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GRADE SCHOOL MEMORIES

Coming up the mountain on my motorcycle yesterday evening, the forest on my left and the jade mid-grown rice stalks spreading out to my right like a soft green carpet in the dimness, the whole scene dusted with that silvery powderlight that settles on landscapes at dusk for a time after the equinox, my thoughts drifting as thoughts tend to do in paradisiacal moments, just a day-end mind curving, rolling, smoothly back and forth along a mountain road toward home and dinner, when out in the dark broad swath of jade a darker shape stirred, a large shape, much larger than a farmer, that moved, that moved reluctantly, that tore itself from the deliciously tender young rice grains, turned unwillingly, then much more willingly, then began to move fast and faster, urgently toward the road, the shadow resolving into a very big female inoshishi (wild pig) who in perfect timing managed to cross at an angle just in front of my rumbling motorcycle and reach safety by forcing her way, snapping and cracking, deeper into the forest. She was a very big inoshishi. I hadn't seen haunches like that since Miss Winkle dropped her chalk, back in third grade.