Jizo

Image by Jordy Meow from Pixabay



We found the first Jizo statue just as the skies opened up.

Torrents of rain washed away the muddy bank of the dig, revealing more and more of the small, Buddha-like stone figures.

“Get them under the tarp!” I yelled, and my grad students ran
back and forth, carrying thirty pounds of stone with them to the only dry spot
for miles, and the long plastic tables underneath.

After several trips of my own, I began the count. “Forty-three,”
I said under my breath in the end.

“Forty-three dead children,” Soma said.

“Don’t draw conclusions yet,” I say. The other six students stood
just behind him, and this was a teachable moment. “The Jizo at Kyoto represent
children who died before their parents, but those are cared for, fed, even
clothed. These statues were buried, and the town abandoned. They may have a
different meaning.”

I noticed Akari shaking in her cold, clinging clothes. “Alright,
students. Go home. Return tomorrow after the rains pass.”

I stayed to catalog the statues, arranging them by type. Smiling,
praying, meditating Buddhas, and maybe a dozen other figures.

Once arranged, I grabbed my camera, and turned back—

One Buddha stood with arms raised among all the others.

I took off my glasses and rubbed the rain from my eyes. No, clearly,
I overlooked it.

Bringing the camera up to my eye, I wondered again, why were
they buried?

I snapped a shot, but the flash didn’t go off, so I checked
the photo.

The odd one had moved again. His hands were at the corners
of his mouth pulling them wide. He looked ready to swallow a watermelon.

When I looked back up, all the other statues were turned
toward me with their arms raised.

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