This week, I finished off the first draft of Rocks – a short story I’m planning to enter into this year’s Zoetrope All-Story Contest.
The tale’s loosely based upon a hotspring resort in northern Japan called Tamagawa Onsen (玉川温泉). I’d first driven through the area with a friend a few years ago, but I hadn’t really understood what was going on there. I’d been to hotsprings before – you soak outside in a tub and try not to get drawn into measuring contests - but I’d never been to one without water – which was what I found at Tamagawa.
Some people were sitting in tents they’d set up on the stony ground, while others just lay on picnic sheets with rocks balanced at strategic points of their torsos. I asked my friend what was going on and she coyly explained that it was supposed to be good for your health. In my ignorance, I figured it was some type of Fu Shui Oriental thing.
I didn’t think any more of it until a nurse I met last year mentioned that one of her patients had booked himself a week’s trip there. “What’s with those stones?” I asked, and that’s when she mentioned the Big C, or to give it the Japanese equivalent, the Big G (for がん).The stones in the area are high in radium, so people who can’t afford chemotherapy go there hoping to treat themselves.
She told me there’s a grey market in stones taken from Tamagawa and she recommended running a search on Yahoo Auctions – Japan’s equivalent to E-Bay.
The results were heart-breaking. This particular 284 gram specimen was going for 4000 dollars, while others were being sold for twice that amount.
All of the stones come with testimonies from people who have been helped by them, and also small-print disclaimers that they are not sold for medicinal purposes.
I asked my friend why people didn’t just go to Tamagawa for themselves and she answered that the waiting lists were long for the inns in the area – up to six months at some times. And this was just too long for many people who only had weeks to live.
