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not on the job, you won’t understand. There’s some talk of taking them down now, seeing as those freaks keep using them in their propaganda. Growing up in a country like this, with our history, I’m not a fan of censorship, but I can see why they’re clamping down. Just adds fuel to the fire.
    But I tell you something, I was there, right at ground fucking zero, and no ways did anyone on that plane survive. No ways. I stand by that, whatever those conspiracy fuckers say (excuse my French).
    I still stand by that.

Yomijuri Miyajima, a geologist and volunteer suicide monitor at Japan’s notorious Aokigahara forest, a popular spot for the depressed to end their lives, was on duty the night a Boeing 747-400D, operated by the Japanese domestic carrier Sun Air, plummeted into the foot of Mount Fuji.
    (Translation by Eric Kushan).
    I was expecting to find one body that night. Not hundreds.
    Volunteers do not usually patrol at night, but just as it was getting dark, our station received a call from a father deeply concerned about his teenage son. The boy’s father had intercepted worrying emails and found a copy of Wataru Tsurumi’s suicide manual under his son’s mattress. Along with the notorious Matsumoto novel, it’s a popular text for those who seek to end their lives in the forest; I have come across more discarded copies than I can count in my years working here.
    There are a few cameras set up to monitor suspicious activity at the most popular entrance, but I had received no confirmation that he had been seen, and while I had a description of the teenager’s car, I couldn’t see any sign of it at the side of the road or in any of the small parking lots close to the forest. This meant nothing. Often people will drive to remote or hidden spots on the edge of the forest to end their lives. Some attempt to kill themselves with exhaust fumes; others by inhaling the toxic smoke from portable charcoal barbecues. But by far the most common method is hanging. Many of the suicidal bring tents and supplies with them, as if they need to spend a night or two contemplating what it is they are about to do before going through with it.
    Every year, the local police and many volunteers sweep the forest to find the bodies of those who have chosen to die here. The last time we did this–in late November–we discovered the remains of thirty souls. Most of them were never identified. If I come across someone in the forest who I think may be planningon killing himself, I ask him to consider the pain of the family he will be leaving behind and remind him that there is always hope. I point to the volcanic rock that forms the base of the forest floor, and say that if the trees can grow on such a hard, unforgiving surface, then a new life can be built on the foundation of any hardship.
    It is now common practice for the desperate to bring tape to use as a marker to find their way back if they change their minds, or, in most cases, to indicate where their bodies may be found. Others use the tape for more nefarious reasons; ghoulish sightseers hoping to come across one of the deceased, but not willing to become lost.
    I volunteered to venture into the forest on foot, and with this in mind, I first checked to see if there was any indication that fresh tape had been tied around the trees. It was dark, so it was impossible for me to be sure, but I thought I discerned signs that someone had recently made his way past the ‘do not pass this point’ signs.
    I was not concerned about getting lost. I know the forest; I have never once lost my way. Apologies for sounding fanciful, but after doing this for twenty-five years, it has become part of me. And I had a powerful flashlight and my GPS–it is not true that the volcanic rock under the forest floor muddies the signals. But the forest is a magnet for myths and legends, and people will believe what they want to.
    Once you are in the forest, it cocoons you. The tops of the trees form a softly