Crying | Short Story

Something was wrong even before I entered the village.

The pine trees planted on both sides of the road were swaying slightly, even though there was no wind. The tips of the needles were trembling, just a little, in a rhythmic way. The traveler didn't see it with his eyes. He felt it as a faint undulation of the ground transmitted through the soles of his feet.

A sensation as if the earth itself were breathing through the soles of his shoes.

The man stopped and adjusted the load on his back.

The village clung to the base of a cliff. There were a dozen or so houses, a pier, and fishing boats that had been pulled up and remained motionless. There were few people to be seen. Even though it was daytime, not a single piece of laundry was hung out to dry.

The village headman greeted the man in the dirt-floored entrance. He was around fifty, with dark shadows of fatigue under his eyes.

Where have you come from?

From the north, the man said. I heard there was a fishing village here. If I could borrow a meal and a place to stay for the night.

Unfortunately, we don't have the capacity for that right now, the headman stammered. An epidemic has broken out. It started about a month ago. It takes the children and the elderly first, with fever and headaches.

What about a doctor?

It takes three days to reach the next town. They came twice, but they said they didn't know the cause.

The man nodded. He didn't look particularly surprised.

Who are you? the headman asked, probing. You look like a traveler, but you are neither a merchant nor a mendicant monk.

I am just a passerby.

Is that all?

That is all, the man smiled slightly. It's just that I might be able to help. Or I might not. I won't know until I take a look.

The headman looked at the man in silence. He had the face of a man clutching at straws.

The man walked through the village.

He visited two houses of the sick. An old woman lying down with a high fever, and a boy who kept on deliriously muttering. The inside of the houses were dry and somehow too quiet. A silence as if all sound were being absorbed.

I went out to the pier.

The sea breeze hit my face. The smell of salt. The cobblestones continued beneath my feet. The man stood still and closed his eyes.

He was not listening to the sound of the waves.

He focused on his legs from the knees down. He tried to sense something coming through the stones. There was a vibration, lower than the rhythm of the waves. The cycle was long. It took a slow count of eight or nine for a single tremor.

It could not be heard with the ears. Only the bones knew it.

The man began to walk along the shore. Leaving the harbor, heading toward where the cliffs loomed. He walked along a path of grass untrodden by people, moving toward where the vibration grew stronger.

The cove was hidden between the cliffs.

It was a terrain cut in such a way that it could not be seen from the open sea, with a small surface of water spreading out beyond a narrow channel. It was clear. There were almost no waves. Yet, the surface of the water was trembling slightly and constantly.

The moment the man stepped into the channel, he felt pressure.

It was not a sound. It was the sensation of the air becoming heavy. Something pressed against the depths of his chest. An unpleasant feeling as if his internal organs were shifting slightly. It was low, vast, and drifting from nowhere in particular.

There was a large shadow in the water.

It was about five meters long. It was a whale calf.

An old fishing net was stretched between two rocks, and its tail fin was tangled in it. The whale was moving slowly. It wasn't trying to escape; it was crying. It was a continuous low-frequency sound, as if calling for its mother.

The vibrations were reflecting off the walls of the narrow cove, overlapping and amplifying.

That was what had been shaking the ground of the village. For a whole month.

The man knelt on the shore. He dipped his hand into the water. It was cold. The vibrations were transmitted directly to his palm. It was a raw frequency that seemed to interfere with the beating of his own heart.

"I see," the man said quietly. Not to the whale, but just as if confirming a fact.

The man stood up and took a breath.

What he began to sing was not a special spell. It was a long, sustained note with a pitch. He gradually changed the voice he produced from deep within his chest. High, low, then high again. It was as if he were searching for the perfect frequency, rather than a melody.

At first, nothing changed.

But after about twenty seconds, the way the water surface rippled changed. The concentric ripples that had been there until then became slightly distorted. The vibrations of the man's voice entered the water and began to interfere with the whale's low-frequency sounds.

The man changed the sound.

The moment his voice deepened, the air in the cove changed. The weight lifted. Whatever had been pressing on his chest suddenly pulled away. Instead, the water surface shimmered. For just an instant, the refraction of light was strange. The light was distorted even though there were no waves, a glow as if something were moving underwater.

Heat arrived.

From the part of the net caught on the rocks. A small glow the size of a fingertip appeared, and the smell of burning rope fibers drifted through the air. As if sound, water, and light were converging on a single point. One strand of the net, then another, snapped.

The whale moved.

Its tail fin was free. The sound of it slapping the water echoed through the cove. The man stopped singing.

The whale slowly turned and swam toward the channel. Its back was visible just below the surface. As it passed, its body created a slight wave that wetted the man's knees.

The low-frequency sound ceased.

For the first time, the cove became truly quiet.

When I returned to the village, the village chief was standing at the pier.

"I feel like something has changed," the village chief said. "It might just be my imagination, but my head feels a little lighter."

"I don't think it's your imagination."

"What did you do?"

The man thought for a moment before saying, "In the cove, I cleared away a net."

The village chief looked confused.

The man smiled. "I think the plague will settle down in a few days. If it doesn't improve, please look for someone else. Someone other than me next time."

"Are you..."

"I'll be leaving tomorrow. If you could just lend me a roof for tonight."

The village chief started to say something, then stopped. In the end, he nodded.

The evening sea was quiet. I felt like I heard the voice of a whale from somewhere far away, but it might have just been the sound of the waves. To the man, it didn't matter which it was.

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