Sunshine, Stars, and Lightning Dreams

Mama's eyes …so clear and bright and blue …just like mine, or so I'm told.  Mama died when I was born and, in a way, as did I, and as did Papa.  Mama stole us all away to death when she could no longer live, and it was all my fault.  I never saw Mama until I was fifteen, and Papa beat me surely for that, for poking around through the attic and stumbling across a faded wedding photo of Mama and Papa taken only sixteen years before …a year before I was born.  She was beautiful, my Mama, with golden hair down past her shoulders in waves and curls and those wondrous blue eyes, like shining stars, periwinkle and midnight and navy and all those other shades of blue all at once, merging together and sometimes just one color and always glittering with life.  She was shorter than Papa, tiny, like I am, and she was slim and lovely in her wedding gown adorned with sequins and lace, in a creamy shade of white accented with pale blue threaded patterns of flowers along the hem.  She looked like an angel, with the delicate veil pulled away and back from her face, her hair was swept up in an intricate bun atop her head with tightly curled tendrils touching her high, graceful cheeks lightly, the base of the veil made to look like a rose vine nested just behind her brow with a single pearl teardrop hanging down over the center of her forehead.

My breath caught in my throat and I could not tear my eyes, my eyes so much like Mama's, from the picture frame where my Mama still lived.  She was, in that moment, alive and well, though in the particular moment I inhabited, she was gone and had been for roughly fifteen years.  It was worth the beating Papa gave me when he found out, it was worth a thousand beatings just to have had that one brief glimpse at my angel, my Mama.  It was worth it, just to see for myself, that Mama's eyes really were identical to my own, twin windows to the soul, a soul that Mama and I had shared?  A soul that she sacrificed to give me life?  A beautiful soul, the soul of a blessed immortal, of an angel.

I have Papa's hair, his close-cropped raven-black hair, though my falls to my navel in gentle waves, with scarlet highlights when the sun reflects off of it just right.  Mama's crystalline blue eyes and alabaster skin, Mama's elegant cheekbones and height, Mama's delicate build but Papa's thick, dark hair and Papa's pride, Papa's self-confidence.  In looks, I could have been Mama's twin sister, had we been born at the approximately the same time and to the same woman, though in who I was, I believe I am more like Papa.  Papa has always been an imposing man, tall, broad shoulders, slim in the hips, rather like a character from the mangas I read in my youth.  I am brash though, and outspoken, whereas Papa has always been quiet, quiet in his disapproval, quiet in his emotions, quiet in his opinions.  Despite that quiet, I always knew when Papa was angered with me, for he would catch my by the wrist and hold me still, not painfully but firmly, and he would beat me, powerful blows that left harsh bruises on my porcelain skin, powerful blows that made me fear for the longest time the touch of another, even and especially when offered in kindness.  Papa was a good man though, brutal in his discipline though never excessively so, and he made sure I studied hard for my classes and did my chores daily, and that I grew up a respectable and polite person, though I was not filled with ambition as he, and I had not become icy and untouchable since Mama's passing.

Yes, Papa had made me shirk from caring embraces and gentle touches, yes he had inspired me to do my best quickly and effectively, and yes, he had guided my steps well throughout my schooling years.  Papa instructed me in music, prompting me to play the violin, at which I excelled, though for a good many years at first I loathed the smooth instrument, I loathed my own two hands with their slender fingers cradling the instrument with care I did not honestly feel, I loathed the sweet, harmonious tones I played and I loathed practicing with Papa with his switch ready at hand.  The switch was a much easier way of disciplining me when he tutored, much simpler than holding my wrist and keeping me steady to beat me for my mulish attitude and sharp tongue.  Often, after I turned fifteen and had seen Mama, my tongue got me in trouble with Papa and his switch and his fists.  Often, I spoke with thinking, spoke unkindly and brought punishment upon myself.  All too often, my waspish temperament and quick mouth sentenced me to beatings or lashings with the switch.

Papa, cold though he was to everyone, myself especially, Papa was a good man and braver than I at first believed him to be.  After I saw the picture, after Papa took my wrist and beat me for looking into the past, I had crept from my room where I was sent, to have no evening meal, and I heard as I snuck past Papa's room on my way to the kitchen the sound of a grief-choked man struggling to conceal his pain, to keep the tears from spilling down his face, to keep up the façade that he was long-since done dealing with the loss of his young bride.  Through the crack between door and doorframe, I saw Papa sitting at the edge of his bed, bent over a familiar-looking picture frame, and I saw the deep sorrow that had chilled his heart and frozen his spirit forever in the past where he could dance with her on their wedding day and hold her close in his arms that night, where they could always be together, no matter how death might have sought to separate each from the other, or how the years rolled by, building up the wall between the man my Mama had fallen in love with, the man who had died with her, and the man who was now my Papa, but still one in the same as the others.

I could scarcely feel the dull aches of my body from his beating earlier, could barely recall the pain to my mind as I watched him suffer in miserable agony, trapped in a present that he would not have been able to envision in the past, a future from his wedding day without his blushing bride, my Mama.  Papa was only a shell, I learned that day, the shell of a warm, caring man who had left the world with a sweet, cheery woman too strong and full of life to have slipped away.  My Papa was not Mama's husband, my Papa was a ghost of that smiling, loving man, a pale echo of the jovial and self-assured man standing tall at the side of my Mama in that ancient photo of fifteen years past.  I learned, that day, as Papa wept, as the summer sky broke outside and bitter rain fell like tears to the earth, that I was as much an orphan as a child whose parents both lay forgotten and rotting in a grave.  Papa taught me that as well.

Papa taught me, unknowingly to be sure, how to keep my true self secreted away inside, how to smile with my mouth, how to imitate the sparkle of life and joy in my eyes, how to accept loneliness and grief as the only real comrades I would ever have in life.  The constants of life, as I would later say, were the things that touched deepest, and the things that were not to be shown to the world, the things hidden in the heart and rarely, if ever, spoken of.  I learned from Papa how to laugh hollowly, so that others could not tell the difference, how to cry inside, how to take the pain from beatings and emotional woes and to put it far away in an empty space inside my heart.  I learned to swallow the yelps and screams that accompanied the beatings in my immature youth, how to keep the tears that formerly covered my face like water over the ocean floor from brimming in my eyes and falling to shame me.  I learned to be like Papa, strong and proud and distant.

* * *

When I was twelve, Papa came home with a young woman, one of his business associates.  I knew that Papa didn't take kindly to having women hold ranks of power in business, having women be where they did not belong, stealing jobs and money from men, but I knew also that he would take the outrage from that and hide it in the empty place inside, like I did.  He brought her home several times, always polite and respectful but never attempting to close the distance that kept Papa from everyone else.  The lady didn't try to gain Papa's affection either, she, after a time, earned his admiration in a court trial, but they never lusted for each other in any manner I could tell.  They just worked together, awkwardly and antagonistically at first, but better as time went by.

Once, when they came home to go over a case, the lady had a present with her, something – she said – for me, since it was my birthday.  It was a bad day.  Papa had never spoken or even looked in my general direction on this day, let alone permitted me to celebrate it.  Indeed, in the thirteen years I had been alive at that time, I had never once had occasion to celebrate my birthday, and quite often the date slipped right past my notice, with no acknowledgement at all.  But that year was different.  The lady had knelt carefully and set the brightly wrapped box down before me, for I was kneeling at the tea table at the time.  At first, I had been unsure what to do with it, for never had I received a gift in my life.  Papa brought me shopping for the necessities, such as clothing, and he would sometimes allow me a few yen to spend on myself, so I had a few stuffed animals to cuddle up with in my room, but he had never given me anything and neither had anyone else.

The lady ushered me to open it quickly, smiling a genuine smile that, I could tell, outshone the feigned ones Papa and I were accustomed to using.  She, I felt, was someone who wouldn't be able to notice the difference, despite the fact that her mirth and joy was real.

With curiosity and care I unwrapped the gift, hearing from within the whimpering of a small creature.  Lifting the lid of the cardboard box, I was moderately surprised to discover a tiny puppy gazing up at me and making soft noises.  I bonded with the creature instantly, my affection true and my joy just as real as I tenderly lifted the small dog from the box.  It was, I was informed, a golden retriever, and it – she, I ought to say – fit the description rather well.  She was small and her coat not thick, though a nice glossy golden, and her eyes were a warm, liquid shade of brown and distinctly puppy-ish.  The young dog, appropriately named 'Sunshine' had the puppy-eyes perfectly, just as I had always envisioned when reading tales of people using just that gaze on others.  Sunshine wormed her way into my heart quickly, offering a piece of honest childhood that I had not received before, letting me have the freedom of running outside and playing catch and sleeping curled up before the fire with Sunshine snoozing at my side.  We became the best of friends and I loved my puppy very much, and I don't believe I will ever stop loving her, my first friend, my original savior.

Mama was my angel, watching from above, but Sunshine was my savior, giving me joy and letting me offer care to another.  She was there on stormy nights when I thought back to Papa's desolation and she let me shed my tears unto her thick, silky coat.  She let my arms tighten about her as I shuddered and cried, and her sandpapery tongue removed the traces of tears from my face when my eyes became parched and unable to weep more.  She filled me with confidence and strength when I had to venture outside or into the basement when it was dark out and the bogeymen might have been close.  She loved me and guarded me, and I would have given my life for hers, so dear was she to my heart.

Sunshine died slowly and painfully one spring.  For days she lay about and whined softly, honey-brown eyes pools of turmoil as she fell further away from life and further into illness.  Finally, Papa took her when I was at horseback riding lessons, he took her and put her to sleep, granting her reprieve from the pain and giving her rest at last.  When I learned what he had done while I was in absence, I was inconsolable.  I raged and wept, knocking aside chairs and screaming at Papa, and he, with his dark brown eyes flinty and cold, took my wrist and ignored my remorseful wails.  I did not remember then, as he beat me, that he had mourned for longer than I, and possibly deeper than I.  I did not remember the rainy day I had caught him crying alone in his room as I accused him of being impervious to pain and uncaring towards the hurt of others.  As I accused him of being heartless, and horrible, and a man whom none could ever love.

I was wrong, and I was right.  My Papa was guilty, at least partially, of what I had said, but Mama's beloved was not.  Though I later wept, guilt for the terrible words I had spoken heavy over my heart, and for my loss, I did not truly understand the weight of my accusations until later, much, much later.

* * *

'Have you no dreams then?  No secret fantasies to idle away the afternoon hours?  I cannot believe that, you know.'

My seventeenth year was much like all the others.  Classes, riding lessons, violin, and a new addition: boys.  See, Papa had a high standing in his line of work, and there were so many business opportunities to be had by marrying me off to the son of one of his potential partners.  I, however, was busy enough with my schooling and extracurricular lessons to bother to take time out of my day with young men whom I didn't care for at all, and like Papa, I am a very stubborn person.  Still, Papa had his fists and his switch, and he was a much larger, stronger, and smarter person than I, with more life experience and a better eye for the future.  He knew what needed to be done in his line of work and he did it, and when he decided that there should be a merging of families, he set about preparing it, bringing me along to dinner meetings and making arrangements for the young men after my hand in marriage to take me places and to impress Papa.

'You have a musician's hands …'

Though I didn't particularly didn't enjoy being shunted off every Saturday and often times on weekdays with boys – even though they were all about my age – whom I barely knew and seldom saw again, I did appreciate the tastes of finer, freer life I was offered.  I saw many operas in those weeks, I strolled through many parks and was given the opportunity to learn from the best in the musical field while attending concerts and balls, and occasionally – Papa disapproved strongly – competitions such as horseback riding.  Even if the company was not one of my choice, the young men were always polite and courteous and we generally got along grandly, neither trying to establish anything and basically just spending the evening as if we were by ourselves.  I don't think very many of those boys were any more eager to take me out than I was to be taken out.

'I play the violin …and sometimes the piano.'

I didn't see much of Papa in those days, juggling school, riding lessons, violin, and dance – which Papa had decided I needed when I was about four, in order to become a well-rounded young lady.  The dances were fun and I had quite a few friends in my class, so I suppose it wasn't a complete waste of my time, and the instructor often complimented me, saying such things like how graceful my movements were and how I had the feet and ankles of a professional dancer.  Personally I doubt that I was any better than the other girls, and I know for a fact that several of them far excelled my performances, even when I was at my best.  Papa seemed proud though, and I saw him at a few of my performances, though most often a beaming young woman – his secretary – would come backstage afterwards to present me with a rose or two, from Papa, she would say, though I knew it was really from her, acting in consideration to make up for my Papa's lack of apparent appreciation.

'You remind me of a tale my mother once told me, when I was very small …of a swan princess …could I call you my swan princess?'

Still, there was one young man, almost as tall as Papa and with hair a dark shade of golden, rather long in fact, it would have reached his ears if he ever brushed it straight down, and soft charcoal brown eyes that reminded me, strangely enough, of Sunshine.  His voice was like velvet and his touch so light, like he was caressing my hand when he held it, or my shoulder when he draped his arm about me.  Normally I would shy from such intimate gestures, especially when on those arranged dates Papa made, but it was different with him …perhaps mostly because he wasn't one of my 'admirers'.  No, Chiba Yasuo was one of the younger partners in Papa's firm, strictly off-limits for me to see when there were so many other matches possible.  But Yasuo and I were young and our hearts tender, and before he or I knew it, we were deeply in love.  Unfortunately, ours was a secret courtship, and each time we were forced to lie in order to keep our relationship, I felt a twinge of guilt and embarrassment that we could not be open about our feelings, though I was never truly open with my emotions, not since Papa had taken me under his wings and taught me how to suppress such pointless things.

'Papa once …called me his 'snow angel' …before one of the firm's charity balls, I was gowned in silver and palest blue with a single diamond snowflake on a golden chain clasped about my neck.  I …would like …to be your swan princess very much.'

Nothing slips by Papa for too long though, and what Yasuo and I had …it ended far too soon.  One night, under the pretense of going to the gallery with another of my potential husbands, another partner sighted us, recognizing Yasuo and, somewhat belatedly, me as well.  The shock on his face was quite evident, and though he assured us that no word of what he had seen would leave his lips, Papa confronted me about it the very next morning, switch secure in hand.  That day hurt more than any other, I'm sure he didn't beat me as hard as he had when I had stolen a glance at Mama, but because he was denying me a chance at love and happiness, because he was breaking my young heart, it hurt more than anything else.  That was perhaps the first time since my earliest days that I wept when he hit me, that I screamed in anguish and sobbed, begging Papa to let me see him just one more time, just once more …

'You flinch beneath my touch …your skin is discolored at the shoulder …you're hurt!  Oh, my beautiful swan princess…'

* * *

Yasuo was rotated to a sister firm, an extension of the one Papa controlled, located in London.  I saw him a few times after that, at social functions and the like, and we greeted each other courteously, asking after the other's health, but there was a young woman I didn't know on his arm, and I could tell that his eyes were only for her.  The betrayal I felt, the shattering of my private hopes and dreams that we could be reunited and together …my stomach lurched and I had to hurry to the ladies room before I made a mess on the sleek ballroom floor.  I stayed in my room, in my bed, for four days straight, not crying …never crying …I was through weeping for my lost love, but I was trying to absolve myself to the fact that we would never be.  Papa grew angrier with each hour that passed when I would not leave my room, drinking water from the facet in the bath adjoined to my room, not eating …a shadow of the boisterous girl I had been in Yasuo's company.

Just as it had been when I lost Sunshine, I drew apart from the chipper mask, abandoning my fantasies and bright, honest smiles in favor of retreating to the spiritless child I had been, the icy specter aimlessly wandering through life, getting good marks in class and doing moderately well in my other activities.  Locked within myself, my heart hollowed out and buried amidst painful memories and sharp stabs of regret that hindered my ability to reach out again and to try for human contact and friendship, I ventured out on my own, soon securing a job as an accountant for a small company that went under after four years.  I was living in a hotel suite, near the center of Tokyo, and doing fairly well as a journalist for the local newspaper, though my true longing was to be an attorney, following in Papa's footsteps I suppose.  Mama had been a priestess at one of the long forgotten and slowly floundering shrines on the outskirts of town.  Papa had taken me there until I was two, I learned, and then he simply couldn't handle it anymore and decided to immerse himself in work.

Like I was trying to do.

* * *

Papa never succeeded in marrying me off, although his firm did great work on its own, without a partnership founded on the marriage of Papa's little girl and someone else's little boy.  Papa died before my twenty-ninth birthday.  He died peacefully, in his sleep, with the picture frame in his hands and tears standing out on his cheeks.  The doctors assumed it was from stress and old age, although Papa was only fifty-five.  When Papa died, I felt a weight loosen from my heart, for I knew that he, at last, was at peace, with Mama.  I cried softly that night for the first time since I was seventeen.

A few months later, I was promoted and became one of the top partners in my firm, a position equal to the one my Papa had held for so many years.  I remember going up against Yasuo and his young wife, Shina – also a lawyer – several times as I earned my position in my firm.  I remember opting to switch to America along with a few of the junior partners to expand and having a fling with one of the attorney's from Papa's firm.  It didn't last long, but I was rewarded with a sweet little daughter, whom I named Setsuna.  By this time, the wealth accumulated from Papa's work and mine had grown to quite the substantial sum.

Setsuna was a quiet child, wise and as mulish as I, with hair dark like mine though it shone green in certain lights and her eyes were a lovely maroon.  There were many times when I, looking at my baby, thought that her eyes held more knowledge than I would ever accumulate and I felt the strangest stirrings of pride for that.  But also about her was an aura that seemed a reflection of my own, one that signified deep emotions often hidden, and I knew that she would see many hardships and experience much pain in her life, but I knew that my daughter was strong and able.  She, my beautiful baby, my wonderful offspring …never once did I hurt her as Papa had hurt me …there were better, milder ways to instruct children and to discipline them and I didn't want her to grow cold to human companionship and gentle touches, though I had the strangest feeling that someday she would have to survive alone, more alone than I had been growing up.  It was not something I wanted for my precious one, but it was something that I knew was inevitable and that I knew would make her a stronger, better person.  I could only hope that she would handle herself as well as she showed herself to in her youngest years.

I regret that I will not be able to guide her through her life, to watch as she grows from a promising young girl to a lovely and intelligent young woman, but I am at least thankful that I have been given these years with her, my darling child.  The disease is spreading through my system, the same illness that weakened my Mama so that she passed away shortly after my birth …and I can only hope that I have not passed this onto my little girl.  I am no longer working, spending as much time as possible with Setsuna, hugging her and kissing her and letting her know that I will always be there to watch over her, that she will have two angels …her mother and her grandmother.

She's sleeping in my lap now, in fact, her long, dark hair overlapping with mine until it is impossible to tell the strands apart and both manes are blanketing us, her warm smile indicating a slumber filled with sweet dreams.  My hands tremble as I stroke her cheek tenderly and I feel the burning aches sear me inside, sending spikes of pain throughout my body, protesting movement of any sort, though for my sweetie I would move heaven and earth without giving any thought to the accompanying pain.  Doctor Mizuno will be stopping by shortly, such a wonderful young woman, she and her husband are hoping to have a child sometime soon and I think they would make wonderful parents, if not a wonderful couple.  They seem to have some troubles together, but …so nice …

I kiss my daughter's brow and brush aside a few stray hairs, my heart swelling to watch her breath softly, rhythmically, dreaming of happy things.  This is what I have dreamt of since my youngest days …this is what makes me whole.  This, my glorious daughter, my peace and life, and if I had my way, I would never have to leave her side and never have to miss a moment of her life.  But, my life has never been about things going my way …so I find it rather unsurprising that I am so quickly accepting that my time here is nearly at an end.  I just wish that I could hold her forever and make her life so grand and joyous …my sweet angel child …

The End.

So …did I confuse anyone at first?  Did anyone think the narrator was Chibi-Usa, or Rei, or one of the Outers?  Who caught the references to the other characters in this?  Of course, just one of the Scouts we're familiar with is in here, and as you see, I've given Mamoru's parents names.  Yasuo means 'peaceful one' and Shina means 'virtue, good'.  I've always entertained thoughts that such personalities would reflect in their offspring, and Mamoru seems to show some of it at least.  Please review, folks, I, the baka author, would love to hear from you.