A reflective essay exploring whether the intricate workings of life on Earth can be dismissed as mere coincidence. Through personal experiences in Kyoto and encounters with birds, it quietly questions randomness and suggests a deeper order at work.

2016-03-21
Recently, I have come to think that there are things that cannot simply be dismissed as mere coincidence.
The astonishing sophistication of the many forms of life that exist on this Earth where we live leaves one with no choice but to be amazed.
The other day, as the weather was fine and I was waiting on the platform for a train to head to Arashiyama, I received a message from Mr. Y in Yuriage saying that he was bedridden with a severe case of influenza. I replied, telling him to keep himself warm and rest well.
Although my journeys are always at the mercy of the wind, for some reason on that day I changed my plan from Arashiyama and decided to head first to Kawaramachi-Shijo.
Perhaps it was because the path from Gion to Maruyama Park, which I used to avoid, had been growing more appealing to me with each passing day. Upon entering Maruyama Park, I became a bird catcher from Night on the Galactic Railroad. Great tits, pale thrushes, and grey wagtails appeared. I was finally able to photograph the grey wagtail to my heart’s content.
Feeling slightly fatigued, I bought a coffee from a vending machine and sat on a nearby box reading a book by Masayuki Takayama. When I said to my friend, “Shall we move on?” and turned around, I was astonished.
There was a kingfisher.
A kingfisher appeared in a place I had visited hundreds of times, and moreover, a place constantly crowded with tourists.
When construction was underway to dig a natural hot spring at the foot of Nakanoshima Bridge in Arashiyama’s Nakanoshima Park, I had thought to myself that I wished I could do that.
Since then, I had completely stopped coming to this side. I mainly used the JR Sagaarashiyama Line and occasionally rode the Randen, but I had not taken the Hankyu line at all.
As I have already written, the day after I heard from an angler, a kingfisher appeared. But there is something I did not write. In the open-air bath of the beautifully completed hot spring facility mentioned above, I had been fiercely calling back and forth with a brown-eared bulbul perched in a tree there. The very next day, the kingfisher appeared. Outside the window of the resting room at Fufu no Yu, a grosbeak appeared, and trusting my intuition that it would be there, I met a large flock at Osawa Pond the following day. At Nakanoshima Park, I encountered a large group of thrushes. At that moment, the friend who was watching me take photographs said it looked as though I had crossed over to the other side. He even said he calmly thought, “What if he loses his mind? Well, so be it,” which left me at a loss.
Returning to the beginning, after several days had passed, a thought suddenly came to me. A place I had visited hundreds of times, a place where I had never once seen a kingfisher—could a kingfisher really appear there by mere coincidence?
Yesterday, I received a message from Mr. Y saying, “I was completely bedridden, but I’ll be back at work starting tomorrow.”