An awkward stop on a dark mountain road
Tomoike recalls a summer drive, a bathroom emergency, and a story that found its way back to him the following spring.
Before the story
The original account introduces Tomoike (友池) as a solo comedian. He tells this story from a summer trip into the mountains of Saitama.
On the way home
A few summers ago, I went by car into the mountains of Saitama with an older man I knew. We had a picnic and a barbecue, then headed home around six or seven in the evening.
It was already dark on the mountain road when I suddenly had to go. Badly. There was no restroom around, so he pulled over beside an unattended vegetable stand. I went behind it.
While I was still crouching there, he decided to have some fun. “I'm leaving you behind!” he called, rolling the car forward a little.
I wasn't even finished. Out there in the dark, that tiny bit of distance felt like plenty. “Wait for me!” I shouted.
Just then, another car came along. Its headlights lit me up as I was yelling. The couple inside screamed and drove away.
I finished, caught up with him, and got home safely.
The following March, I went back to the same place with a friend. I remembered the picnic when I spotted the vegetable stand near a tobacco shop. I remembered my emergency stop, too. But the stand had no vegetables on it at all.
I asked a woman nearby why it was empty.
“They had vegetables there until last summer,” she told me. “Then a rumor went around that a disembodied head appeared at the stand at night, yelling, ‘Wait for me!’ People got creeped out, and nobody came to buy vegetables anymore.”
I'm sorry. That disembodied head was me.
We use AI as part of how we create our articles.
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