a serialized online story
by Tommy Schmitz
Chapter 5 - Mourning and mystery on Hebi-yama.
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Katie and Susan O'Brien and Oba-chan
huddled and cuddled around one other
to absorb, to grieve, to reject as impossible
the news of their love ones
missing in Kashmir.
Oba-chan suggested the girls stay home tomorrow
away from the uncertainty and chaos
surely to hound them
from well meaning friends,
from media
from within their own minds.
They had never missed a day of school before,
not a single one,
nor a day of Shintaiso practice,
and "tomorrow", Katie and Susan said,
"would not be the first."
The girls retired to their room.
And Katie did some homework
by the light of an oil lamp
lit for comfort and for quiet,
While Susan sat at the piano
and began to slowly and quietly play
the very first song
her father Henry O'Brien
had taught her at the age of six,
and her own tears
broke new ground in her feeling of loss
compelling more tears as well from Katie.
And the melody Susan played,
a lullaby written almost 70 years before
by her grandfather in Des Moines,
then passed down to her through her father,
became the words spoken between sisters
and these were words enough.
Yet after some minutes passed by
came softly some other melody.
Maybe from the radio in Oba-chan's room?
The girls looked around and at each other.
No.
This melody, measure for measure, playing along,
harmonizing and weaving through the notes Susan played
a soft solo sound from some kind of flute,
came quietly and on key
through their opened bedroom window
from the darkness of Hebi-yama
and into the barely golden glow of their room.
And these unlikely companion melodies
coming from some bigger heart of mourning,
or magic,
brought the girls to a tiredness and a peace
that encouraged them
to the feelings of their own exhaustion
and to their futons on the floor
and subtly and sweetly
to sleep.
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Where the national forest begins
at the O'Brien household property line
a mere one meter
from its west brick wall,
the stranger in Snake Mountain (Hebi-yama)
whose voice the girls had heard
that same evening on their way home
had spent the earlier part of the day
making a nest
about 40 meters away
in a thick and impenetrable thatch of bamboo.
He cut out a small clearing
with a machete knife,
dividing out in stacks
the solid bamboo stalks, for vectoring
from those a bit more flexible, for shaping
from those a lot more flexible, for lashing
from those brand new, for food.
The solid bamboo stalks for vectoring
became foundation and floor and wall
laid out in pentagon,
in diameter
the length of his body
and half again.
He then trimmed and cut
and lined up in ratio
like making angels in the snow
a pattern of chords
from the flexible stalks
for a geodesic dome.
Weaving and lashing
for a few hours more in the afternoon
a bamboo roof
of some organic half moon,
and lashed this unlikely sturdy top
to the foundation and walls and floor.
Then sitting back
with a smile and a sigh
he welcomed himself warmly
to home-sweet home.
He took from his sack
a bottle of water, and also
a bottle of mayonnaise labeled "Kyupi",
and he sat down and enjoyed a banquet
of H2O and
of bamboo shoots
dipped in the local mayo.
After his evening meal
the man took a walk in the woods in darkness
and spotted Katie and Susan O'Brien returning home
and naturally, offered a "daijoubu",
inquiring about the well-being
of his two special young neighbors
who passed by nearly unnoticed,
and upon hearing his voice
suddenly ran away.
And later in the evening
he began to hear an exquisite and simple melody
plucked gently nearby on a piano
so he took from his pack his well worn flute
and with improvisation
played along for a while.
And with his final chore of the day,
nearly forgotten by these
transporting and companion melodies
on piano and flute,
the man retreived a cell phone
from his bag,
and to his team on the other end reported,
"I'm all set-up. Let's spread the party out."
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The next morning the girls awoke
to unbearable sadness
strangely coupled with a determination
to not only make it through the long day ahead
but to seek out and to meet face-to-face
the mysterious flautist of Snake Mountain.
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(Chapter 6 coming Wednesday, July 10, 2006, 11:00 pm Mexico City Time.)
(Return to Tokyo Twins - Chapter Map.)
