There once used to be a myth of the mirror and the apple. At the stroke of midnight, one sits in front of the mirror, by a lone candlelight, peeling an apple. She looks through the mirror while doing this, all the while taking care to peel the apple in one long, straight attempt, for if she severs the peel, unimaginably bad things would happen to her. Thus looking in the mirror and peeling the apple, it is said that she would be able to see future events of her life play out like a movie in front of her. It was only for the bravest of hearts, because the mirror is not rose tinted. Life is never smooth.
The story constantly haunted R. She had heard her mum repeat this a lot in her childhood, and had often wondered if it was real. Like the pencil game and the ouijia board, this story induced fear and at the same time, contempt. Only, she would never dare to try it. When she asked her mum if she had tried it, a cryptic laugh was all she got in answer. That laugh frankly gave R the shivers, much worse than the myth itself.
Head stuck in the clouds— that was how R would describe herself, in an instant, if she were to be honest. The only daughter of a seamstress, R was part of that unfortunate generation X which brought with it rapid electronic and cultural changes. In her childhood, sandcastles and books had taken up her time for enjoyment. As a teen, mobile text messaging was like the miracle God had sent to helpless students for the purpose of escaping teachers' wrath while exchanging life-altering gossip in vowed and literal silence during lessons. By the age of 20, she, much like others her age, looked back and felt displaced, stuck amongst conservatism, spirituality, hedonism and arrogant materialism.
She opened her eyes and looked up at the cloudy sky. Pondering over these again, she mused. But that myth though. She instantly felt goosebumps flooding her arms. No. Looking at her watch, she saw that it was 5:30 pm. Mum would start looking out for her in an hour or so. She put her hands back behind her head and closed her eyes again. Lying on her back, on a lonely jetty in Tokyo's Odaiba beach, shielding her face from the summer sun with a hat— it had been her favourite activity since the time she was 17. At 23, having lived in Japan as a gaikokujin for over 15 years, this peaceful sanctuary had kept her sane through all the hormones and the ongoing existential crises. 15 more minutes, she told herself.
The rush hour was an every-day nightmare. At the small conbini where she usually bought her cigarettes, before entering the station, R noticed that the new weekly issue for Shonen was out. Being in Japan for 15 years had eventually gotten her hooked onto manga. Not just any manga though: just Bleach. It was the first she had read. She had been 10, and had gotten her best friend at the time, Kasumi, to painstakingly read and translate every word till she had gotten better at Japanese herself. When the Bleach animated series started airing 3 years later, she had watched in awe, at all her beloved characters coming to life onscreen. She laughed with Orihime, cried with Rukia and marvelled at Ichigo, and often got mad at the decisions of the Sou-taicho. When she could afford it, she bought all the animated series in CDs and DVDs. That mad world of Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, of monsters, of death gods who were too human, was her escape of choice. Their powers that grew from their core, was her hope, her fight against mundanity.
She picked up the latest Shonen weekly and passed it to the elderly man manning the stall.
"Ano.. korewa nihongoni kaitanodesuga, Nihongo ga wakarimasu ka?" (Excuse me miss, this manga is in Japanese, do you understand Japanese?) R blinked at him blankly for a second, and smiled back to his kind smile.
"Nihonni juugonen sunde orimasu, Nihongo wa mou daijoubuda to omoimasu," she said with a smile. (I've lived in Japan for 15 years, so I think my Japanese is alright.)
"Aa, sounan desuka. Yokattan desune." (Ah, really? That's good.)
She paid him and moved on to the train. On the ride home, she was thinking about the characters of Bleach. She wondered why humans around her with their fascinating complexities, could not excite her as much as the engineered imaginary characters drawn by a comic artist. Maybe the magic, her inner voice answered. Maybe, she mouthed.
Magic was all around. She remembered the incident at the age of 19. At Odaiba beach after school, as usual. It was about to rain. Thunder was rolling so loudly in the skies that she had felt her whole body vibrate in tune with it. She had just had a fight with her mum about something teenage and mundane, and had not wanted to go back home straight after school. Even after hearing announcements from the beach officials telling patrons to take shelter from the approaching thunderstorm, she had lain there deep in thought. She had not even registered the moment lightning struck her on her head.
She had lost her memory for a few days, and she had lost all her hair. She had had difficulty moving her limbs for a while, but she lived. She had quite miraculously survived a bolt of lightning on her head. R came away from that ordeal with a sensitivity in her body that she hadn't felt before, and with green grey eyes that her brown ones had changed to. It was her scar. The doctors could not explain this phenomenon. They only guessed that the electricity to her brain had caused it to pick up many things that were quite unnoticeable to the average human being. She recognized vibrations of individual people. She saw energy of people and things left behind after their death or destruction. She took this to be an answer to her constant questions pertaining to the mundanity of life. Even after 4 years, seeing ghostly remains of actions performed once upon a time left her feeling gripped. That had to be magic.
AN:
gaikokujin: foreigner
conbini: convenience store