A Dead Secret
I read a few of the short stories from this
weeks alternative assignment. "A Dead Secret" was one that stuck out,
this was indeed a short story, and I mean about 6 pages of reading. The story
of a woman, who got married, died after four years of marriage and had one son.
After she passes, her spirit is seen in the house because of something left in
the house, a secret. The family doesn't know what to do after they removed all
her belongings to her temple, so they get this guy to help out and find what
her spirit wants. The man finds a letter, goes to the temple and burns it, no one
reads it and her spirit is never seen again.
What I took away from this story was the
connection we have with the material world even after death. Something that has
been around in every culture since the beginning of civilization. We hope we
can have our physical possessions in the afterlife like clothes, pets, jewelry etc.,
all these material things we owned when we were alive we now want in our
afterlife to make it better, or to continue our existence. The element that
drove me crazy was not knowing the secret on the letter. All the movies or
stories I know we always find out the secret, or have some sort of hint at
least. I think this is apart of western stories, we find the secret or the
meaning to be the most important part. But this being a Japanese story it also
comes with different morals. I believe that’s the word I'm looking for; anyways
the secret itself is not important. The respect to the spirit and to our family
is more important.
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