Chapter 7: The Priest and the Pauper
Sato strode through the open shrine doors as if nothing would stop him.
This, thought Kyu, resting in a corner after his night's work, would be troublesome.
At first, Sato simply moved about the shrine as he always did, checking that everything was in order. Candles were checked, replaced, and lit. Old offerings were removed. Floors were swept. He even replaced one of the stones in the garden path, carelessly kicked out of the way by a visiting child the day before. He glanced at the clock.
Sato wasn't planning to open the shrine for the whole day.
The first sign of this was that he kept moving around the shrine grounds, including areas where there was not maintenance work to be done, until he found the letter from Ikuruki. Ikuruki was head priest of the Tokyo area, and there was a convention all local Shinto priests were invited to attend. That convention was this afternoon. The letter itself was in a back room, resting on top of some boxes that Sato had moved last week. Somehow, the letter had ended up there, rather than in the small room he used as an office. Or the dresser on which he had last placed it. Or the drawers where he kept the treasured letters from his mentor.
Sato found the letter within minutes.
His papers, however, were harder to find. As a priest, he carried official papers, issued by the government, that certified him as a priest. Moreover, he had a formal custodianship document, affixed with the seal of the office of the head priest, granting him custodianship of this shrine. These were normally kept in another drawer in his desk, but he had got them out last week, just to check they were in order before the convention. He thought he had put them back, but... they were not there.
He glanced, again, to the room full of boxes. He was quite certain that they had not slipped into any of the boxes while he was moving them, but still, it was a possibility. And he had apparently been in there with the letter (how else had it got there?). So, it was possible. He shook his head. This was a little odd. He was not normally given to losing things, especially such important things. Still, he would find them.
Half an hour later, he gave up searching. Visits to the temple were slow today. Aside from Lucius, who came every day at exactly the same time, many of his regulars had taken to visiting less often lately. When they did come, they seemed happy, often mentioning that they felt great, and having a radiant happiness that Sato only remembered from his youth. But still, they came less often.
There was nothing for it. He had to call Ikuruki. He pulled his phone from his robes, and hoped his old friend would be understanding.
"Yes, I do seem to have misplaced my papers."
"No no, it is not an excuse, I really do want to come!"
"You'd do that? Tell them to let me in anyway? Well, I must say I appreciate it. I was worried about that."
"Yes, yes, what are friends for, indeed? I shall see you this afternoon!"
Kyu was in the next room, laying against the leg of a shrine visitor who seemed not to notice his presence. His paws glowed green, where they touched the woman's leg, and his ears flicked in annoyance. What would it take to stop this priest?
The green light faded from his paws, and he got up. As he slipped out of a window, the shrine visitor, an elderly woman with a bald head, seemed to wake from her daze, and rubbed her leg, a look of puzzlement on her face.
Kyu leaped over the small wall that separated the rear of the shrine from the next lot. It took him only a couple of minutes to follow the wall to where it joined the road, and from there, to circle the block until he found where Sato had parked his car. He slunk underneath it, emerging moments later with a grin, and making his way back to the shrine the way he had came.
As he re-entered the shrine, the visitor that was there before was nowhere to be seen. He cautiously crept along the floor, making no sound as he approached the door to the larger room that he had last seen Sato in.
He was still there. Worse, he was dressing to go out. His phone lay on one of the side-tables, removed for the moment, along with his wallet and keys, as Sato exchanged his normal robes for the formal ones he would wear at the convention. Kyu brushed the phone lightly with one of his tails, in passing.
Then, he hopped up onto a pillow on one of the old shrine chairs, and curled up. Wouldn't do to be highly visible right now, after all.
He made a soft wheezing sound as he tucked his head in. Job done, he thought.
It turned out that he was wrong about that, too. Another elderly couple did drop by shortly afterwards, to pay their respects at the shrine, but Sato still appeared determined. He swore under his breath when he found his phone unexpectedly short on battery, but quickly grabbed a pen and made sure to write out the address he needed to be at on paper, so he would not forget.
When he ventured outside to load something into his passenger seat, he momentarily turned the key in the ignition, to make sure he had enough fuel for the trip. It was then that he cursed even louder, for his car would not start. He pulled his phone from his pocket, debating with himself whether to call the repair shop, or simply a cab. His phone still refused to switch on.
Resisting the urge to kick something, he returned to the shrine. By this point, Kyu had a soft smile creeping across his features, though, thankfully it was obscured by his tail. His ears, flicking about idly, heard every curse the old priest uttered. Let it never be said that the kitsune had forgotten the ways of mischief and trickery.
Unfortunately, the shrine was modern enough to have power outlets. Sato plugged in his phone, and within minutes, it was ready again. He was halfway through calling a cab, when Kyu lost his patience.
He wasn't going to forget. He wasn't going to be kept out. He couldn't be physically prevented from getting there. An illusion would be inelegant, and there was always the risk with using illusion on people of faith, with strong willpower. There was one remaining route by which he might be kept from the conference. At least, kept from it long enough to complete the objective. One remaining angle of attack he had not yet tried.
He swallowed his dignity, and coughed.
At first, it was a normal, dry cough. It quickly became a hacking, broken cough, as if coughing up a furball. By the time he was into his second minute of coughing, Sato had apologized to the cab company, put down the phone, and come over to see what was the matter.
Kyu gave a weak squeak, and made sure to breathe heavily. Then he flopped over on his side, eyes half-closed and exhaling all his breath at once.
"I think I must be cursed. Why did you have to get sick today? Today of all days?" asked Sato, to nobody in particular. He was fond of the little creature, and even he had to admit, as a religious man, when circumstances seemed to be steering him away this much from the convention, perhaps it might be a hint.
He picked Kyu up, and started to slowly pet him. "Not feeling too good, hunh little guy?"
Kyu gave a small wag, and nuzzled his arm.
"Guess I'm staying home with you, at least until you stop sounding like you have a frog in your lungs."
He never saw the smile flicker across Kyu's face, for within seconds, it was replaced by another bout of coughing.
The convention center was buzzing. This was odd, as a convention for Shinto priests was usually quite a sedate affair. Ikuruki had left instructions that Sato should be allowed in, but after awhile, had received word stating that he might be late, even miss the convention, as someone had got sick, and Sato had to tend to them. That man's heart was too big, at times. He would never advance far in the ranks if he insisted on putting the little things before the big ones. It would have to be a topic for his next letter.
The first presentation had been on proper shrine maintenance techniques. Truly, it was mostly a refresher for new priests, and those freshly appointed as shrine custodians. He found it quite dull himself, and not solely because that speaker tended to give the same talk every year. Still, it was necessary. Part of the unfortunate formalities of the job.
The second presentation was much better, being a debate between two sub-sects of Shinto on the nature and role of the Kami in the faith. That had stirred some lively discussion, and he had ended up needing to give a closing statement reminding everyone that Shinto was a big tent, and while there may be different interpretations of the faith, they were all, ultimately, in this together. There were murmurs of assent at that, though several of the priests from the more outlying areas of the city looked none-too-pleased that the differences were being glossed over. He might need to talk with them about that later, too.
He politely excused himself from listening to the third presentation. It wasn't even by a priest. A rough collection of local companies that made candles, statues, and other small items fit for a gift shop, were running that one. He knew that their ability to host such conventions, complete with food and drink, at a major convention center, was partly dependent on their financial support. So, it was not such a bad thing to give them a 15 minute slot to not-so-subtly advertise their wares. Sure, it was done in the form of a paid presentation ("How a gift shop can make your shrine less reliant on donations"), but he gave his priests perhaps more credit than the salesmen did.
Few shrines had gift shops, and he doubted many of the hard-liners among the local priests would be in a hurry to embrace the practice. Many had grown up in the faith, and came from fairly traditional families. They'd embrace the new culture of gift-shops and ready-to-use offerings as and when finances required it. Not a day sooner. Some of them, not even then.
The next presentation was his. For weeks prior to this, he had wondered what he would say. In the end, he had completed the draft of his speech, but only the night before, working later than he should have. He thought it had turned out quite well. A series of pointers on common problems that priests faced in running shrines, broken down by year. Problems in the first year, problems in the second year, problems faced by those of ten years or more, etc, and how to address them. Eminently practical, he prided himself on giving good advice, and mentoring those new priests in the area. Sato would have felt a lot less special if he had truly known how many shrine custodians Ikuruki had advised over the years. In many ways, if faith was the glue that kept the local priest community together spiritually, then Ikuruki was the glue that kept them together socially.
He hoped he'd prepared the ground adequately, and got the audience warmed up. The presentation after his would not be so easy to hear, but it had to be done.
An ancient-looking Shinto monk stepped up to the podium.
"Brothers, today we are blessed to have with us one of the few remaining monks of Daul prefecture. He is here today to tell a story, and I hope you all will listen."
It was a short introduction, but, he hoped, he had piqued their curiosity. Full monks seldom left their monasteries. Their world was infamously closed to outsiders, even to normal priests. To have one address this convention was rare. The robed monk spoke, and to the surprise of his audience, his voice boomed loudly across the hall.
"Listen well! For I am here today with a cautionary tale.
Long ago, there was a man, a banker, who lived well, but he had no time for the Kami. One day, he noticed a lump on his leg. A giant mole. For months, he dismissed it. He asked himself: am I not great? Am I not the victor of every contest I enter? How could a mere mole concern me?
In his hubris, he left it alone, for a great while, until finally, the day came when he could stand looking at it no longer. He went to his physician. After a mere day of poking and prodding, he was informed he had cancer."
Ikuruki saw some heads nodding in the crowd. They were all too familiar with that dragon. Many shrine visitors were at the age when the body starts to break down. Cancer was, sadly, all too common a complaint.
"The great banker, who had lived his life in pursuit of profit, suddenly only had three months to live. He had all the money a man could want, but now, it tasted as ash in his mouth, for he had wasted his life, wasted it in the pursuit of shiny coin, rather than greater purpose, rather than spiritual fulfillment."
Ikuruki saw fewer heads nodding this time. Instead, there was merely a sad recognition. His audience thought they knew how this story would end.
"The banker wanted to do something with his life. Something he found fulfilling. Something to serve a greater purpose. He had no patience for politics, and nobody wanted a dying man at their side. So, he turned to faith. He joined the local monastery, trying to make sense of his place in the world he was about to leave. Trying to be part of something greater during his final months. Although he prayed every day, his condition got worse and worse. Soon, he was walking with a cane, and even struggling to see. He knew he did not have long to live.
One day, while roaming the garden of the monastery, he saw a fox. It was a slim and scrawny thing. They were allowed in the garden due to the monastery's devotion to Inari, but they were never given much in the way of food, for the monastery was not wealthy, and struggled at times to provide even for its monks, let alone animals.
This fox looked like a runaway. It had the tattered remains of a collar, red as the setting sun, around its neck. Like the fox' body, the collar was half-covered by dirt. It bore a worm metal tag, so rusted over that the lettering was impossible to make out.
He chose to give it some of his food. Some rice and fish from his bowl, as was traditional. Standing there, alone, thin from the failed attempts at chemotherapy, and looking close to death himself, he offered his food to the fox.
The fox took the food, but did not eat it. It simply waited. The monk did not question, for he knew he could only offer what he had, and he could not fault the fox for its puzzlement. He sat down on a bench in the garden.
After a time, the fox joined him on the bench. Again he offered food, and again the fox touched it, but would not eat. Yet, the man did not despair. He kept encouraging the fox to eat, thin and weary as it looked. They must have looked a sight, a thin, emaciated human, and a thin, emaciated fox, each trying to encourage the other to have the only remaining food.
The monk refused to accept the food back. 'That is yours', he said. In the end, the fox placed his paw on the man's leg. It is said there was a flash of green light, and the man screamed in pain, then lost consciousness.
When he woke, he thought he was cursed. Now with not long to live, no food, and no safety from evil spirits even within the walls of his monastery, he despaired. He looked at his leg, and on it was burned the black outline of a fox's paw. He dared not show his fellow monks, for they would surely think him cursed by a dark spirit.
It was not until that afternoon, while walking again in the garden, that he realized his body did not hurt anymore. It was not until the next day, that he realized he had more energy than in previous months. A week went by until he returned to his doctor, and they confirmed that his cancer had abruptly gone into complete remission. His health was returning. He would live. They looked at his leg, of course, but never commented on the paw-shaped marking. From the way they examined it, he wondered if they could even see the paw-print at all.
That is when he realized: be grateful for your blessings, and your life will be fulfilled. Fail to appreciate what you have, and you will soon lose it. Kindness to others is its own reward. Most of all, beware dismissing your circumstances as a curse, for they may yet be a blessing about which you know not."
The monk sat down. Nobody clapped, for they were far too dignified, and many foreheads were frowning, evaluating the wisdom of his words.
The rest of the convention proceeded uneventfully. Sato arrived two presentations later, just as everyone was taking a few minutes' break to enjoy the buffet. He apologized profusely for being delayed by what he called "a long string of unfortunate events". Ikuruki felt sorry for the man. He had clearly had a rough day, and the stress of missing half the convention was not helping matters.
They caught up with each other as much as they could on the way to the buffet tables. Unfortunately, Ikuruki had his duties as host, and as a late arrival, Sato had to do the rounds, saying hello to other old friends and acquaintances, before the next presentation started.
As the lights dimmed, and the next speaker assumed their place at the podium, Ikuruki glanced towards the exit, watching for any other late arrivals. Sato was not the only priest to miss at least the first half of the convention.
There was one figure, though, who was leaving. It was the monk. He wasn't a priest, so he did not need to stay for the rest of the presentations. Monks, after all, had their own conventions, and places to be.
He idly wondered if he had done enough to warn his fellow priests. It wouldn't do to be too obvious about this. He hoped they had got the message. Either way, he might need the deniability later. As the monk ascended the stairs towards the exit, he picked up his long robes, to avoid tripping. Ikuruki saw the small, black outline of a paw print, just above his ankle.
He turned back to the next presentation.