Happy Monster Island
You follow the passage through the trees, it curls left every ten minutes but shows no sign of stopping. The boards are getting wider and you can hear the sound of them bending beneath your feet.
Bending and groaning and...crying loudly? It's at that moment you realise the source of the sound you've been hearing isn't coming from you but from a point at the side of the road a few metres ahead. Squinting to make it out in the dark you see a tightly wrapped white parcel nestled in the grass. The ear-piercing wail issuing from it is the sound only an infant missing its mother can make, one left to its own devices in a forest in middle of the night.
You hadn't been in Japan long enough to know if roadside baby dumping was a common occurance. With no dumpsters and access to the mainland severely limited perhaps it was the only method women had of taking care of unwanted pregnancies. As if noticing your presence the bundle cut off its cry and began a series of insistent grunts that you roughly translate as "pick me up", "pick me up".
Could it be the mother is nearby and only put the baby down to go take a squat in the foliage? You knew the policy on handling bird's eggs but what about human offspring? Certainly it's too far underage for any sensational accusations but what about baby-napping? Is there a lost-and-found for this sort of thing?
Will you...
Bending and groaning and...crying loudly? It's at that moment you realise the source of the sound you've been hearing isn't coming from you but from a point at the side of the road a few metres ahead. Squinting to make it out in the dark you see a tightly wrapped white parcel nestled in the grass. The ear-piercing wail issuing from it is the sound only an infant missing its mother can make, one left to its own devices in a forest in middle of the night.
You hadn't been in Japan long enough to know if roadside baby dumping was a common occurance. With no dumpsters and access to the mainland severely limited perhaps it was the only method women had of taking care of unwanted pregnancies. As if noticing your presence the bundle cut off its cry and began a series of insistent grunts that you roughly translate as "pick me up", "pick me up".
Could it be the mother is nearby and only put the baby down to go take a squat in the foliage? You knew the policy on handling bird's eggs but what about human offspring? Certainly it's too far underage for any sensational accusations but what about baby-napping? Is there a lost-and-found for this sort of thing?
Will you...