In the aftermath of a typhoon, the inhabitants of a small village are surveying the damage that has been sustained. A landslide has caused an old shrine to be swept away. The villagers debate how long the shrine has existed; nobody can remember when it was built, and there is some argument about where exactly it was located. It is suggested that the shrine should be rebuilt immediately. 

While the arguments about the shrine are ongoing, one of the villagers notices a hole about a meter wide. The hole appears to be enormously deep and is completely dark inside. One young man leans into the hole and shouts, "He-y, come on ou-t!" but there is no echo to be heard. He then throws a pebble into the hole, despite the warnings of another man who protests that a curse might result.

Unsure what to do, the villagers build a fence around the hole out of some trees and then return to their village. Some people suggest that they should simply rebuild the shrine to cover the hole again, but they cannot reach any agreement on the matter. Meanwhile, news of the very deep hole has spread, and the next day a car arrives from the local newspaper, carrying a scientist with it. Concessionaires and policemen also turn up to look at the hole and to prevent those who are simply curious from falling in.

A reporter lowers a weight into the hole on the end of a rope. The rope goes quite a long way into the hole but eventually runs out, and the reporter is then unable to pull it back out of the hole. 

Next, the scientist sends for an extremely powerful bullhorn with the intention of checking what sort of echo it makes. However, although he tries all the options on his bullhorn, he is unable to produce an echo, despite turning the horn up to its highest possible volume. It is as if the sound is simply consumed by the hole.

This leaves the scientist baffled, but, unwilling to betray his confusion, he simply says that the hole should be filled in. A waiting concessionaire tells the mayor that he will take on the task of filling in the hole. In response to the mayor's comment that they need to build a new shrine over the hole, the concessionaire says that he will build a new shrine, with a meeting hall attached, and will position it more conveniently close to the village.

The villagers are in favor of this idea, so the concessionaire is allowed to begin filling the hole. He has the shrine and meeting hall built for the villagers and then solicits permission from the government to offer the hole as a disposal opportunity. Nuclear power plants bid for the right to dispose of their waste in the hole: the villagers are initially apprehensive about this but capitulate when it becomes clear that they will be offered a share in the profits. There is also a new road built between the village and the hole.

Next, other things begin to be thrown into the hole, such as classified documents from the Foreign Ministry, but there is no sign that the hole is actually being filled. More and more things are thrown into the hole, such as animals who have been experimented upon with diseases, and rubbish which would otherwise have been thrown into the ocean.

City-dwellers begin to think of the hole as a way of getting rid of things without having to think about the consequences of their actions. The hole can solve...