A Story of a Fly
Japanese
Long, long ago there lived a merchant who owned his shop in Kyoto. A maid named Tama had been working there for about five years. The merchant noticed she always had worn old, shabby clothes, but worked hard whether or not anyone was watching.
A few days before New Year's Day, he gave her enough money to buy new clothes in reward for her hard work. But she still wore the old clothes on the New Years Day.
He asked her,
"Why on earth don't you put on your new clothes?
She answered politely, blushing for shame.
"Please forgive me for my untidiness. In fact, I haven't spent that money for my clothes, but I've just saved it. My parents died when I was a girl. As I was their only child, I thought it was my duty to hold their funeral. However, at that time, I didn't have any money to do so.
So I decided to save money for their Buddhist memorial tablets and have them hold their funeral at my temple. You may well think of me as an untidy woman, but I've finally managed to save 100-mon.
He was moved very much by her story and praised her for her filial piety.
Soon she held a funeral at the temple for her late parents, which cost her 70-mon. She entrusted her master's wife with the rest of her money; 30-mon.
In January next year, to their great grief, however, she suddenly got ill and passed away.
About ten days later, a big fly flew into his house and began to whirl around above the merchant's head. It was so strange for him to see a fly in winter. In addition, it wouldn't go anywhere, and kept whirling around over him.
As he was very religious, he didn't kill it but caught it gently to let it go out. But it soon flew back to the room. He caught it to let it go again and again, but it flew back each time and whirled around above him.
His wife also felt it strange and said to him,
"It may be 'Tama'. It is said that the dead person's will sometimes comes back to this world as a figure of an insect."
"If you say so, I'll put some rouge on its wings as a mark and set it free far away from my house."
He said and took it to a distant place.
The next day, it did fly back to his house. They had no doubt any more.
"It must be 'Tama'. She must want us to do something. But what on earth does she want?"
"I have still had her 30-mon with me. She may want us to spend it to have her own memorial service held at the temple. "
Just his wife said so, the fly stopped whirling and dropped on the tatami-mat to death.
The couple immediately went to the temple with the fly in a small box and paid them 30-mon to have her service held.
The box which had the dead fly in it was buried in the back yard of the temple and a Sotoba, or a narrow wooden plank with Sanskrit characters written on it, was stood up there. (2013.6.1 With Itaya)
Original by Lafcadio Hearn
