Modern Myths: Genkan

An ant scuttles across the rounded river stones set in the concrete floor of the elementary genkan (entrance way). The movement catches the corner of my eye, and for a moment I move to act.

But I hesitate.

I think of the magic of the genkan—an unquestionable threshold in Japanese society between soto and naka—out and in. The Japanese remove their outdoor shoes in the genkan and step up into their houses and schools in stocking feet. Often they’ll pull on indoor shoes or slippers, but in that instant before they do, they pay tribute to the separating enchantment that exists in the genkan: the one that reinforces the boundary between soto and naka. By observing the in/out binary of this place, they give it power over them—they invest it with the alchemical energy of belief.

Each belief act is simple, small; and the transference of energy is just as miniscule. However, over years and years it can build, and so does it do in the elementary school’s genkan—so has it been doing for more than a hundred and thirty years in this building’s various incarnations. It will continue to do so, simply, until a day comes when it is needed, and then the energy will act just as simply: like key magnetism or sympathetic gravity.

A man will come to harm the children. He will refuse to remove his shoes before stepping up into the school, and when he does so, the genkan will deny him entry. The polar ice caps will melt, and the Sea of Japan to the north will rise. However, its waters will only ever lap at those rounded river stones in the concrete floor, never to cross the low threshold up into the school.

Just as it was believed, that the genkan separates the out and the in, so shall it be as the simple magic vested in the genkan holds back the outside.

It is for this reason that I cannot follow through on my instinct to kill the ant. As he crawls among those enchanted river rocks, he is still without—just where he should be—despite being, bodily, within the doors of the elementary. Should I kill him while without, imposing the clean, organized dominion of within upon him in the genkan, I risk robbing the genkan of some of its magic. To do so would be to risk imbalancing that delicate, sympathetic formula with this one act.