Hut

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Birthing Hut

Dedicated to Sakutarō Hagiwara

A man was trimming reeds from the riverside, weaving a roof for the birthing hut he had built for his pregnant wife. When it was complete, he left his wife alone and returned to the river and knelt in the reeds. As he waited he prayed to the goddess Amaterasu for the safety of mother and child. At sunset, the woman appeared before the man and said, “Return in seven days’ time and then I will show you the child.”

The man longed to see his child that instant but agreed to the mother’s request. At nightfall, hungry and desolate, he untied his canoe and rowed back to the village.

Back home, the thought of waiting seven days became torturous. The man had a necklace of seven curved jewels, and for solace he took to removing one jewel from it at the end of each day, and thus passed the time: the sun rising in the east, setting in the west, then he would lop off a jewel and restring the necklace.

On the sixth day, he couldn’t wait any longer. At night he rowed his canoe up river, tied it to the reeds and snuck toward the hut, now so quiescent that it seemed lifeless, save for the vibrant autumn reed scents wafting from the roof to his nose. Softly without entering the man opened the door into the darkness, and on the bed of reeds across the room he heard a measured rasping sound. He poked his head inside to look. His wife was not there, so the man entered, and more softly than he had opened the door he stole to the bedside where he let out a bloodcurdling scream that shook the reeds all the way back to the village.

The reason for his reaction was sound. His wife had given birth to seven albino rat snakes…

The shock the father feels upon seeing the snakes is the feeling that I get when I read my own writings.