An Azumanga Christmas Carol
Chapter 4a
The white plush cat that floated in midair looked down on Yukari like a god. Yukari never trembled as much as she had in her life, seeing this fearsome creature-spirit. It was a rather mysterious creature, white, with eyes whose pupils could dilate and constrict in the blink of a flash. A shroud of fog surrounded him from below, but do not cover him on bit.
Yukari walked slowly towards the spirit, on her knees, saying slowly, "I am…in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Future?"
The Spirit raised its right hand which looked more like a part of its arm, and glowed, as if to say silently, "I Am."
"You will show me things that not have happened yet, but will come in the forthcoming future," Yukari said. "Is that right?"
Again the Spirit glowed. Yukari knew that meant "Yes," and she started to shake and pale, shake and pale. She feared this type of Spirit more than anything, although it had some shades of cute. But while it looked cute, it was by no means friendly, but ominous, and wary.
"Ghost of the Future," said Yukari, still on her knees, "I fear more than any ghost I will ever see in my life. Even those in the haunted houses." The Spirit's pupils constricted slightly. "But I know your purpose is to do me good, and have me become the woman I used to be. I am willing to change for the betterment of myself and those surrounding me with your help. Won't you speak to me or something?"
The Spirit a glowed a deep black. That meant, "No." Yukari, shaking, said, "Fine then. Let's get this out of the way already. Come on!"
Yukari took the Spirit's hand, and they were both flying down the streets of Tokyo. They stopped at a busy café, which had few people, and looked rather dirty. Outside, people could be seen walking up and down, some talking, others going about their business, friendship and hospitality lacking.
The Spirit directed his hand toward four young salarymen eating and sipping cheap wine. One of them was lighting a cigar. Yukari knew that these were her former students, due to their faces resembling so much the characters.
"Anosa," one of the guys said, "I don't much about what happened to her."
"You don't?" said the second. "When did she die?"
"Last night, I think."
"What was the matter with her?" asked the third. "I thought Miss Yukari would never die."
"Well it seems her immortality has been kept in check by the man upstairs-sama." They laughed.
The fourth one asked, "Well, what has she done with her booze?"
"Haven't heard. She probably gave it to her family and Miss Kurosawa. She didn'leave anything for me though. Man, that beer must be the good stuff." The other three howled in laughter.
"Kenji the recovering alcoholic," the second one said. "I think this will be a very quick and cheap funeral. I don't think anyone would want to go to hers. You think we should volunteer to be the pall bearers?"
"I'm not much of a pall bearer," said the first, "I'm more of a mall bearer."
"Oh, is it because your girlfriend taught you how to shop?" he said with a slight smart-ass kick to it.
"No, it's because I get more out of respecting manga and takoyaki than respecting the dead." Again the group gave out a howling laugh of agreement.
"You know what fellas," the first one said, standing up, "we shouldn't go to her funeral. And I'll tell you why. She is one crappy teacher, and a disgrace to herself and those around her. If I were to die like Yukari, I might as well rot in hell."
"I'm sure she's doing that right now!" Another laugh, and then all of them left.
The spirit gloated onto a street, pointing with its left upper appendage at two other men, one being another of Yukari's former students, and a Bengali gaijin businessman. The latter was a foreign exchange student, and was picking up the language here quite easily. However, they communicated in the language of business, English. The gaijin spoke it with his Bengali accent which reminded Yukari of a certain convenient store clerk from Springfield.
It was all business, and they were just as well off as Yukari was…and some.
"Hello, there," the gaijin said.
"Hello," returned his partner.
"Well! The rakshasas have held their own at last, eh?"
"Whatever the hell they are…"
"…"
"Cold, isn't it?"
"Typical of Christmas time. You're not a skier, I suppose?"
In a comical, punkish British tone, he said, "No, something else to think oh, ahem, gokigenyou!"
"Gokingenyou…" He walked away, saying, "Whatever the hell that means…" And that was it. Not another word was said between them.
Yukari was surprised that the Spirit would point to things she deemed meaningless. But the Spirit did not answer. Eventually Yukari came to the point that perhaps this would be a clue to what would happen if things were left unchanged.
She looked around, and never saw anyone that looked like her, talked like her, even smelled like her. Yukari pondered that, okay, she will change the way she was, and continued to hope that the spirit would assist in this. The Spirit and Yukari left the scene and walked to an obscure part of Tokyo, a part where Yukari never saw in her life, and was revolting an appaling. The streets were littered with trash, feces, bones, food waste, dirty diapers, syringes, tablets, rags and blood. People were naked or half-naked, wandering about, and looked like they never took a bath in a year. They were haggard, devoid of proper nutrition, and the sight of this made Yukari shed a river. Ahead in the street a few hoodlums were stealing material, and a slew of police officers were lying down, some bleeding and half-alive, some dead, some even rotting. An old man sitting on the steps of a parlor and thrift shop, also half-naked and bony, was smoking a pipe, teetering also on his end of existence. It was a horrible place.
Yukari and the plush cat-phantom walked over to the old man, as he was joined by a woman carrying a heavy load and her male mater in a dirty T-shirt and jeans. When the three of them met each other, they laughed.
"Well, well, well, her we are, all here," said the woman carrying the load. "How about that, old man Kyo."
"You couldn't have met in a better place," old Kyo said, removing the pipe and throwing it into the sewer. "Come on in." With a grin, he took another pipe and continued his smoking session as the two of them went inside the parlor and thrift shop.
"What are the odds, Shimano-san?" said the woman to her friend. "Everyone has a right to take care of themselves. She always did."
"So true," the resident laundress said. "No other woman more so."
"Well, don't stand staring as if you were afraid…who's the wiser? We're not going to place a game of jan-ken-pyon, I suppose?"
"Kid's stuff," said Mrs. Shimano and her friend. "Not for us."
"Okay then, that's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of stuff like these. Not a dead woman, you'd think?"
"Course not!" she exclaimed, laughing.
"If she wanted to keep these bottle and trinkets after she was dead, a crazy old teacher," implored the laundress, "why wasn't she nice at all when she was alive? If she has been, she would have had someone to look out for her when she was in the face of Death, instead of being there all alone, gasping out his last from her last round of 40."
"True words," said Mrs. Shimano. "That's quite something to judge for her."
"I wish it was something worse, and it should have been, if I could find something else to raid from her house. Open the bundle, Kyo, and let me know the value of those trinkets. Come on, open it, Kyo."
Unfortunately, her friends wouldn't allow it, and Mrs. Shimano's friend produced his plunder. It was rather small. A pencil-case, a bottle of Kirin Draft, contents already downed, and an old CD of a band called B'z. These three objects were examined by Kyo, and he chalked up the sums into a total when there was nothing else remaining.
"Okay," Kyo said. "That's what you got, and I won't give another 100 yen if I was to be cremated for not doing it. Next."
That was Mrs. Shimano's turn. Night-gowns and linen, a pair of school books, a broken down clock with the words "Azuma Clocks" on it, and an Osaka doll whose right arm was torn away. Her account was tallied on the wall like her friend.
The woman carrying the huge load said, "Okay, undo my bundle, Kyo."
Kyo went on his knees, and unfastened a huge load of objects. He uncovered a huge piece of cloth with metal attached to it. "Bed curtains!?"
"Yep. Bed curtains."
"You meant…you took the entire bud curtain from her house, with her lying there?"
"Yep yep yep. Is there a problem?"
"Oh boy…you blow my mind, ma'am. You got yourself a lot of yen coming your way." He was smiling brightly, a smile with no teeth.
"She was stone cold when I took them, Kyo. Don't drop any oil on those blankets, you hear me?"
"Her blankets?"
"Whose else's? She ain't gonna be more cold without them, now."
"I hope she didn't die of any illness, eh?" said Kyo, stopping his work.
"Don't worry about that. I'm not so fond of her that I'd ask her why she died. You may look through that blouse of hers, but you won't find any hole in, not an iota of dirt either. The waste management company would have thrown it away if it weren't for me taking it.
Kyo chuckled. "What do you mean, 'throw it away?'"
"Putting it on her to be buried in, duh," she replied, laughing. "Somebody was stupid to do- it, but I took it off anyway. If calico plaid ain't good enough, it ain't good for nothin'. She can't look more yucky than she did in that one."
Yukari shivered again, listening to it in horror. What was this with her being buried in a calico sack? The thought of calico made Yukari's insides turn upside down with salty tears. The thought of her dead body being sold piece by piece degutted her even more.
"Ohohohohoooh!" laughed the woman with the sack, as Kyo took out a bag with 12,000 yen and 6 novelty bottles of Asahi in it, reveling at the finding she had given him. "This is it. She scared us away from her, to profit us when she was dead. How about that, Kyo! Muhahahahahaaah!"
"Spirit," said Yukari, shivering like a rag doll, tears streaming out of her eyes, "I already know, I already know. The case of this unhappy woman might be mine's. My life tends to be that way. Oh my fucking god, what the hell is this!?"
She recoiled in terror, paling, as the scene changed, as she was lying next to a bed, a bed with no curtains, and under a sheet, something covered up, which was very apparent in the appearance. The room was dark, very dark, and Yukari pondered what this room was. A light fell on the bed, and on it, was the body of the woman.
The spirit, eyes constricting, glowing, pointed to the head. The slightest raising of the head would uncover the face. Yukari thought of asking the Spirit to raise the veil. But the Spirir would not allow it.
And how one begins to wonder, Death! The cold, dark, rigid ending of all endings, and for those who believe: a continuation of life, a new beginning. How such a cruel fate can be made less severe by making good out of the life that remained, the life that it once knew, and can never turn back again.
End Chapter 4a