A collaboration between Kabir Jardine and Ali Bester
Concept
Death isn't scary, says us under our breath and slightly nervous. Just kidding, we're petrified. Yet we had to tackle death straight on nonetheless, show death who's who in the zoo and give it a solid K.O punch.
That didn't particularly happen.
We reverted to being children whilst talking about death, we didn't know how to manage the thought of a temporary existence, or cope with the idea of losing the ones you love.
We decided to ignore all that and focus on a culture that thinks the exact opposite of western beliefs. A topic that fits our ideal vision of death. Where it isn't really any different to the real world and maybe even less scary, Yomi-No-Kuni. Yomi is the Japanese Shintoism's version of Hell and Yomi is nothing like hell, in all honesty.
Enjoy our interpretation of hell as told through the eyes of two very hungry children.
Peek
Front Cover
Written by Kabir Jardine and Illustrated by Ali Bester
Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Welcome Back
Chapter Two
Family
Chapter Three
Obon
Chapter Four
PSST PSST
Chapter Five
The Walk There
Chapter Seven
Bye
Peek
Introduction
You're invited to enjoy this splendid and slightly educational tale surrounding and involving Yomi-No-Kuni, one of three spirit realms Japanese Shintoist’s believes to exist in the afterlife. Celebrated every year in the summer by the majority of the population in the form of Obon, the day of the dead. Join two fairly spicey kids as they stumble their way across the festival grounds straight to the gates of hell, hopefully picking up some food along the way.
Welcome Back
They were invited to this place, willingly. Loved ones, partners, and children alike embrace their presence here and pay tribute to their memory. Day of the dead is a time to reflect on what they have missed out on, to pay respect to those long gone and welcome them back into their lives for a brief moment in time. Lanterns are lit to coerce them back to this world, where they will reside for the next three days. They were drawn not only to the lamplight, but also their favourite foods placed by their family for the duration of their stay.
Family
Little did their ancestors know that their grandchildren were stealing parts of their food. Blinded by their never-ending hunger, the two children did not realise the severity of their actions. In all manner of truth, their grandparents did not mind- they hated that particular dish anyway. They just enjoyed watching their grandchildren argue over the last piece of dim sum. It seemed a bit hectic to take various nibbles of food from on top of your grandparents’ grave, but they knew their grandparents wouldn't mind.
Obon
They waited for the parents to motion them to get going and join the bulging crowds. The mass of people was heading to the Kamosu shrine not too far away to pay their respects and join the festivities of Obon. The mass of people at the centre of it all was swaying, pulsating and sweating the most around the portable shrine. Bobbing up and down and joining the chant as the shoulder-heavy shrine makes it's way to the main shrine. The Grandchildren, along with their parents, were on the fringes of the crowd.
PSST PSST
There was a flutter of voices within the crowd. Words of worry erupted and hurried shooing took over while passing by a narrow walkway.
"You hear that? Yomi is just down that path, dude. How weird is that?", "Never go down that path, it's kind of creepy but not really. But don't go down there, though, I'm serious".
"That's where the entrance is you know, to that place underground".
It seemed inherently obvious that people wanted the grandchildren to go down there, why else would they tell each other not to go? They were curious about it themselves and all these weird murmurings heard below the drumbeat intrigued them a bit.
The Walk There
They started walking, gingerly.
Something didn't feel right to them, it started to get dark the second they touched the path, it felt like the forest was closing in around them the closer they got to the entrance. The forest made one of them gag, she thought she smelled something rotting. Oh shit, they heard something in the bushes behind them- they glanced.
Nothing much there, in all honesty.
There was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing at all. Just a typical, non-horrifying path to the gates of hell. They were freaking out over absolutely nothing. Their grandparents giggled.
Knock Knock
Further down the woodland-ish path, they passed a brown rope held up by two stone columns. The grandchildren did not think too much of it until they came to a clearing filled with white sand, and in the center, they saw three large boulders. They realised that they arrived. They are standing face to face with the gates of hell- and something was glowing.
Emanating a weird sort of haze was this crack spread out across all three rocks.
That’s when they saw it. That’s when they got dragged towards the crack and peeked at the world beyond theirs. They only had seconds to look, but it felt like hours to them. The land was dark at first, and they heard the sound of water a fair bit away. But then bright neon colours of all kinds splurted out of every direction. Infecting the landscape, rushing over every surface and engulfing everything that lay in its path. This neon coloured wave was a mass of everything you could imagine, snarling teeth, spikes, other sharp and or pointy objects, something was definitely growling at the back of it, too. It was at that moment the mass stared in their general direction.
With a yelp of terror, the grandchildren wrestled themselves free from the force that was holding them at the brink of the crack and fell backwards. They heard a crashing sound as the neon mass slammed into the other side of the gate trying to worm its way in through the crack.
Bye
The grandchildren weren't very impressed as nothing really happened. A tiny sliver of whatever that thing was managed to burrow its way through. It was writhing around on the ground next to the grandchildren's feet, not causing too much chaos. The grandchildren kind of just stepped on it.
The whole situation was anti-climactic really.
The grandchildren started walking their way back down the hill since they were getting hungry. They were in earshot of the festival and it didn't sound that far at all.
Hell wasn't so bad.
