Microcosm
Images of broken light
dance before me like a million eyes
that call me on and on across the universe
Restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly
as they make their way across the universe
Nothings gonna change my world
Because he was born between Adam and Eve, in the crook of the world , in a bend next to the Tree of Good and Evil, Kakashi-sensei knows everything. Well, maybe he's not that old. But he must be pretty ancient, reasons Naruto. And Naruto knows this on account of the wild, silver hair and all. And because of all the pointing and lecturing which only old people do. And because his sensei is eeeeeeexxxtreeeemely boring.
Like a bump on a log. Like trying to watch a race between a snail and a maple tree. Because all Naruto has ever seen Kakashi-sensei do is go to work, and go home, in his rumpled old, stuffy uniform. And whenever they are off and Naruto dares to visit the old goat's flat, he always pauses in raising his fist to bam on the door. Because there is a large crack in the siding between wall and the door that has been covered over with thick gray tape. But Naruto can maneuver the tape away with his fingers to look in. To look in and see Kakashi-sensei in bed may'be dead, presumably asleep, with the covers over his head. Alone in broad daylight, at the crux of the day, when the sun is highest in the sky. Asleep.
Old men sleep during the high hours of the day. Old men live in run down flats with taped over cracks in the siding between the walls and the doors. Old men are Alone.
If it wasn't for a strange feeling Naruto would feel sorry for Kakashi-sensei. But when they are out for ramen and Naruto sits next to him, Naruto smells something spicy on Kakashi-sensei's skin, and feels something warm slithering through his air. And when Kakashi-sensei looks down at him, that bottomless pool of black ink, that eye pierces straight through him and makes him think about things he rather would not.
Naruto does not know that when Kakashi's mother told his father that she was going to have him a son, the great warrior bowed his head and cried. And nobody could tell if the tears were of joy or of repentance for what he was destined to do. Naruto does not know that Kakashi's mother's water broke on a day when his father was miles away on a mission.
That she set out on foot frenzied with desperation to be near her husband during the birth, and collapsed in a tall field of corn because she couldn't make it. Naruto does not know that crows fleeing from a scarecrow that never scared anything away, drew curious farmers to the field, where they found a swollen woman gasping against the scare crow's puny leg. Naruto does not know that Kakashi was born in a dirty, ailing field. And that when his father finally arrived he kissed his wife and held his son, and couldn't bring himself to put the child down. He blessed the farmer and the scarecrow and named his son after the makeshift savior. Naruto does not know that Kakashi's parents loved him very much. Which makes everything much worse.
Because he was born yesterday in a bright red wagon, coddled in a chrysalis until he fell off, Kakashi-kun knows nothing. A man without a father is like a stray dog, and Tsunade has never seen a man who gets the point of living less than Kakashi-kun. And he is too slick. Like water through the fingers. Like a rainbow that evaporates before you can count all of the colors.
She hears the stories of the women that Kakashi-kun takes to bed. They tell her that he never calls again the next morning. And when they call him there is only the soft hiss of his breath across the telephone lines, and then the softer click of him hanging up. If she didn't know any better, Tsuande would say to him that all of the time he spends nursing hang-overs and the mental echoes of rowdy laughter in that dark cave of a flat he lives in, should be wearing him to bones. When she looks at him she imagines that she can see his bones. But she thinks its because he's empty and hungry in his soul.
Because his body kept growing but the tender part of him, the best part of him, his mind did not advance far beyond that of the tongue tied little boy, whose eyes grew into saucers after being trapped in the family dojo with his father's disemboweled body all night long. If not for some feeling, Tsunade would hate Kakashi-kun.
But when she is alone and in a hurry. Picking her way through the bustling village, she might suddenly feel a gentle hand at her elbow. And it is Kakashi-kun lifting one hand and motioning authoritatively for all of the traffic to stop and let a lady pass, as he guides her across the street. She sometimes mumbles a word of thanks, but he never accepts or acknowledges this, except for a small smile. And something about the quiet lift of those sullen lips under the fabric of the mask makes her smile back even though she doesn't want to.
Tsunade does not know that when Kakashi was too young to harbor ill will, he played in the garden while his mother strung clothes on the line to flap like layers of wet skin in the wind. He watched fireflies that had not lit, and caught grasshoppers in his closed, chubby hands. Tsunade does not know that Kakashi's father was trying desperately to get his son to pay attention and train with him. He held his hand out saying saying 'Punch it son' to Kakashi in a coaxing voice, but the little baby cooed and giggled over the grasshopper legs tickling his palms, and wouldn't look up.
Tsunade does not know that eventually Kakashi's father in a rage, shook his son's caged hands apart, and when the grasshopper hopped free his father stepped on it. Kakashi started to scream and cry, and Kakashi's mother started to scream at his father who yelled 'No son of mine is going to be soft', and then Kakashi punched his father in the face.
Even though he was knocked back on his haunches and left rubbing the little red spot made on his jaw he laughed and said "now, that's my boy." Tsunade doesn't know that Kakashi's mother angrily scooped him up and took inside the house, yelling with his father over the screaming child's head, but the grasshopper was still smashed in the grass.
Tsunade does not know that from a young age Kakashi, bred to be a killer, was taught to fight. But it hasn't seemed to change much of anything.
Because he has lived with himself from the day he was born until now, Kakashi does not understand the way his mind works at all. He presumes that he will go on living with himself until he dies, but he doesn't know when that will be, and he's not sure how he feels about that. If he feels anyway at all. It's certain however that it can't be much longer now, because his own father died at Thirty and Kakashi has been watching the calendar.
He knows he'll be Thirty soon. He knows he will spend his first few hours of Thirty alone in his room in his socks with holes in the toes eating take out on the couch. Unless one of the guys comes to take him hostage, but they're always just being polite. He'll say No, but he'll let them. They always forget he's there anyway.
All in all it has not been such a bad life, if that's what you'd call it. It would be better if he had loved ones to leave behind. Or may'be that would make it worse. He's a good citizen. He dug holes in the park to plant more trees last year. He walks beautiful unsuspecting women across the street, to make for all of the beautiful unsuspecting women that he makes love to, who expect him to care afterwards.
Kakashi feels that he will never find a woman to understand him. Yet he finds that he spends a lot of time finding bodies to enter. May'be until he can find his own. He feels as if is just floating along out there somewhere. The touches on his bare skin remind him that he is real.
The spring wildflowers remind him that there's beauty left in the world. Even though it's hard to find. Even though it sometimes grows up in the most unsettling places. In a ditch beside the river. Under the porch of the ramen shop. Between the cracks in the roads….
He takes his students out for ramen. If he doesn't watch Naruto closely, the same things will happen to him. He cares enough to care. Things are good enough. Best when the moon is not full. When he doesn't forget that he stuffed the pieces of his father's broken dagger into his underwear drawer, and opens it to find them staring. When he can not imagine the heart of the little boy who tried to stuff piles of intestines back into father's open stomach with his hands. Who desperately scooped handfuls of spilled blood back into the blanching body.
When he sees a grasshopper, he steps on it, and grinds his heel down until he hears the shell give a little pop!