Threads of Memory
Years continued to pass, as they often do.
Hitome never kept a job longer than five years, not because she was a poor worker, but rather due to her restlessness. Five years was the longest period she could wait before she gave her boss and her landlord notice and disappeared into the night.
The few friends she had from high school kept in touch with her as best they could, sending her pictures of their spouses, children and eventually grandchildren, always attached to letters inquiring after her health and activities.
She seldom wrote back.
Throughout all these years, she spent her nights wandering through city streets and parks, always wrapped in a gauzy, white shawl. Over time, city children began asking their parents about the "White Lady" that drifted through their soccer games and passed their school grounds, until, one day, some patient mother sitting by her child's bedside-rather than reminding her son or daughter that she didn't know who the lady was any better than they did-made up a story to answer the question, and gradually, Hitome became a myth, a creature of legend. Mothers whispered the tale gently to sleepy children:
"She is a spirit now," they would begin, "But while she still lived-in a long gone era-she battled against a cruel and ambitious villain. Her army was small and ill-equipped for war, but she fought beside a fallen king, and even though they faced their nemesis alone, in the end, their courage was great and they defeated the villain. However, as he died, the warlord cast a final spell, and as she turned to embrace the warrior-king, overjoyed that they were now free to rebuild the land together, a cold wind passed through her body and captured her soul, pulling her essence far into the future, and leaving her beloved with only the empty shell of her body. So now she roams the lands she once knew, searching for a way home and mourning her lover, and the white shawl trailing behind her, spun with threads of memory, is her silent prayer to Time, caught like wings in the winds of his fleeting processional."
And the years continued to pass, as they often do.
Hitome grew old and weak, and though she could no longer wander the streets, shrouded in the filmy mist of memory, the children remembered and still whispered, and as her life slipped past her lips, in every city she had drifted through, children and their young mothers spoke of her in hushed tones, and so it was that Hitome was remembered in the land of her birth.
Years continued to pass, as they often do.
Hitome never kept a job longer than five years, not because she was a poor worker, but rather due to her restlessness. Five years was the longest period she could wait before she gave her boss and her landlord notice and disappeared into the night.
The few friends she had from high school kept in touch with her as best they could, sending her pictures of their spouses, children and eventually grandchildren, always attached to letters inquiring after her health and activities.
She seldom wrote back.
Throughout all these years, she spent her nights wandering through city streets and parks, always wrapped in a gauzy, white shawl. Over time, city children began asking their parents about the "White Lady" that drifted through their soccer games and passed their school grounds, until, one day, some patient mother sitting by her child's bedside-rather than reminding her son or daughter that she didn't know who the lady was any better than they did-made up a story to answer the question, and gradually, Hitome became a myth, a creature of legend. Mothers whispered the tale gently to sleepy children:
"She is a spirit now," they would begin, "But while she still lived-in a long gone era-she battled against a cruel and ambitious villain. Her army was small and ill-equipped for war, but she fought beside a fallen king, and even though they faced their nemesis alone, in the end, their courage was great and they defeated the villain. However, as he died, the warlord cast a final spell, and as she turned to embrace the warrior-king, overjoyed that they were now free to rebuild the land together, a cold wind passed through her body and captured her soul, pulling her essence far into the future, and leaving her beloved with only the empty shell of her body. So now she roams the lands she once knew, searching for a way home and mourning her lover, and the white shawl trailing behind her, spun with threads of memory, is her silent prayer to Time, caught like wings in the winds of his fleeting processional."
And the years continued to pass, as they often do.
Hitome grew old and weak, and though she could no longer wander the streets, shrouded in the filmy mist of memory, the children remembered and still whispered, and as her life slipped past her lips, in every city she had drifted through, children and their young mothers spoke of her in hushed tones, and so it was that Hitome was remembered in the land of her birth.