My wife replied, “Why, eat it, of course.”

“But isn’t it poisonous?” I said.

“Mom, stop it!” our son cried out.

Right at that moment—paying no mind whatsoever to the dirt on its cap—my wife popped the mushroom into her mouth. “It’s a little tough to eat raw,” she said, shoving a honeyed lemon slice in her mouth along with it. To this day, neither my son nor I have ever eaten another honeyed lemon slice.

What followed was quite a commotion. First our son burst into tears. “Mom is going to die!” he bawled.

“Big Laughing Gyms don’t kill you,” my wife comforted him, maintaining perfect composure.

In any case, we still needed to get off the mountain and go to a hospital, and I had to drag my reluctant wife back down the way we came.

Soon after, just around the time when we reached the foot of the mountain, the symptoms began to appear. Later at the hospital, the doctor commented nonchalantly that even such a small amount could have an effect, but, to my mind, the symptoms that she exhibited were rather remarkable.

My wife, who up until then had been so calm and collected, began to emit a sort of chortle, intermittent at first but soon growing in frequency before developing into the full-fledged so-called “laughter.” They call it laughter, but there was nothing happy or cheerful about it. It sounded as though she was trying to stifle a laugh as it welled up, but for the life of her she couldn’t hold back, and no matter how much she tried, her brain was unable to overcome the involuntary physical reaction—that’s what kind of laugh it was. An unspeakably sinister laugh, as if at some sick joke.

Our son was terrified, I was in a panic, and my wife, her eyes filled with tears, just kept on laughing.

“Cut it out, will you?” I said, as our son whimpered faintly.

“I c-can’t stop. I-It’s like my throat and my f-face and my chest—n-none of them are under my c-control,” my wife replied with difficulty, through her laughter.

I was irate. Why was it that she constantly needed to cause such trouble? We went hiking practically every weekend and, frankly, I didn’t enjoy it very much. Neither did our son. He would probably have been just as content to stay at home, painstakingly assembling his plastic models, or to go fishing in the creek by our house, or what have you. Instead, both he and I did as we were told and got up early to wander around the hills on the outskirts of town. But that just wasn’t good enough for my wife—she had to go and eat a Big Laughing Gym mushroom.

My wife was treated in the hospital, but, as the ever-nonchalant doctor said, since the mushroom’s toxin was already in her bloodstream, there was really nothing they could do about it, and her condition remained more or less unchanged after he examined her. Ultimately, my wife went on laughing until that evening. We took a taxi home and I put our son, who had worn himself out crying and had fallen asleep, under the covers in his bed. I kept an eye on my still-laughing wife as she sat alone in the living room while I made us some strong green tea. My wife drank her tea, laughing, and I drank my tea, stewing in my anger.

After her symptoms subsided at last and my wife was back to normal, I started in on my lecturing. Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused for all of us, in this single day today? Oh, I was in rare form. I lectured her like I was lecturing a student. My wife listened with downcast eyes, her head hung low. She nodded at each thing I said. I’m sorry, she said over and over. When I was done, she said earnestly, “Everyone causes trouble for someone at some point in their lives.”

“I don’t cause anyone any trouble! You’re the one who is a nuisance! Please refrain from projecting your own personal issues onto the general public,” I scolded. My wife hung her head again. More than ten years later, when she ran off, I was left with a vivid recollection of her like that, eyes downcast and contrite. My wife was a difficult person, but I wasn’t so different. I used to think that we complemented each other—like the saying goes: Even a cracked pot has a lid that fits. But, as it turned out, I guess I didn’t fit my wife very well.


“HERE, SENSEI, HAVE a drink,” Toru pulled the Sawanoi saké from his rucksack. It was a 720-milliliter bottle. We had polished off the mushroom soup, but like magic, Toru produced one item after another from his bag. Dried mushrooms. Rice crackers. Dried smoked squid. Whole tomatoes. Canned bonito.

“It’s quite a feast,” Toru remarked. Both he and Satoru were swigging saké from paper cups and gnawing on tomatoes.

“You don’t get as drunk if you eat a tomato first,” they claimed.

“Sensei, do you think they’ll be all right to drive?” I asked under my breath.

He replied, “One bottle between the four of us shouldn’t be a problem, I guess.” My stomach was already warm from the mushroom soup, and the saké warmed it even more. The tomatoes were delicious. We just bit right into them; they didn’t even need salt. Apparently, they were straight from Toru’s garden. He pulled out another bottle of saké from his rucksack, meaning we’d have to revise our calculations.

I heard the ta-ra-ra-ra-ra again. Every so often, bugs crawled underneath the newspaper we were sitting on. I could feel them moving through the paper. Various flying insects—some of them quite large—buzzed and landed around us. They seemed particularly attracted to the smoked squid and the saké. Toru paid them virtually no attention as he continued to eat and drink.

“I think you just ate a bug,” Sensei pointed out to Toru, who replied with a straight face, “Mmm, delicious!”

The dried mushrooms weren’t completely dehydrated, like dried shiitake; rather they still had a bit of moisture in them. They looked more like beef jerky. What kind of mushrooms are these? I asked.

Satoru, already red in the face, replied, “Fly agarics.”

“Aren’t those extremely poisonous?” Sensei asked.

“Did you look that up in your mushroom encyclopedia?” Toru said with a smirk. Instead of responding, Sensei took the mushroom field guide out of his briefcase. It was an old, well-thumbed copy, and on its cover was a mushroom that appeared to be a fly agaric, with an impressive-looking red spotted cap.

“Toru, do you know the story about these?”

“What story?”

“What they did with them in Siberia. Long ago, the chiefs of indigenous highland peoples of Siberia would ingest the fly agaric before going into battle. Fly agaric mushrooms contain constituents that induce a psychoactive trance. Once eaten, the mushroom causes an extremely agitated state characterized by ferocity and temporary bursts of tremendous strength that can persist for hours. First, the chief would eat the mushroom, and the next-highest-ranking man would drink the chief’s urine. Then the next-highest-ranking man would drink the second-highest-ranking man’s urine, and so on, until the mushroom’s constituents were coursing through the veins of all the members of the tribe.

“Apparently, when the last man finished drinking the urine, they were prepared to do battle,” Sensei concluded.

“That’s a handy little mush… mushroom encyclopedia,” Satoru said with a high-pitched laugh. He was nibbling on a shred of dried mushroom.

“Come on, you two, try some,” Toru said, thrusting a dried mushroom into my hand and Sensei’s hand. Sensei took a long, hard look at the mushroom. I gave it a tentative sniff. Both Toru and Satoru dissolved into senseless guffaws. Toru started to say, “You know…,” and Satoru roared with laughter. Once he had controlled himself, Satoru then began with, “It’s like…,” only to have Toru cackle hysterically. The two of them tried to speak again at the same time and burst out laughing together.

The temperature had risen a bit. Even though it would soon be winter, the surrounding trees and the undergrowth beneath us provided a damp yet toasty warmth. Sensei slowly sipped his saké, intermittently nibbling on the dried mushroom.

“Do you think it’s okay to eat a poisonous mushroom?” I asked. Sensei laughed. “Well, now…,” he replied with a charming smile.

Toru, Satoru, are these really fly agarics?

Of course not, they couldn’t be.

You bet they are, the real deal.

Toru and Satoru replied at the same time. I couldn’t tell which one of them had said which. Sensei was still smiling, leisurely nibbling on his mushroom.

Sensei closed his eyes as he said the words, “Cracked pot.”

What’s that? I asked him.

He repeated the phrase, Even a cracked pot has a lid that fits.

Tsukiko, eat the mushroom, he instructed me in his teacher’s voice. Tentatively, I tried licking it, but all I could taste was dirt. Toru and Satoru were still laughing. Sensei kept smiling, looking off in the distance. Giving in, I stuffed the whole mushroom in my mouth, chewing and chewing.

We sat there drinking for another hour or so, and I noticed no real effects. We packed up our things and went back the way we came. As we walked, I felt alternately like laughing and crying. I must have been drunk. I wasn’t really sure where we were going. I was definitely drunk. Satoru and Toru walked in front, with exactly the same posture and exactly the same gait. Sensei and I walked in line behind them, smiling to ourselves. Sensei, do you still love your wife, even after she ran off? I murmured.

He boomed with laughter. My wife is still an immeasurable presence in my life, he said somewhat seriously, before breaking into laughter again. I found myself surrounded by such a plethora of living things, all of them buzzing about. What on earth was I doing, wandering around a place like this?