I’m going to pass by the general store on the way home, so I’m driving straight to pops’ place.
“Hello.”
His wife isn’t coming out today. Everything gets damp when it rains all the time like this.
“Welcome Shou. And Pochi and Yuma. Thanks for coming.”
She greets us, and Pochi and Yuma let her hug them.
“You’re going to get wet doing that.”
I did wipe them with a towel, but I feel like they’re more soaked under the feathers.
“Then I have to bring a towel. Ah, here’s your package, Shou.”
She doesn’t seem to mind, and points to a box on top of the shoe shelf. It’s pretty big.
“Thank you. I’ll bring the rest.”
I go back to the mini truck, take off the wrapping paper, and see the assortment of fruits. Good, good. When I go back and hand it to her, she opens her eyes widely.
“Eeh? Oh my, really? You didn’t have to spend your money like this.”
Apparently she also loves fruit. She’s smiling even more than usual. I guess there’s a world of difference between rice crackers and fruit. I really can’t compete with Aikawa.
“It’s for always looking after me. Please take it.”
“Oh my, thank you. Pochi, Yuma, do you want vegetable scraps?”
Even her voice is different. I never knew these fruit assortments were so popular with ladies. I figured if I was going to go with something sweet, it would have to be chocolates.
And then I hand the pit vipers to pops.
“Oh, that’s a good haul. At this point, I’m thinking Mount Sawa is actually a nest of pit vipers. Thank your chickens.”
“Yes, I really am thankful.”
Pops takes the pit vipers to the back, all excited. Some of the guys in the village have been complaining that they want to drink already, because some are already soaking in alcohol.
“They’ve got to stay soaked for at least half a year, or you won’t feel the pit viper.”
He says, but at this point, he must have a lot of bottles with pit viper sake. I don’t even want to imagine how it will be in a year. He’s going to have a whole storage room of them. Terrifying.
His wife tells me to go get drinks from storage, so I do that, and sit in front of him.
“You’re too serious, Shouta. You should drink every once in a while.”
He says after he tries to give me a beer, and I signal with my hands that I don’t want any.
“No no, I need to get back to the mountain. And if I drive drunk, I might fall off a cliff.”
There are guardrails, but also a few places with nothing but stone curbs. If I make a small mistake while driving, I’m going off a cliff. I should do something about those areas soon.
“That’s true. You don’t wanna die out there.”
He says as he pours the beer in his own cup.
Even if none of that were true, you really shouldn’t drunk drive. And quite a bit of it stays in my system even the next day, if I drink too much.
The pickled vegetables are tasty.
“By the way, you said you wanted to talk with my chickens, but what happened?”
“Ah… About that…”
So basically, here’s what he says.
This is mostly a farming village, and there are a few water filled paddies too. This village coexists with all sorts of living creatures, but for some reason, there are too many tiger keelbacks this year.
“Two people have been bitten already. One was fine, but the other had to be taken to the hospital. And since there are a lot of them around the water filled paddies, it’s making it difficult to farm.”
“That is a problem. Actually, Pochi caught one the other day.”
“Ooh, of course your chickens can do that. That’s great.”
He sounds impressed.
Tiger keelbacks are typically timid, and rarely bite people. Even if they do, the fangs with poison are in the back of the jaw, so apparently if a bite is shallow enough, it won’t contain poison. But I’ve heard that the poison is stronger than pit viper’s, and they also have a poison gland in the neck, so if you apply pressure to it, poison comes out. That one is to finish off things like common Japanese toads when they eat them. Troubling stuff.
“Normally we don’t have to mind them too much, but we’ve been seeing them every day.”
“So my chickens…”
“Yes. With more snakes, there are fewer frogs. And do you know what happens when there are fewer frogs?”
“More bugs?”
They don’t want more of those bugs that eat rice plants and stuff like that.
“Yes.”
“The ecological balance breaks down. And so… Pochi and Yuma, the old man here wants to talk to you.”
I think frogs that come from abroad need to be exterminated, but it’s the opposite with ones that have called Japan their home for a long time. I don’t know why there are more tiger keelbacks, but I think my chickens will go after them if we ask.
“Hum, Pochi and Yuma, right? Thanks for always catching pit vipers. You know those snakes with black and red patterns? Those are called tiger keelbacks. There have been a lot of them lately, and it’s causing problems.”
Watching Pochi and Yuma listening to him makes me think my chickens really aren’t normal. And that’s to say nothing of pops, who’s having a serious conversation with chickens.
And when he’s done talking, Pochi clucks loudly, as if saying it understands.
“I see I see. So you’ll catch them? That’d be great.”
He says with a cheerful tone.
I see them scratching their feet on the dirt floor, and get a bad feeling, so I quickly hold Pochi.
It goes ‘kuwaaah!’, sounding very mad. But you were going to take off running, weren’t you? You were definitely heading to the rice paddy.
“Pochi, not today! We’ll come back another time, okay!?”
I keep saying that as Pochi pecks at me, until it finally calms down. It really was raring to go.
“…Chickens are incredible.”
Pops is taken aback. Pochi is being this impatient, but it’s actually a good chicken.
It is, isn’t it?
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