Tokyo Twins Chapter 14 - The river stops here.

a serialized online story

by Tommy Schmitz

...

"Right about now,

that looks like fun."

The girls just walked into practice

after school,

and Katie noticed several

five, six, seven year old girls,

a blurry swarm

in a corner of the gym,

rolling hoops and balls

and laughing and screaming

and playing drums

on the floor-mats with mallets

and willy-nilly with dancing and colorful ribbons.




"Sometimes I feel more jealous

of those little girls

than I do the older ones I'm trying to beat." Katie reflected.

"Yeah." Susan agreed.

"Wouldn't it be nice?" Katie went on.

"What." said Susan.

"... a Shintaiso championship of frolic and fun."

"Get real."

"Yeah, just a thought."

"Well... here's a better thought, daydream-butt:

just this once,

forget about warm up and stretching,

go back to when you were five years old

I dare ya...

go frolic with the little girls

just to see what

Godotnova-sensei says." said Susan.

"You think I wanna go back to five years old?

Uh huh. I just wanna play. Katie said.

"So, go for it. What's she gonna say?" said Susan, "'get with it

while your whole world is exploding around you?'"

"She might." Katie said.

"And she might not," said a male voice several meters away.

"Satchitananda-san." Susan saw him first.

"What are you doing here?"

"I hope I'm not intruding. Oba-chan said it would be okay for me to stop by and watch you practice."

"Not much to see." Susan said in monotone.

"It's nice of you to come." said Katie.

"You girls go ahead... I'll sit over here...."

And Katie ran over to the little ones

and dove upon the floor and rolled around

grabbing and tickling them,

and rolling again,

encouraged by more screams and squeals.

Katie paused a moment and rested on her back

amidst the tiny feet and arms

and bodies piling on top of her

and stared blankly at the ceiling.

and some smile rose up inside of her,

and a tear rolled down her cheek.




"Who is this man?" said Inga Godotnova

standing next to Susan and watching Katie play.

"Um, I'm not sure. A friend of the family? Ask Oba-chan." said Susan.



* * * * * * *



"You coulda picked a better practice than this one," said Susan to the old man.

"Pretty bad considering..." Katie said.

The two were shaking their heads,

all walking home together from Chofu Station.

"Considering?" said Satchitananda.

"Considering the National Trials Meet

is several days away," said Susan.

"Never felt so.... I don't know.... unprepared before a meet," Katie said.

"Unpracticed? Untrained?"

"Yeah and that's what makes me so mad. Thirty hours a week of training

and I am feeling unprepared."

"Hmm." Kenji nodded, "you girls ever been down at the river at night?"

"Not lately."

"Few years ago, Dad took us there really late one night." said Susan.

"To watch a meteor shower." Katie said.

"Dragged us outta the dead a sleep." said Susan smiling a bit now.

"See any?"

"Boy did we." Susan said laughing.

"There were more than meteors up there." Katie said.

"What do you mean?" he said.

"We saw... the three of us... I don't know what it was." Katie said.

"not a meteor huh," Kenji said.

"Not unless meteors these days have minds of their own." said Susan..

"and dressed in designer colors," Katie added.

"It was... weirdly blue," said Susan shaking her head up and down, "not like a flame."

"Some kinda punk meteor we decided," said Katie, "with state of the art avionics."

"Oba-chan was so mad she missed it." Susan laughed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Aug 25, 2006 10:29pm · Edit · Del

"Oba-chan." Kenji said. "I'll bet she's awaiting your return

with more worry than usual tonight."

"We're worried about her too," said Susan.

"She's a wonderful grandmother, isn't she." Kenji said.

"The best there ever was," Katie smiled.

"Well hurry home. And how about meeting me

at the hut after you eat? Unless you're feeling too tired.

We can always meet tomorrow night." he said.

Susan chuckled to herself. "We can probably make it."

"We'll eat. Finish some homework." Katie said.

"See ya." the girls said and ran the last fifty meters home.



******



"Have you heard or seen anything strange in this forest." said Susan,

with a mock-deep authoritarian voice."

The girls were merely steps away from Kenji's hut.

"Shhhh," Katie said laughing. "The agents can hear us

from their car right over there."

"Only the normal haunted stuff."

The girls heard Kenji's loud whisper

over the bullfrog army choir.

It was coming from ten meters further down

the hill and past his hut.

"Hey, wait up!" Susan whispered hoarsely back.

"You were listening to our whole conversation with the agents this morning, weren't you." said Katie,

stepping over godknowswhat in the dark.

They caught up to him, still in the forest,

but close to the road.

"Who me?" Kenji smiled.

"This is kinda fun," said Susan.

"Let's cut over the road and then down the hill

into the rice paddy and along the edge of the water.

toward Tamagawa."




"Really?" Katie said.

"It's way too muddy down there, Satchitananda-san." said Susan.

"Don't worry, follow me." he said and shrugged and waved his arms.

They held hands and laughed while slipping down the hill

then followed Kenji's big steps and leaps over deep and sloppy mud

and into wet and shin high grass and then up several footsteps

to the top of the levy looking west across slick black shallow water

glittering with the candlelight of ghosts, here and there,

in the shine of a late rising moon.




Or so Susan imagined as they walked along more relaxed now.

But Susan couldn't resist a snicker out load about the ghosts of Hebi-yama,

and surmised that if there were such things,

they were too much varied in their ways and looks and sounds

to get noticed apart from all the weirdness still very much alive in there.

"If every thing and everyone alive is truly different," Kenji said,

"perhaps every thing and everyone dead is too."

"Well, I guess that's a nice thought," Katie said,

making her eyes as big as she could in sarcasm.

"Sorry, that is not a nice thought," said Susan, "it's creeping me out."

They were walking along a dry pathway now between old houses,

a hundred meters from the Tama River.

"Let's try shifting our angle of view on this, Susan and Katie,

on this timely subject you've raised." he said.

"Timely?" the girls said together.

"Well, you know. Oh look there's the river!"

And they climbed atop the river's own levy

to get a better look.

"I have an idea." Kenji went on, this time with clear intention.

"Discussions about death and dying are fun,

believe me, where I come from? These are things to know about.

But how about we consider for a moment

something we're negotiating right now... or trying to anyway.

"the river?" Katie asked..

"The river, yes Katie, but in this case, more general." he replied.

"Life." said Susan.

"Life." repeated Kenji.




"Now there's a scary thought," said Katie.

"Yes," said Kenji, "in many ways."

"Especially...." Katie started and stopped and pressed the temples of her head with the palms of her hand.

They looked at the moving water for a while in quietness.

"Isn't it strange," he said and paused.

"What." said Susan.

"Strange there is no definition of life,

no scientific definition.

And maybe stranger still,

we are not

anxiously awaiting one?"


"Why is it," Kenji continued,

we, our whole species,

do not have a colossal anxiety

about knowing

what it is

our beautiful and miraculous minds

cannot even begin to fathom?

It's strange, isn't it?

The most precious thing we have.

The one thing we love the most,

cannot even be looked up in a dictionary,

has no structure we can put our hands on,

no inherent flavor

embedded in our bodies

to give us even the briefest, tiniest taste of certainty.

and that doesn't concern us, or most of us anyway.

Maybe there is not supposed to be a scientific definition of life."

"I don't know," said Katie.

"And neither do I," Kenji said, "and yet with all the knowledge

our species has fancied and tested and documented and applied,,

Isn't it strange we still don't know who it is we are."

"Or 'what' it is we are." said Susan.

"Excellent point!" Kenji said. "What we are..." he began slowly,

is who we are,

but too big

for us to see

or to smell

or taste -

or to even think about.




"Too big?" said Susan.

"How's that?" Katie asked.

"Life. You." said Kenji. Simply way too big for our own minds to fathom.

"I try to fathom it," Susan said. "We both do... sometimes."

"and?" Kenji said, "what have you learned from fathom."

"not much. just fun to do sometimes, I guess." said Susan.

"but you said we're too big, didn't you? ... for our minds? I don't get it." Katie said.

"Good point!" Kenji said, "yet another oddity of our existence -

our minds, perhaps nature's greatest creation,

is all but crippled, really, in ever knowing anything."

"Oh but there are billions on this earth who would disagree with you." said Susan.

"There most certainly are." said Kenji. "The mind lays claim to all knowledge.

It's the nature of the mind, and yet it knows so very little.

It's a beautiful confusion built into our existence,

"beautiful?"

Perhaps when you consider that the nature of existence

is itself pure knowledge."

"Pure knowledge?"

And astonishingly accessible.

"How?" the girls said almost at once.

Through our feelings." Kenji said.

Susan was shaking her head in doubt. "To fathom or to feel - let's stop this nonsense. I am so confused."

"Hmmm yes." said Kenji, "confused is also good! Shall we go ahead and try it out?

"Huh?"

"Try what?"

"Try out the feeling of how big you are?"

"how's that?" said Susan.

"well..." Kenji looked around aware, "let's sit down here a moment

and get comfortable

and let's close our eyes

and see."

"I don't know said Susan."

"Three four minutes at the most. Are you game? Let's try."

"This is weird," Katie said.

"This is weird," repeated Susan.

And they sat down on dry soil

and closed their eyes

and Kenji said,

"let's take a deep breath in."

"and let it out."

"now let's take another deep breath in."

"and let it out."

they sat about half a minute.

kenji spoke:

"do you feel some quietness, some silence, some good feeling?

let's close the eyes again

and be with and watch inside

very gently

that good feeling."

they sat a few more moments

and Kenji spoke:

"Become aware of your breath,

however it is...

fast or slow or changing...

become aware of your breath...."

And they sat quietly again.

"Now become aware of your body....

without concentration,

without effort...."

For moments more they sat.

"Slowly, let's open the eyes." Kenji said.

"Did you notice

while sitting

and observing this breath and this body

that thoughts of any sort arise in the mind?

hmmm?"

The girls nodded slowly.

"Did you notice how naturally this happened? hmmm?

how the mind naturally comes into play?

this time, let's close the eyes,

and when we become aware

of the mind in play

let's gently refocus our attention

to the breath....

let's close the eyes...."

And a minute or two passed.

Kenji slowly said:

"Become aware

of your body."

and a restful minute or so passed on.

Then Kenji said:

"Become aware

of the top of your head.."

And Kenji continued to guide them gently

through alternating and growing levels of quietness and awareness

like so:


"Become aware of the space

above the top of your head."



"Become aware of the moon."




"Become aware of alllllllll the space

between the moon

and the top of your head."




"Become aware of a direct connection,

a long, unbroken connection,

with a smile on its face,

between the moon

and the top of your head."




"Let's be with that connection, that smile

for a moment."




"Become aware of all the stars in the heavens."



"And alllllllllll the space between all the stars in heaven

and the top of your head."




"Become aware of all the connections,

each in smile,

from trillions of stars in heaven

to the top of your head."




The three sat quietly for several more minutes

unaware of time passing.



"Become aware of your breath." Kenji said.

"Let's enjoy with eyes still closed

this awareness for a moment.



Then Kenji said,

"Gently, and when you are ready

take a minute or two or more

and very slowly open the eyes."



What did you feel? Hmmm?


"I felt as relaxed as a rock. And I also somehow felt huge." Susan said.

I felt exactly the same way," said Katie, "and I also felt like crying."

"Me too." said Susan.

"Good. And how do you feel now?"

"Relaxed," said Susan, "calm. quiet. and sad too."

"hmm mm. and Katie? what did you feel?"

yeah. the same. i felt big. huge. quiet. very quiet, very huge.

"did you notice thoughts coming during the experience?" hmmm"

"yes, thoughts of everything, Susan said,

"of Mom and Dad, of Jack, Oba-chan,

of our coach, my routine, my impossible routine."

Kenji laughed.

And did you notice how these thoughts come spontaneously without intention and without effort?

Yes? Hmm?

With just this amount of non-effort...

the way we notice thoughts arising naturally in the mind,

with just this subtle direction of our awareness

we can feel how big life is,

how big we are,

inside and out,

and feel your very own "who", your self,

all along the way."

"i don't feel like moving a single muscle in my body." said Susan.

"Me too." Katie said.

"Good." said Kenji.

will you do this again with us?

yes. and you can do it without me as well.

maybe not. said Katie.

Susan smiled.

Kenji smiled and nodded his head and said, "Good. Anyway, you can try it.

And now you know what to do."

"I'm starting to feel so sleepy. " Katie said.

"Me too," said Susan. "Let's go home."

(End of Chapter 14 - The river stops here.)