantial assets, a gold band resting coldly within the interior pocket of his suit-coat. The second of the three men there that night, Suwabara Gozuke, sat near the door and heard the man enter. He too, however, took little care for the comings and goings of patrons. He remained in his drink, only occasionally taking a moment to check his watch to make sure he had time to leave and sleep before setting out on the ship which employed him the next day. There was a scar on his left thumb which called his eyes whenever that hand pulled the timepiece to be observed. Kobo wondered if he had cared at all for the time, or if that scar was the single thing in the whole world which could have deterred him. 

The final patron was a young man of nearly twenty-three. His name was Nishigata Renkei. He was a student at the University, but that night he watched from the corner of the room with jealousy. Izuki had pulled herself up to Kinpo and interlocked their legs while they spoke. Such closeness startled the students' sensibilities, but after such surprise calmed, he felt spite. Izuki was beautiful, and quite young—or so young Renkei thought, attributing her thin frame, impoverished, and her sweet charm, quite learned, to some youthfulness—that she should waste her time on old misers like Katsuhara Kinpo, the owner of a middling fishing outfit, insulted his personal taste. If he was not so clearly in lustful love of Izuki, he may have been passionate enough to hate her for being so infatuated. So all of his disdain, however, Renkei had indeed seen the man in the white hakama. 

For the man sat at his table. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You are Nishigata Renkei, I did not expect to see you here.” 

“Where else would I be?” 

The man in the white hakama had long, dark hair that was unkempt. It hung as though it were wet to the sides of his head. His face was long and thin, and the nose in the midst of the face protruded long and round at the point. His face was sallow, pale as though not a drop of blood had gone through it. He had a death mask which moved to form words, and its bald yet sharp chin bore life through such movement alone. 

“In your dorm. I believe tomorrow your class is Western Philosophy.” 

“How would you know something like that?” 

The man looked back to others in the bar. By that time Kinpo had noticed the man but had otherwise ignored him in favor of the woman pleasing him. Suwabara returned to his pointless ritual after taking in the sight of the strange man and feeling un-impressed. With not another soul there taking note of the stranger who had entered, the man in the white hakama chose to introduce himself. 

“I don’t have a name, but I was once called Shi-bo. I am a death god.” 

“Ah, I see, so you’re a god of death then? That’s a laugh.” 

“In a moment Suwabara Gozuke will collapse on the bar and die. This is not because I have wished him dead, or that he is unhealthy. He will die because he encountered me, and because I chose to enter this bar to escape the wind. Do you understand?” 

“No I don–” 

Before Renkei could finish his rebuke, a clatter sounded as Suwabara’s head hit the bar. He knocked his glass to the side, and after its contents spilled on the counter it rolled off and shattered on the tile floors. Kobo went to him and shook him. The noise had roused the flirtations of Kinpo and Izuki, the latter taking cover from conflict behind the broad back of her suitor. They approached while Kobo slid her fingers under Suwabara’s chin and recoiled in shock. Her scream was all that broke the silence created by the shattered glass. 

Kinpo took Izuki by the shoulders to lead her away from the body while Kobo fainted from the shock. They sat at the bar and regarded Shibo and Renkei with concern. Kinpo was the first to speak up amidst the renewed quiet. 

“He’s dead.” 

“Just now,” Izuki sobbed, embracing Kinpo’s chest, “I could almost hear a voice telling me to go to him, that I should comfort his poor heart. I know working away from his family is hard, I should have gone to him.” 

Shibo regarded Renkei. 

“You should leave, though it’s a boorish pastime, you would do better studying anything at all than staying here.” 

“What about them?” 

Renkei looked at Kinpo and Izuki. Though he had no clue what had happened, or even if the man really was a death god, the fact remained that Suwabara was dead and Shibo had something to do with it. The man in the white hakama sighed while he spoke. 

“Katsuhara Kinpo is a womanizer who garnishes his crew's wages at every chance. I don’t pity the death of a man like that. As for Izuki, I do not believe she would reject a death, it is only the death of those she loves which she finds reproachful.”

Hearing the words caused the fear-struck pair to nearly freeze in terror. 

“Why?” Renkei asked, likewise too afraid to move.

“There is no why, there only is the matter of their death. I entered, and so they will die.” 

“Why must they die?” 

“Were it something in my power to condemn, I would. I do not kill them. Fate does.” 

“The fate that they have met you?”

“Indeed.” 

Kinpo suddenly shoved Izuki to the floor and ran for the door. He only made it a few paces before clutching his chest and collapsing. His death was otherwise quiet. Izuki could not even scream as she crawled to him and cradled his lifeless head in her lap. Renkei did not understand the compassion of that woman, and realized how little he truly knew her, and how foolish his romantic whim had been. That same whim which had carried him, ignorantly, before what was certain to be the clutches of an unimportant, inconsequential, death. 

“Have you heard the phrase; approaching death’s door?” 

Renkei nodded in reply to Shibo’s question. 

“Izanami, watching man, came to resent that they admired death as much as to believe it was something they could approach, and not something which would inevitably come to them. Arrogance, Nishigata. A profound arrogance covers mankind. The feeling that one is in control of one's life until the moment of death. I am a traveler, and where I go there begets death.” 

“Then why am I not dead?” 

Behind Shibo, Renkei watched as Izuki’s figure slouched over Kinpo. It was a quiet and sudden thing, but it drove Renkei to her. He shook her and her head fell limp to the side. A shallow smile wet with tears told Renkei all that was to be known. Izuki, too, had passed on into the next world. Renkei looked over the counter to see that Kobo was not breathing, her splayed body no longer bearing in mind any considerations for appearance. Her sharp features relaxed and wrinkled, showing to him just how much the loss of her husband must have pressured her fragile soul. Renki turned to find Shibo was standing over him, a full head taller. 

“Izanami-no-Mikoto favors your future deeds, so she has spared you. However the grace of a deity is a fickle thing, young Nishigata. You should return to your dorm. Leave, and you shall not die, nor will the deaths here be placed on your shoulders by the judgement of Man.” 

Shibo took the glass Izuki had intended for Kinpo and drank the whole thing. Shibo grimaced his tight skin and exhaled deeply from exhaustion. He set the glass on the bar again and walked around Renkei without another word. As the door shut on the man in the white hakama, Renkei was surrounded by corpses. 

*

I have always been agreeable while drunk. Once the spectre of my companion’s shinigami had left, I laughed and wondered aloud about the meaning of such a story. The young man laughed along with me and shrugged. It was a ridiculous story, but it was one he was fond of, despite itself. 

“I’ve watched three men throw themselves into the water here. It’s a good place for it, not the best, of course, but if you're insistent on drowning then I suppose it’s not the worst. I really won’t judge you for it if you jump, by the way. The last guy did once the story was over. He took it very seriously. He even got offended by Shibo’s condemnation of man’s arrogance in the face of death. He jumped in to spite Izanami.” 

“I hadn’t planned on it.” 

“Yes, well, I did.” 

The drink sullied my senses, so I laughed at the revelation. 

“You did, did you? Why, that’s about the dumbest thing I’ve heard all night!” 

“My name is Nishigata Ichishibo, that was a story my father told me when I was a boy. He was Nishigata Renkei. Do you believe in the gods, S-sensei?” 

My spirits were lifted. In the distance I could just make out the first low light blue glimmer of the day as it approached. A ship rode in from the sea and slowly blocked out my vision before passing on into the bay. It would have been beautiful. However, my body felt heavy, so I let my back rest on the concrete ground behind me as I stared at the stars. Demeter, I thought, seemed to have been more beautiful when I was alone than with company. So it surprised me how that dancing maiden in the sky reminded me so clearly of the source of my malaise. Not a word the guy was saying had gotten through my skull, inebriated on self-loathing and stagnation as I had been at the time. 

“I believe the gods are just as miserable as us. Sure, Izamani-no-Mikoto, the mother of the gods and the nation, created a god of death to walk around and murder people who happen to see him. Why not? That’s just about as sensible as any other myth.” 

I passed out on the concrete. 

The following morning a worker who had come out to maintain the lighthouse woke me. He made a very funny face at me in anger, staring from beneath his white hard hat. I pulled myself to my feet, climbing the fabric of his coveralls. Out on the water dozens of ships moved into and out of the port at Osaka. The waves were shallow and blue with a brush of white over the sharp edges. It was a lovely sight cut apart by the far off vapor trail of an airplane leaving for lands beyond my comprehension. 

The cans were all gone, and Nishigata had also left at some point. My wallet and keys were still in their pockets, and I had left my cell phone in the car. That guy was no thief, and I felt lightened by the realization.

I returned to my car, less trifled by the winds of day than of night. After only a short drive into the city I had reached my hotel room again. My laptop remained open after I had left it the night before. A single click of the spacebar brought the desktop up. Without much else to do I sat and pondered my interaction with Nishigata. It was not that I did not believe him, after all it was entirely possible his father had really told him that story. Then the obvious step forward was to validate the thing. The mysterious death of four people at a bar? That was something ripe with intrigue. 

I typed a few keywords into the search bar. A few blogs had been talking about a series of deaths in the late eighties. I followed the links until I reached a library archive. The administrators had scanned newspaper pages and posted them online as free files. After some effort, I managed to find the following snippet:

The deaths of four individuals at The Drunk Swimmer last month remain unsolved. The Suwabara family, related to one of the deceased, has put out a reward for any information regarding the sudden death of their father and husband. Their efforts are supported by the Nishigata family, whose son was discovered dead in the waters outside the establishment, having fallen from the retaining wall.

An impossible story. Young men are apt to create spooky tales like that, asking so little from the listener except a bit of curiosity. I was curious, after all, despite my circumstances and the heartbreak that led me to the breakwater that night. Perhaps because of it, and if I were not so sober a man when I was, in fact, sober, then I would probably have succumbed to superstition and been quite startled. Ichishibo, if such a limerick was indeed his name, must have fancied himself to be some villain. 

In his story, Renkei, frightened through to his soul, ran from the place and tripped over the walkway stones, colliding with the waves. It was unlucky, then, that so late at night not a person had seen him fall. The water was shallow, but to tread it for hours, and in fright, seemed unmanageable. Then he may have hit his head on the ground, or his stupidity in terror had forsaken him the sense to swim to safety. My theorizing lasted less time than had my interest in the article. 

I closed my laptop and left Osaka that same day. In my mind at the time Nishigata was no more than an illusion I had created from my own youthful daydreaming. Perhaps even a nightmare, were I not so agreeable. In retrospect, when I recall the more desirable details of the encounter, he may have been a prankster with a fondness for old crime mysteries. Ultimately, however, I do not think about the man much. II do sometimes recall Shibo, the man in the white hakama, and marvel at what a dazzling figure he was in the face of mankind’s arrogance.