Chapter One – Hope
It was a cold and dreary night, not a night you went out into voluntarily. Sure enough few people could indeed be seen on the rain-drenched streets and the ones that were actually out were all on their way somewhere, hunched up underneath wide umbrellas, huddling in their raincoats. No one spoke to anyone else, their individual lives being more than enough to deal with at the moment.
From the shelter of the doorway to a café, closed for the day, a young man watched the world. He was not dressed for the weather and the rain dripped from his hair and clothes in a constant stream. Yet he did not seem to mind the cold, or even notice it.
The young man had no place to call his own, no friends to take him in, and his family he had forgotten a long time ago. He was older than he looked – much older – and he had travelled far and long to find himself in that doorway. For many years he had been wandering the earth, looking for something he himself found hard to define. What he craved was warmth, an open door, a happy voice, a gentle smile.
Somewhere out there, all this waited for him. But before he could find it, he must first search for it. And to do that, he must first understand what he longed for.
At the moment he was happy where he was, watching people walking by. Other people were an endless source of amusement to him – the way they thought their little lives were so important, that the world revolved around them and them only! At the same time, they were a mystery. There were so many things he couldn't understand about them. And he wanted to learn.
"Young man..." An umbrella spoke suddenly to him. He watched it in bemusement until it tilted back to reveal an old lady, looking concerned. "Young man," she repeated, "if you have nowhere else to go, you are welcome to stay with me. I am old and alone, and company is always appreciated. It hurts me to see you like this, you poor boy... haven't you even got any shoes?" She peered at him, face pinched with cold and sympathy. He gazed back at her, first indifferently and then with a grin.
"Are you totally stupid?" he asked, leaning back against the door to the café. "I could be a thief, a rapist, a murderer. And you'd let me into your home without a second thought? No wonder old ladies die like flies..."
"I know that very well," answered the lady mildly. "The first two categories you mentioned wouldn't have much to fetch from me, and the third would only be hastening my time with a few short months, I'm afraid. I am old; I do not fear dying anymore. And I see in your face that you would not kill."
He laughed then. "You really are stupid," he said. "But OK. I've eaten my fill recently and I have nothing better to do, so I guess I can be company for a while to the lady who doesn't fear death. Lead the way."
And that was how Totetsu met Hope.
Hi again... Here's chapter one of my tale about Tetsu's life before he met D. (A part of it, at least...)
The legend about Pandora's Box, by the way. Do you know it? Just in case not, here it is in short: a woman named Pandora was given a box, and told not to open it – because inside the box were all the plagues that haunt mankind; war, famine, pride and so forth, plus one more thing: hope. But Pandora was very curious to gaze on what was in the box, and she opened it anyway. All the horrors in the box then flew out into the world and have continued to plague us ever since. But Pandora managed to shut the box again before hope got out, and that's why hope has always stayed with mankind.
(I'm aware that there is a contradiction here.)
In another version of the story, it's Pandora's husband who peeks into the box. I don't remember which is the ''real'' one, but in any case it adds up to the same thing so it doesn't really matter.
Thank you to the reviewers!
