Until half

Little Aki-Kun used to swim across the river to its half: there, exactly in the abyss of a rapid current, stood a rock resembling the heel of a giant. On summer days you could sunbathe on its sloping surface, admire the white water lilies that grew on the opposite, uninhabited coast, and closed their yellow eyes at sunset.

A centuries-old village legend said that a granite block is actually the right horn of the demon Oni, which sleeps on its left side, and that if the demon turns to the right side, the whole village will be flooded. Which happened every spring, when Oni supposedly woke up and turned on the other side. Then the “horn” disappeared under the water, and all the villagers tied their few furniture belongings higher, and with the departure of the water they pulled out and dried the bamboo tatamis.

Another, no less ancient, belief said: this stone is actually a fragment from the huge inkwell aka Suzuri — belonged to the god called Ame-no-koyane-no-mikoto, who was split by a lightning strike during a dispute between the gods over the most beautiful calligraphic scroll — Shodo. Therefore, the stone was called — “Stone”.

The disturbed crabs cleverly hid in the deep, resembling cracked skin of a giant's foot, crevices of a rock. Aki-Kun looked at the patterns formed by the water flowing in streams from his naked body: the river wrote a message to the boy in transparent letters-hieroglyphs of Kanji.