His hangover the following morning was intense. He stayed in bed all day in total darkness. As night fell, he began to sweat and became delirious. He was confused and heard voices. He saw the ghost of the master brewer. Felt the village history like a tumor growing inside his throbbing head.
He had dreams of being trapped underground. Dreams of becoming other people and driving them like you’d drive a car.
The next time he woke, it was morning. He was tired and his stomach ached. He’d been in bed for two days. Something felt different inside of him. He felt it turning around in his guts. Heard it crying out like a newborn. Or maybe those thoughts were his own. He remembered dreaming of the vinegar factory. In his delirium, Kinoko’s voice had added a new detail to the story.
“They say the disgraced master brewer went into the mountains with his wife. No one knows what happened to her–he returned alone–but his sake had become miraculously delicious. He had discovered something in the foothills behind the shrine. And he brought it back.”
When Jack felt well enough to leave the house, he went directly to Kinoko. He knew exactly where she was. He could feel her somehow. Like he was in her head. She’d been calling him. Calling the thing inside of him. The whole town was humming silently.
He passed the fields and the farmers stood still as scarecrows. They weren’t watching him, but he felt a thousand eyes.
The alleycats don’t run away as he approaches. They don’t run and hide in the shadows. Long white hairs slither around their eyes and saliva runs from their open mouths.
The vinegar factory loomed on the horizon; dominating everything. Spreading its inky blackness into the sky. A place that could eat your soul from a distance. Rotting your organs. The organs die and, eventually, the body dies. Not metaphorical, even though it is not tangible. It literally eats you, but not physically. To understand this is to understand that the body is something more than material.
In the doorway, Kinoko meets him, but she has the face of an old woman.
“Come inside,” she says. “You must be nervous. You’re shifting uncomfortably.”
“My legs keep falling asleep,” Jack mumbles, pulling them stiffly forward.
“I think you should go downstairs to see mother,” she says.
“Yeah, I need to see mother right now,” he replies, feeling the tendrils tickling behind his eyes.