Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply.
Author's Notes: Whoops, sorry. This chapter has been revised a second time. I tried putting some elements of chapter 4 into chapter 3, and well that didn't work out very well. Now it's closer to the original version, but with 2 new sections.Reviews are always welcome, and don't worry about hurting my ego, since the worst it will do is make me change this chapter around, yet again.
Look
Tick-tock, Tick-tock, Tick-tock
This was the sound of time passing in her room. It came from a little clock.
And the clock went: Tick-tock, Tick-tock, Tick-tock
Doki-doki, Doki-doki, Doki-doki.
Sometimes she couldn't sleep at night. She heard her heart beating. It pounded loud in her head.
And her heart went: Doki-doki, Doki-doki, Doki-doki.
Makoto turned eight.
Three-hundred sixty-five and a quarter days had passed. That was 15,778,800 ticks. There were also 15,778,800 tocks
Together they went Tick-tock, Tick-tock
At that time when several million ticks hadn't ticked and tocks hadn't tocked Her parents' hearts still went Doki-doki, Doki-doki,
When Makoto was seven, her parents were alive
Now they were dead and blown up into little pieces, like grains of sand.
Time passed. It slipped. Grains fell.
And Makoto's clock went: Tick-tock, Tick-tock, Tick-tock
And Makoto's heart went: Doki-doki, Doki-doki, Doki-doki.
That was the sound of time passing.
Time ran around in circles all day, so history was of great interest to Kino Makoto. Humans tended to run around in circles too.
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And one day Makoto wondered about carrier pigeons, because way back when, they were used as forms of communication.
Makoto had a cell phone. A cell phone was a little stick where people yelled in from one end and sound came out from the other. The little sticks could vibrate too. Pretty much everyone in Japan had one because they were cheaper than getting a land-line phone.
She always wondered how the birds could deliver a message from one place to another, and then return home again. This was because the carrier pigeons didn't seem so smart. Makoto figured that their brains were the size of a small seed, since their eyes took most of the space in their head.
The pigeons didn't seem that smart and yet they never got lost. They knew how to get from one place to another. They always knew how to get back home.
People always seemed to get lost. They were lost even when they knew where they were. People had brains the size of large grapefruits.
Makoto wondered how a birdbrain could outwit a human-brain. It was a mystery.
Makoto got lost, and her brain was the size of a large grapefruit.
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One day everything was packed up into boxes, and her guardians ran around in circles from sunrise to sunset. They wrapped things up in wads of newspaper, and flittered from one box to another, depositing some things and taking others out.
She figured that they were mummifying the objects for the afterlife. She saw a special on mummies and pyramids before. The ancient Egyptians took out all the innards of a person, and wrapped them all up with bandages so that they would last forever. They would also bury all of their belongings with them so that they could use it in the afterlife.
Makoto supposed the items in the apartment had died, and her twice removed cousin was just giving them a proper send off. She observed as they carefully wrapped each dish in layers of newspaper print, and stuffed them into their sarcophagus-boxes. The Egyptians would usually decorate the sarcophaguses so that it would elegantly depict the people who died. Her guardians labeled these boxes with magic markers, so that the boxes would say: "Dishes," "Clothes," "Books" and so on.
Bit by bit the apartment became empty, and pretty soon some other people ran around in circles, so that those sarcophaguses-boxes, marked with magic, would be placed into a waiting van. The van drove away with all of their stuff, off into the afterlife.
But then her twice removed cousin and his wife, packed Makoto into the sedan, and drove off too.
They sailed away from her previous life.
After hours of driving, Makoto was released into a new environment. She didn't know the way back home so she stayed where she was. She was lost.
People called this process, "moving."
Now she lived in the sparkling city of Tokyo, in the tiny portion called Jubban. No one knew her here. She was nobody and she liked it that way. She moved here because a terrible event occurred at her old school.
And her guardians were worried about her. They didn't want her to get in trouble again. They gave her a new pearl of wisdom that day, and this is what they said: "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all. If everyone does this, everything will be alright. Everything will be alright. Everything will be all right, Makoto."
And Makoto thought they were talking to themselves.
Her guardians were running around in circles. It was because the items that died needed to be de-mummified. The truth was that they had come back to life again. It was a miracle.
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It was also a miracle that carrier pigeons knew where they were going.
And one day Makoto found out why. She was lucky enough to catch a television program on migrating animals. The scientists on the screen said they had a theory that certain animals could use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate all across the world.
This was how carrier pigeons could get from Point A to Point B and return home again. They had a magnetic compass that never left them.
The scientists said that people could use a bit of this too. They figured out that males had a tiny portion of metal in their brains. Males could somewhat tell what direction they were in. To them this was East or West or South or North. Some males had more metal than others. The ones with less metal tended to get lost because they were afraid to ask for directions.
Males had some metal in their brains to tell them where to go, but females weren't so fortunate. Scientists said that people used to be hunter-gatherers. This meant that the males would roam about the land while the females would stay home and rear the children.
Females didn't have a portion of metal in their brain. They got to where they needed to go by landscape instead. They remembered the places around them. They also knew how to ask for directions. Males and females nowadays can get from Point A to Point B equally well.
Makoto was a girl. She didn't have a portion of metal in the brain, so she looked at the signs in the landscape instead.
In Tokyo there was one sign said: "SLOW DOWN"
So she did. She slowed down for anybody else who happened to be in the way.
A bit further there was another sign that said: "STOP"
And so she stopped. But Makoto didn't realize that she stopped a long time ago. She was stuck in a rut. She was trapped in a quagmire. The forces pushing on her didn't have enough energy to overcome static friction. She was stopped and she didn't realize it.
It happed when she was seven. That was several million ticks and tocks ago.
If only there was a sign that said: "GO" it would have solved all her problems. She would have gone on to wherever she was going to go, but she hadn't found that sign yet.
It didn't exist. She would have to make it herself.
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Listen. This is what happened so far:
There was a midair explosion over the Pacific Ocean. It killed 83 people. Of all the people on board, two of them belonged to Kino Makoto. They were her parents.
Kino Makoto was a little girl. She was scarred by the traumatic event. She was only seven at the time.
On a particular day she erupted at school. She pounded a boy's face black and blue. That wasn't so great because she got expelled for that. Then, Makoto picked up a pen instead. When she did that, the black ink flowed and the wiggly scribbles appeared one by one on the page.
Her story was full of rabbits and a girl named Usagi. They made candy on the moon.
That was then and this is now, because the march of time rolls on despite how many people are stuck in one traumatic moment.
Now, Makoto was eight. Rabbits weren't so cool anymore. They were white and fluffy, but all they did was: eat and poop and pee.
There was one in her classroom. It was cute, but all it did was: eat and poop and pee.
Rabbits weren't so cool anymore. She had to write about something else.
And she thought. And she thought. And she thought.
So she reached into the back of her mind and pulled out a pearl of wisdom. It was gathering cobwebs back there.
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Once upon a time there was a teacher that cared. He was from her old school, but he didn't have any real power. He was just an old guy trying to keep his job. He couldn't help her, but he understood her. He knew the pain she was going through. He had been a broken man. He used to be a delinquent.
Once upon a time his old man had beaten his mom to death. His father used a bat to crush her skull in. Once upon a time his father was sentenced for life in jail.
This teacher knew about pain. He lived it. He breathed it. It trundled him, and dragged him through the shards of sharp glass. His soul had been seared and flambéed, but he survived. He survived.
He couldn't help her physically. She could only help herself. Instead he left a cryptic message with her. It was a pearl of wisdom. This was what adults did. They left them in hopes that younger people wouldn't make the same mistakes. This is what he said: "Kid. You've got to look around. Look at the sky. Look at the ground. Notice that weird kid behind you. Notice the cicadas. Notice the cockroach. Notice the air. Notice everything. You just gotta look around once in a while. JUST LOOK."
Makoto blinked. The pearl of wisdom passed. It was gone and used up, but it had done something all the same. She picked up a piece of paper and a pen and she looked.
This is what she saw:
She was sitting in a room. It was her room. It had four walls.
Her door opened. There were two kittens. One was black. The other one was white.
There were two cats.
There were two cats.
Cats? Why were there cats?
"Happy Birthday!!"
Makoto saw the cats at the door. Her twice removed cousin and his wife came through her door too. They were the ones who shouted "Happy Birthday!"
Behind them, she could see things framed by the doorway. The whole apartment was decorated with ribbons and streamers. They were red and blue and green. There were balloons of all colors and shapes and sizes, and there was a cake too. On the cake it said: "Happy Birthday Makoto!" There were a total of eight candles on them.
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The tradition went like this:
People put the same number of candles on the birthday cake as the person's age. The wicks of the candle would be lit up with fire. It was a combustion reaction. It gave off heat and light and water.
The birthday person would then make a wish and blow out the candles. If he or she blew out all the candles it was rumored that the wish would come true.
So Makoto and her twice removed cousin and his wife sat down and got to celebrating. Makoto was a bit shocked. They caught her off guard. She felt loved for a moment. That is, until she remembered what her birthday wish was.
It was her only wish in the world. She had been told by everyone that it would not come true, so she wished for it anyway.
Makoto closed her eyes and blew as hard as she could.
She opened her eyes, and looked, and saw that the flames had died.
No wait, they came back to life!
Makoto's eyes widened when she saw the flames reignite. She kept on blowing, but the flames kept on popping up, like stubborn zombies. She blew and she blew and she blew some more, and then her eyes began to water and redden. The flames kept on coming back to life and the anger continued to bubble up from her heart. It was like red hot magma. It was burning her throat. And still the flames kept on living. So she kept on blowing and blowing and blowing!
Her guardians finally realized their error and rushed to get water.
Trick candles! Tricks! Tricks! Adults and their lies!
But deep down inside Makoto knew that the candles wouldn't have made a difference anyway. The eight little candles on her birthday cake stood like iron posts staked in the ground. She couldn't pull out a candle and pretend it didn't happen. Nothing could turn back time—it only rolled in one direction.
So Makoto just watched as the wisps of smoke slithered lazily toward the ceiling, and ate a piece of cake.
That was her birthday. It was celebrated on her real birthday.
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Way back when, Japanese people used to celebrate their birthdays on the same day. They all got older on New Years day. They had a big party all together and everyone was special. It was a social event. Japan adopted a western tradition. They adopted a lot of western things. It allowed them to dominate Asia for a short time. But that was then and this is now.
Now Japan didn't want to take over the world. Now they made shiny and cool gadgets instead.
It's how things are. Time changes things.
And time was stupid because it only ran in one direction; just like people.
People give gifts to people on their birthdays. It was a tradition.
In Makoto's case she received two kittens.
Two kittens are strange gifts for an eight year old. Normally an adult would have given an eight year old a doll or an action figure.
But this girl was different. She was lonely and shut everything else out.
So the twice removed cousin and his wife bought two kittens for their young charge. At first they went to the pet store and were tempted to buy rabbits. They both knew that she was writing about rabbits. They sometimes stumbled onto snippets of her story in her room.
But rabbits didn't live too long. Their brains were the size of a nut. They weren't too smart either; they always had a vacant sort of look. Rabbits didn't live too long, so the twice removed cousin said it was better to not have her experience more death. Cats could live pretty long.
They thought that by the time the cats died she would be old enough to handle it. This is why they bought two kittens for Makoto's birthday. They were trying to maximize the amount of time the two cats would have with Makoto.
They bought two just in case one of them didn't like her. They bought two just in case one of them got run over or got lost.
Two was better than one.
On her eighth birthday Makoto received two kittens.
One was black. The other was white. One day they walked into her room and that was that.
It was the beginning of another story
Makoto couldn't stop writing. She just had an urge to do it. She just wanted to do it. She just needed to it.
She ran in one direction too.
She wanted to write even though all she wrote were lies. She didn't know what purpose stories were for. They were just there, and she wrote them.
Now she wanted to write new stories. She thought it would be very hard.
And Makoto didn't realize it yet, but she all had to do, was look.
That was the trick to writing. All the good stories were just under her nose. They were just waiting to be released.
And all it took was a look—a good long look.