For the 31days comm. August 1: Disparagers of love, now hear my song
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The girl tittered when the old innkeeper from Funbari shuffled his way past her register, his scarred geta loud on the linoleum and pants frayed and worn several inches above his ankles. He paused long enough to wink at her, not quite good enough to do so surreptiously, and shuffled his way out the door.
"You should have killed her," his wife said, a floating emblem with the sun shining through her hair and cheeks, the hard agate of her eyes and the unwrinkled skin of her hands.
"Maa," replied the old man, "if I did that everytime someone offended you, then there'd be no one left to fight in the next Shaman Fight."
"You didn't buy enough vegetables," she said. "And I didn't say that she offended me. I told you to kill her."
It was a spring day and he was very tired, so he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, searched for the closest bench and sat down. He placed his groceries very carefully on the ground, half-forgotten fears of his wife's tyranny at the smallest bruise on her favourite fruits coming back with a vengeance. Humming under his breath, he tilted his head towards the sky.
"I knew I shouldn't have left you alone for so long. You've gotten even slower."
"That's what happens when you grow old."
"That's why you should have died young, like I did."
He looked at her, ignoring her translucence and the way she glared at him and said, "Hana misses you. So do I," quietly and serenely in the way that the very old do.
And she was there, floating in front of him, her expression still severe. "Fool. You're supposed to."
He smiled and closed his eyes. "I know."
A breeze swept through his white hair, passed through his leathery cheeks and scraped against his tongue. When he opened his eyes, Anna was gone, and the sun was warm against his skin.
end
August 2006