The House in Which Nightmares Dwell 13.4

[touchturnfly]

4

Hirota surveyed the garden at night. The atmosphere was deadly silent and grew cold. Several stars were visible. Even in a city with such a bad atmosphere, the air seemed to clear up a little when it becomes fall.

After inhaling a deep breath, Hirota closed the shutter. After neatly closing the door, he bid Midori and Reiko, who were pleasantly chatting, a good night and headed to the base.

In the base, Naru was watching over the equipment on his own.

"What are the girls doing?"

Hirota said and Naru pointed at the second floor.

"They're currently putting effort into purifying the spirits."

When he looked at the monitor, he saw the pair in the 4.5 tatami mat room on the second floor. He watched them for a while; they had closed their eyes, were hanging their heads as if they were silently praying for some reason, and raised their heads as if they'd given up and were talking. It seemed like they weren't actually putting much effort into it at all.

"Is it exorcism? Or purification?"

"What they're doing is purification."

"Is there a difference?"

"Exorcism is classified as forcibly removing spirits, while purification is the cleansing of spirits, but I wonder how it is in reality."

"You don't know it?"

Naru shrugged.

"Japanese psychic terminology has many ambiguous words. It's troublesome."

‘So it's like that?’ Hirota looked at Naru's profile.

"-- Can I ask you something?"

Naru turned his gaze towards Hirota and silently prompted.

"What on earth is a ghost?"

Naru lightly shrugged.

"Who knows, -- If I knew that I wouldn't be here. I'd go home and write a thesis."

"But it's not like you don't know anything at all, do you?"

"It's closer to not at all, I suppose."

"Why? Is it because the phenomena alone are scarce?"

"Because spirits and electric measuring instruments are not on good terms, I guess. Once they start moving the equipment will stop instantly, so it's not possible record any valid data."

"But you probably have a lot of experience if you do things like this?"

Naru stared back at Hirota when he asked this. In a fluster Hirota added to what he said before.

"No, it's not like I've come to side with the believers."

"A person's experiences is worthless, Hirota-san. It's useless if no remaining data can be taken as evidence."

"So it's like that?"

"At least, that's my way of doing things."

"But, don’t you have something like -- a hypothesis guided from some experience?"

"Are you interested in something like that?"

He smiled cynically at him. Hirota looked down in disappointment.

"... If there is something there, there must be some physical substance. If so, why hasn't that substance been discovered yet up until now? With this much progress in science, why have neither its causes or its laws been discovered?"

This was a problem that had always been on Hirota's mind. When he tried this problem on Saki, there was never an answer that could satisfy him.

She always said, 'Science is not omnipotent'.

'Is it really like that?' Hirota thought. Science certainly isn't omnipotent. There are many things that even modern science cannot comprehend, but it seemed like things like psychic phenomena rejected every kind of understanding.

"I think unproductive debates are a waste of time."

"Then won't you tell me if there is something? Are there really spirits? Is that something like a soul to humans?"

Naru coldly gazed at him.

"Do synthetic fibers have a soul?"

"-- Huh?"

"Otherwise, for what reason do spirits wear clothes? Do natural fibers have a soul?"

"Well, true. -- But, what if it's the case?"

"Information."

Hirota inclined his head.

"Sorry, but I don't get it."

"The contents inside a human's head is a collection of electric information to begin with. If that is preserved after death and possible for another person to read, then it's not strange that the spirits are wearing clothes."

"Is that so?"

"When a person remembers his own experiences, there are many things he remembers through the perspective of an outsider, as if though they were filmed by a camera. When remembering a scene of facing and talking with someone, he doesn’t remember the face of the companion in front of them, but he remembers being face-to-face with the other party."

"... … Now that you mention it, that's true."

"Humans process information in that manner. Therefore when someone retrieves that information, the information about that person is included. -- That information is burned into a space and received by a person. The person who receives it will decipher the information with their own experience or knowledge, and reproduce it inside their head."

"... … Ah, is that the reason why ghosts wear clothes? Moreover, that’s why a spirit of the Nara period wears garments of the Edo period."

"Even if you see the same spirit, the evidence will differ depending on the person who sees it. They can understand the words of a foreign spirit, or understand the words of an ancient spirit. You have to think about this so-called of decoding within the mind, there is no adequate explanation."

"Right. Then what about possession?"

"When a spirit presses on an opinion which is called information, a thought as a hint or otherwise retrieved information is burned into another person."

"What about exorcism?"

"But the question is why mere information is being preserved. For example, assuming that strong thoughts are burned in a certain place. Thereupon, what is referred to as exorcism, is not about making fixed thoughts disappear, but it is rather about disassembling a place."

After Naru said that, he bitterly smiled.

"Judging from eyewitness reports concerning spirits, spirits are not material somehow. They appear to be a mere collection of information. Taking this as a grounds for an argument, there are also scholars who say that a spiritual vision is a telepathic phenomenon in which the thoughts of the deceased are received, but that telepathy is unidentifiable, there is no claim of the existence of a soul or any abnormality.”

"... … Well, I suppose so. "

"Furthermore, there's a phenomenon which we call poltergeist. How can information decrease the temperature? How can it make objects move? Even if certain evidence conforms to spirit being information, it does not mean that we can explain all psychic phenomena. Rather, there are many more things that cannot be explained. -- To say nothing of a hypothesis, it will make no sense."

"There's a long way to go huh."

Naru sighed.

"Really. ... ... Sometimes I think how much less troubling it would be if I were a denier."

He sounded as if he were truly fed up, so Hirota smiled a little.

At that moment the light suddenly went out.

---

Back to Chapter 13.3 | Forward to Chapter 14.1

Notes

- The Japanese terminology is confusing, because the words 除霊 (jorei) vs 浄霊 (jourei) sound similar but could both be translated to "exorcism". However, the 除 in 除霊 (jorei) means "remove; eliminate; exclude" and the 浄 in 浄霊 (jourei) means "clean; purify; cleanse". Therefore, 除霊 (jorei) is translated to "exorcism" and 浄霊 (jourei) is translated to "purification" in this chapter.

- The Nara period covers the years from AD 710 to 794. The Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1868.