Kino no Tabi:Volume10 Chapter4

“Land of Electric Poles” —Transmission—

Kino and Hermes were in a country.

Anywhere you were, you could see the border walls in the small, flat place. It was another one of those places with an alternating layout of houses and fields—a carefree scenery of a country just as carefree.

So that was how Kino was, cruising the place on Hermes under the warm sunlight when—

“Say, traveler. Would you like to have some tea and snacks with my family?”

She had no reason to refuse the passerby, so Kino let herself be treated.

Kino followed the countryman as she pushed Hermes along. She turned to enter the house grounds from the wide gravel road when—

“Oh, watch out there.”

He warned her. She stopped in her tracks and looked ahead, where a thick wire lay, stretching into the house.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Power lines,” he responded, “to connect the houses together. If you touch it, you get electrocuted and may die, so one must always be careful.”

“My, that’s serious.”

“But as long as you’re careful, you’re fine. Look at the end there.”

Kino and Hermes followed the line until it terminated at a pillar. It was very tall and pointed at the tip. They went the other way and sure enough, there was a pillar there, too, set in a very firm foundation made of stone.

“Huh—that’s true, you see these near lots of houses,” Hermes commented.

Then Kino asked what they were.

“Electric poles,” the countryman replied.

“Electric poles?”

“Yes, that’s right. Actually, a traveler like you came here many years ago and passed on the knowledge to us. Just like I did now, I cautioned her about the wires in the ground, but then she said, ‘Then just set up an electric pole between the wires.’ That was a brilliant idea. So we erected them up right away. Now whenever you see an electric pole, you know where the power lines are. No more need to look at the ground; ‘Oh, there’s an electric pole, so there must be power lines.’ The number of people electrocuted dropped down drastically.”

—

A few days after Kino and Hermes left.

“Ack…oh, no!” the countryman exclaimed. His neighbors asked him, ‘What’s wrong, what’s the matter?’

“We loathe the birds that eat the biting lice—our religious figure. So we couldn’t hang the electric wires up in the air because the birds will perch on them. And since we cannot put the wires underground because it is forbidden by law to dig in any place other than the farmland, we have no choice but to place them on top of the ground!” “Sure. What’s the big deal?”

“I forgot to say that! To the traveler and motorrad who were here days ago! They probably think we’re idiots, now! Absolute nincompoops!”

“Well, that’s not a problem. Travelers are travelers. They might come back again, but the chance of them not coming again is very high.”

“And I’m telling you, we lost the chance to correct that! What if they go to other countries and tell them about us? What if they all start thinking how stupid we must be?”

“Like I said, don’t worry about it. We don’t know everything about that traveler either, let alone other countries.”

“That’s…true, but…”

“No worries, no worries. Now, it’s time for prayer. —O sacred, sacred biting louse, bless us with your gift.”

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