the sound of wings
Sometimes, she dreams they are heroes in a love story. There are shamisen and high-pitched flutes, a brilliant air lilting melodically against cicadas in summertime. She spies him across an endless river of light and feels his attention burning back at her.
Suddenly, a thousand birds descend in the sound of wings. And like a great gust from heaven, as if she is a flute's song, they lift her over the glowing waters of the river to be with him again.
It has been so long, my love, she says.
And they hold each other, never intending to let go.
It is a blissful love story, and also tragic. For the same wind, that benevolent bridge of magpies which, hours before united them with such tenderness, now tides her, bears her away for another year, to the other side of heaven.
In vain, she reaches towards him. He is but a distant figure, illuminated dimly by daybreak.
Sometimes in half-dreaming, she retells the story with her sleepy romance and her endless sighs. He never admits to understanding, smiles, makes his sly remarks, pretends to sleep.
But in the evening as she dreams out at the stars, she finds a paper magpie on the windowsill, such a delicate thing, folded by his fingertips.
In a year, they will be together again. She blushes. So much does she love him.
Disclaimer: I don't pretend to own Digimon.
7 July is Tanabata, the Japanese holiday of Chinese origin commemorating the reunion of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi or Kengyuu (Altair) across the Milky Way. It's actually a rather romantic story, one which I am in no mood to account. Suffice it to say, it's worth looking into should you have time during the summer, like me.