I too had wanted to join, had parked the jeep outside town, then followed the naked men. Like rivulets trickling into creeks, then merging to form a river, the men streamed into the center of town. As the numbers swelled, those others who had come to watch retreated to open doorways and windows, while I--with no more room on the sidewalk--was slowly swept into their growing throng.

Surrounded, I began to smell them, a clean smell--rice, skin. And they were becoming aware of me, a foreign object in their midst. But they were intent upon the coming rite and so a few glances were all that I received. No questions, no explanations.

I might have asked where the shrine was but I no longer needed to know. The press was so great that I was going wherever it went. There was no stepping aside, no turning back. I was caught in this flow, surrounded by men who knew where they were going.

By now the sky had deepened. At nine o'clock, someone pulled the main switch at the power station. The town was engulfed in darkness, the ritual had begun. And I would have known with my eyes closed. There was an instant tension, like the sudden intake of a startled breath. And no sooner had this jolted through us, body to body, hundreds of us, than the march became a jostle.

Pushed, I lurched from side to side. Those behind pressed to move me faster and I found my palms against the bare flesh of those in front. I regained my sight, a night sight, with the white of the loincloths in front waving through the black and trotting bodies, and above and beyond, the summer stars.

All else was smell and sound. Sudden sweat, damp hair, the slap of flesh, the padding of the bare feet, and the acceleration, the sense that a goal was near. And then the sudden tightening of all these limbs as, torsos crushed like cattle, we roared as though through a gorge, and I looked up and against the sky saw passing the black beam of the shrine gateway.

Then a black darkness, overhanging, like cliffs, perhaps rows of cypress, cedar, cryptomeria. And a growling like a waterfall articulated. We seemed to be ushered into a presence as I was blindly pushed and pushed myself, hands out--as though moving near the noise.

But it was us, that festival chant, heard when shouldering the heavy festival float, but now--no longer redolent of effort--pure sound, like the wind in the trees. Endlessly repeated, it was a chain of sound to which we moved, our feet trotting to its beat. It filled my eyes and nose as well as my ears and I heard it deep inside me--it was coming from myself as well.

We were being possessed by this deity toward whom we were rushing and there was a sharp wrench, a fracture in our chant, and the crush was suddenly so great that I was lifted off my feet. We were passing through a narrower gate into the compound of the shrine itself. Then there were cries from up ahead, the chant was choked, the bodies about me pressed hard into mind, and our whole enormous mass rolled to a halt.

We were in the shrine and from its other gates gangs as large as ours had pushed in. We had collided and those left outside were still pushing their way inside. I had now, I realized, lost both shoes. My shirt was open, buttons torn away, and I was so flattened against someone's back that we seemed fused.

At the same time, I suddenly heard the silence. It was as demanding as had been the noise. Utter darkness and complete silence. I moved my head away from this silence as one moves back from a too bright light. It was a peopled silence and I was slowly being crushed by all those bodies. And the pressure became greater and greater as those outside forced their way in, fighting to join the swarm, to become one with it.

While I could still see, run, chant, I was exhilarated. But now in the grip of alien skin and muscle, beginning to feel the sweat seeping, sensing the seams of my clothing pulling, then giving way with the strain, I became afraid.

My bound hands were now a part of someone else. Moving my fingers, I felt warm, damp flesh, someone's back perhaps. Behind me a thigh shifted, then a weight on my shoulder, the fall of a head, as though it had been severed, as though the man had died, crushed to death, upright.

There we stood, rooted like trees. And my fear grew to terror as I saw myself trapped forever. There was no pushing my way free, no climbing over heads or crawling between legs. But even as imagination gripped, I stood there with the other trees and endured. Then, as the hours passed, I felt rather than heard a new chant--low, soft, a measured breathing. And with it came, at first almost indiscernibly, a gentle movement, as though this standing forest was being swayed by a distant breeze.

As the chant gained, the swaying grew, and damp, hard limbs, a hip perhaps, or a shoulder, rubbed me like a branch. And as the night deepened and we chanted I felt my fear depart. It lifted slowly and I thought no more about our differences. We were now a single mass crammed into this narrow vessel and there was no telling us apart. For the first time I no longer fought for my inch of earth. I lay back and more and more of those swaying bodies accepted more and more of mine. And then, I suppose, I must have slept.

The deity had had his way with us. The darkness had made us one. Perhaps we all slept, slung in the air, soles off the ground--whole hundreds levitating.

I remember only, after a long time, raising my head and seeing the pale glow of early morning. Seeing too the breathing profile of the boy asleep beside me, then turning and looking deep into his armpit, for his arm was flung about my neck. And I again shut my eyes, as one pulls the covers over one's head, unwilling to arise.

What had terrified now consoled. How warm, how safe these bodies molding mine; those several near, those dozens, hundreds, further off. This is as it should be. Like cells we are within a single form, all breathing and feeling together. It was now being alone once more that I feared, again exposed.

Yet, one by one, all of us were waking up. And those at the furthest ends, whole miles away, it seems, were now stumbling home. The pressure was growing less. I was standing on the ground once more, the earth strange against my soles. Shortly I could turn and even stoop to retrieve parts of my torn clothing, the jeep keys still there, safe in the ripped-off pocket.

The man in front, whose back I knew so well, stirred and turned. The man behind released me, his flesh becoming once more separate. The boy whose armpit I had studied turned to look for his lost loincloth, searched, gave up.

Then, completely naked, or with dirty loincloths newly tied, or--myself--in the rags of a shirt and in part of a pair of trousers, we moved slowly away from each other and out into the brightening day. We walked, stumbled, streaked with sweat and dirt, as though our eyes were not yet fully opened. There was no smell now except that of a late summer morning and that of urine, both of the odors pungent. And I could see, revealed in the gaps of the thinning crowd, that we were making for the font, the stone urn, where we could drink.

When my turn came I pushed my whole head into that cold and holy water, taking great gulps as though I were breathing it. When I surfaced the sun was up, dancing on the tiny waves, and the streets were emptying. Cleansed, tired, staggering, satisfied young men were disappearing by the dozen, the shadows long behind them. And I found the jeep just as I had left it, and was surprised that the engine turned over--that the gasoline had not evaporated during my century of sleep--and drove back to Tokyo, disheveled, content, at peace.