On the Night of Thunder Memorial Day

To be honest, I am not good with thunder. It was especially bad when I was a child. I was genuinely terrified that it would strike me at any moment.

My mother would say this to me: "Thunder strikes high places, so it will hit the apartment building across the street before it hits our house." We lived in a one-story house, and there was a four-story apartment building across the way. The logic holds up. It holds up, but that is not the point. Even if she told me that, fear is fear.

Even now that I am an adult, I cannot get used to that sound that resonates in my gut. Yet, every year when June 26th comes around, I find myself wanting to talk about thunder. It is because it is Thunder Memorial Day.

In 930, lightning struck the Seiryoden of the Heian Palace, and a Major Counselor lost his life. At the time, it was rumored that the lightning strike was the curse of Sugawara no Michizane, who had been demoted and met a tragic end. To appease Michizane's anger, people decided to enshrine him with great care. And so, Michizane became a god of thunder—Tenjin-sama.

The day a vengeful spirit became a god.

When I think about it, I find it to be an incredible story. People enshrine someone who died filled with resentment as a god precisely because they are afraid. Fear and reverence are connected. There are surprisingly many Japanese gods who are enshrined because "they are scary." We don't worship them because they are kind, but because it would be terrible if we upset them. I always think that is a very human kind of logic.

The phrase "Kuwabara, Kuwabara" that people chant during thunderstorms is also said to originate from Michizane. Lightning strangely never struck Kuwabara, Michizane's estate. So, it seems it is a spell to tell the thunder god, "This is Kuwabara, please don't strike here." You ask Michizane, who became the thunder god, to protect you from lightning. When you think about it, it feels like it comes full circle, but I like that kind of logic from people of the past.

I tried telling that story to my god on a night when lightning was striking the port of Nagasaki.

My god is a quiet person who wears white robes. They usually sit with me in silence while I drink. When I told them the origin of the thunder god, they rested their chin on their hand and muttered, "Becoming a god through a curse, huh. That sounds like a difficult business," as if it were not entirely someone else's problem. Perhaps there are all sorts of things even for gods.

The sound that had been rumbling in the distance was gradually drawing closer.

The god who had been talking about the thunder god was the one most afraid.
Much more than I, who am not good with thunder.

It seems that even for a god, fear is fear.
Though I am in no position to talk.

*The manga was drawn using Shin-Usami style No. 6.