The Crayfish Mystery, The Death of Semis and (NOT) The End of Summer

Summer is over here in Japan but you couldn’t tell if you were judging by the steal tortuous heat and humidity creating puddles under my coffee table. Though somewhat lest scorching then August the heat has only managed to back off an inch this September and I sit hear now praying for a typhoon because damn it there’d at least be wind and wind is refreshing compared to the thick wall of mugginess I’ve been enduring for over three months now. Damn it, summer, if you’re going to end take this bloody heat with you! I’m warning you. Don’t make me come out there! Despite the leaves remaining green and not turning into what online photos tell me will soon be a vibrant red coloring the Japanese landscape and, of course, this damnable heat, one can tell it is now autumn by the Halloween decorations in the dollar stores. You leave one country that starts with the Halloween overkill in September and you come to another that has leeched the entire philosophy. Japan, I never thought it’d be you and quite frankly I’m ashamed. I just thought you were above such things, is all. What next, Christmas decorations in October? Easter Eggs in January? (more on the Japanese and Halloween in October, folks). So, though summer is supposedly officially over if you go by the whole equinox thing I officially protest the end of summer until: a) we have some fallen leaves on the ground that make that nice crunching sound, b) we get that nice autumn smell of dead foliage and c) we loose the heat for a little cool, autumn wind. It’s the end of September and I’m still wearing shorts. Nobody should be wearing shorts in autumn unless you are Kevin Smith. The one thing that has come with the supposed end of summer has been a nice silence in the air. Gone is my 6am alarm clock of buzzing bugs in the bushes outside the window and now remains only sweet nothingness ensuring that I sleep until noon. Yes, ding dong the semis are dead! Sometime between the final week of August and now the sound of their buzzing became more and more muted until the final bug dropped this week. Where do dozens of loud bugs go when they kick the bucket? Straight down of course and all around, if you get up early enough before the cats and birds get at them, you can see dozens of semi corpses on the ground. They crunch just like leaves when stepped on and is a good supplement while waiting for autumn to move it’s lazy ass on into this country. I know I said it before but it’s worthy repeating. These things are friggin’ huge! If you took 80 mosquitoes from Canada and stapled them to a hamster you’d have a similar body mass to a Japanese semi. Why 80 mosquitoes when one hamster would do the trick? I don’t know, call me sadistic but I’ve always wanted to see 80 mosquitoes stapled to a hamster. You need a trowel to clean off semi gunk from the bottom of your sneakers. And finally today let me talk of the crayfish mystery. The crab mystery began about a month ago when I changed train stations to get to one of my classrooms. I was now walking along the canal that runs through the middle of the city, right by my apartment I might add, instead of walking up the road. This canal has become a good landmark, actually, as I can be anywhere in the city and so long as I find it I am able to make my way back to the apartment. Following the canal has also created a few short cuts, the best being a new path to the grocery store with that tea I really, really like. Following the canal shaves off about two minutes. I have to cut through knee-high grass and avoid some frogs and lizards that call the canal home but it is well worth it. That tea, I tell you, is very, very good! Of recent I started to notice dead crayfish on the side of the road by the canal. Didn’t think nothing of it at first. I thought somebody must have dropped their lunch. I’ve often seen people with nets trolling about the canal looking for fresh crayfish to fry up. I’d sooner eat seventeen Big Macs wrapped in bacon then eat anything out of this canal but to each their disgusting own. But the dead, hollowed out crayfish corpses began to rival the semis and finding them became a daily event as they lay just outside my apartment on the road by the canal. Obviously something was killing these things but what? I would get my answer last week in the form of a well feed crow. The bird sat perched on the edge of the canal looking down for a meal. A small cemetery of crayfish shells was growing at the bird’s side. When I stepped into the road the bird made a break for it and flew up to the neon cross of the Catholic Church that guides me home when the canal is not around. The crow, quite certainly the same crow, is spotted every day now. This spot must be a prime local for crayfish buffet and this bird has got to be territorial because there is never any other birds around to enjoy the meal. This bird is working it’s way to Oprah girth. I’m sure it has chowed down on a few of those semi bodies as well. I’d keep my wits about me, my black feathered friend. The gangs of stray cats in this area are sure to think of you as a three courses meal. Might I suggest a peace offering of a daily ration of bugs and crayfish? Maybe you could build a shrine of sorts like the ones that offer up cans of coffee and oranges to the Gods. The intent is similar, right? Salvation!