by Lee Welles
Miho didn’t feel very brave; she felt out of control! The creek was bloated and rushing like the subway during O-bon. She did what she could to keep her head above water as she was swept downstream. The roaring creek was more frightening than any wave she had ever ridden.
Miho tried to swim against the flow. It was as tiring and pointless as swimming against a riptide. All rivers flow to the sea. Her father’s voice bubbled up in the muddy, frothing water. Miho held the thought and kept repeating, To the sea. To the sea. To the sea. I can get back home. I am Ama!
“You may be a woman of the sea, but you are forgetting the way of water, my dear.” The voice had a deep laughing quality, much like the bumping, roaring brown creek Miho was caught in. Her mouth popped open in surprise. She almost took in a mouthful of water. Gaia’s here! Gaia was riding the same muddy creek as Miho. However, Gaia had changed a bit—thinner and sleeker, her nose a bit more pointed with fewer whiskers.
“Gaia! This is awful! I can’t…hardly…ugh…keep my head above water! Why…” Miho’s question was cut short as an unexpected eddy pulled her under and filled her open mouth with nasty, muddy water.
Gaia laughed and it sounded like the very raindrops that still pattered around them. “Silly girl! Who said you had to stay above water? I thought you would know by now you can stay under as long as your dolphin friends. You can not only stay under, Miss Ama, but you know how to look with your ears and not your eyes, yes?”
Miho didn’t want to open her mouth to that horrid brown water again, so she simply nodded.
“Well then, let’s go under and do some good! Your mission, my dear, is to find the knife and then find the girl. That is all. I will care for the dog. Just find the knife and then find the girl. Help her if she needs it. Wakarimashtaka?”
“Hai.” What else could Miho say? A load of questions would only prolong her time on the bouncing, unpredictable surface of the storm-bloated stream. She took a deep breath and dove.
Once under, the roaring of the creek became a constant sort of background noise. Miho scanned out in front of her. As the waves of sound came back, she perceived the rise and fall, the twists and turns, that made the contours of this stream. The storm had made the stream into an obstacle course. Miho could “see” branches, soda cans, plastic bags and bottles, trout and crawdads doing their best to keep their places and…
Miho intensified her scanning. Up ahead, there seemed to be a whole bush bobbing and turning in the water. Caught within were two creatures! Miho’s scan revealed two wildly beating hearts. There was a four-legged creature, a large…dog? Yes! A very big dog and a…a girl? It was a girl about her own size! The girl and the dog and the bush were caught in the tumble of the mindless, whirling stream.
Miho had found the girl, but what knife was Gaia talking about? Miho wondered if her Hokusai hand had any power in this freshwater place. Could she reverse such a furious flow of water with a wave of her hand?
She was just dismissing this idea because she still had some doubts that she had indeed created the rogue waves. Suddenly, the two creatures separated. The dog and the bush were pulled into the center of the raging creek. The girl began to pull toward the shore. A thin object sliced down through the middle of Miho’s sonar-scan. The knife!
Miho kicked hard and let the raging stream double her efforts. She scanned the turning, gravel bottom more intensely. It was harder than looking for pearls! The noise of the turning rocks confused her scan and it was hard to ignore the image of the large dog trying to fight to the surface as it was swept downstream.
But Gaia had told her what her mission was—find the knife, then find the girl. She ended up having to turn and kick against the current to stay where she first saw the knife enter the water.
Finally, the form became apparent. Miho reached out her hand to grab it. When the bone-like handle was safely in her grasp, she turned her scan toward the girl. Miho could see the girl’s heart beating wildly, but there was a slow, leaden quality to the way she swam.
Miho kicked as strongly as she could to reach the struggling girl. She finally set the knife between her teeth and carefully bit down to hold it. She needed both hands. She looped three fingers of one hand through the belt loops of the girl’s pants. Her other hand kept pulling toward the bank.
When she felt the exhausted girl pull herself onto the shore, Miho let go and let the stream take her away. She was tired too! Remembering her lessons of traveling with the lags, she relaxed her body, let the creek do the work, and simply rolled to grab air when needed.
Soon, she felt the tight, fast energy of the creek begin to slack into a larger, wider body of water. She surfaced to see that she was in a river. The river, like the creek, was fat with rainwater and lined with trees. Miho swam to the muddy bank, grabbed some willow roots and pulled herself out.
Gaia had said, ‘find the knife and then find the girl.’ Miho figured ‘the girl’ was the one she had just helped to shore. She knew she shouldn’t go further downstream. Should she walk back upstream or stay here? Miho brushed her hair from her forehead and kept her eyes on the delta where the creek met the river.
A girl with brown braids, tangled with debris from the stream, came stumbling around the bend. She was calling, “Maizey! Maizey!” Miho assumed Maizey was the dog and hoped that Gaia had seen to her safety. The skinny girl with the mussed-up braids staggered along. It was obvious that fighting the raging stream had exhausted her. She cried, “Maizey,” once more, then turned and grabbed her belly.
Miho heard a retching sound and figured the poor girl had tossed her cookies onto the muddy river bank. She knew exactly how this girl was feeling. She felt the same when she saw Star being lifted from the sea. She felt the same sick feeling knowing the Three Stooges were gone. She also knew what a bit of hope could do.
Miho saw the exhausted girl fall to her knees in the mud. A breeze began to stir and it was as if the rumbling of the angry river merged with the anguish of the kneeling girl. A sort of song tickled Miho’s ears.
“Ohayo! Hello!” Miho called out and began to walk toward the girl, mud squelching up between her toes. But the girl didn’t look up. It was as if her grief and exhaustion kept her face turned toward the muddy ground. The girl didn’t look up until Miho’s feet were right under her nose.
Miho wondered what to say and in what language to say it. She decided words didn’t always say what someone needed to hear. Ishin Denshin—Miho simply smiled and held out the knife. The poor girl’s eyes bulged with astonishment. Miho had to hold back a laugh.
Gaia’s voice tumbled along on the breeze. What she said seemed like an answer to a question Miho hadn’t heard. “We did come to help,” Gaia said. “We helped you reach the shore.”
Miho turned to see Gaia’s new, sleek river otter face poking above the roiling water. The brown-haired girl yelled, “You helped? You helped this happen?”
“No dear,” Gaia said, “You did this. We just helped you out.”
Miho knew the sad, wet, scratched-up girl kneeling in the mud before her was feeling the same confusion she did in the wake of Gaia’s riddles. So Miho decided to pass along the advice given to her by the voice in the clouds. “Be brave,” Miho said in a small voice, barely loud enough to be heard above the river. Then she set the knife before the angry, tired girl. Miho turned to dive back into the river.
Miho scanned and kicked or pulled to change course and avoid the debris that was swept along with her in that wide, unknown river. She scanned and saw that Gaia was with her. She wanted to speak to Gaia, but wanted to stay underwater, away from the bouncing, wild surface. She did her best in Dolphinese. She sent a picture of the kneeling girl along with the sound of questioning. “Who was that?” Miho asked.
Gaia’s voice blended in with every burble and clatter and chatter of the river. “She is like you. But she is of the flesh and the bones. You are of the blood.” Another Gaia riddle! Miho resisted the questions. She knew that there was no way to ask such abst
ract things in her newfound underwater language of image and sound.
She sent Gaia a picture of the mermaid chair, of Goza, coupled again with the dolphin way of implying a question. Gaia’s voice came rolling through the foam and debris. “You will get back the way you came. All water flows to the sea. This is my blood, the seas, my heart. That is why I need you, dear one; my heart is being broken.”
Miho’s mind flashed to the destruction that had disrupted her last whale ping. She surfaced for a breath and Gaia was there, her large brown otter eyes filled with a longing that Miho knew. It was the longing for understanding, for love, for help. It was the longing she had carried in her own heart every moment of every day since she last saw her own mother and father.
Miho spoke aloud, risking another mouthful of the vile, muddy water. “Gaia, I’ll do everything I can to help you.” Thinking of Sensei, she asked, “What do you need most?”
“Understanding,” Gaia said. Miho’s mind flashed to the kanji form. “The minds of the land do not understand the minds in the water. They are blind to the very deepest places of my heart—the dark and cold, but very alive places. They forget their fates are combined with mine. You are the bridge of understanding, Miho-san.”
Miho’s mind held this last statement as tightly as she held the dorsal fins of the lags. Understanding—satoru satori.
“Come, my Ama friend. I will speed your return.” Again, Gaia placed her small otter paw on the back of Miho’s head and ducked her under. The river around them became a passing, creamy blur.
Time blurred. Miho didn’t think and never needed to come up for air. The water became saltier and colder and when Miho came back to herself she was once again alone in the open water of…of Gaia’s heart.
44
Three Names
Miho leaned back in the gray swells and listened to the rhythm of her own heart. The whooshing in her ears was as comforting as the constant sounds of waves and tides and seabirds that had always wrapped around her life.
She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t brave. She was simply certain that Gaia knew how she would get home. Into the quick rhythm of her own heartbeat came a low repeat, a low thrum that she knew.
The thrum became a push—a push of displaced water, followed by a heat, a presence and finally a great POOOOOOOSSHH-AAHHHHH! The great breath of a great being of the sea. Miho laughed and looked into yet another huge, deep, thoughtful eye.
Miho wished she knew the whale’s name so that she could greet it with the proper, honorific Japanese. As this thought crossed her mind, an image chased it. The picture was of a hot, blazing sunset—the kind that set the horizon on fire. Against the backdrop of this sunset, a whale leapt. The breaching whale crashed to the surface of the sea with a boom and a splash that made the sunset shimmer in delight. It was as if the ocean applauded at such a performance!
The name rippled through Miho’s mind on the heels of the image, “Sunset Dancer.” She closed her eyes. My mother was right—they do all have names! And I’ll learn them all.
She wiped the hint of tear that teetered in the corner of her left eye and said aloud in her best, most polite Japanese, “It is an honor to meet you, Sunset Dancersan. Please send me south to your friends.”
The whale parted its lips and Miho gladly allowed herself to be swept in along with thousands of gallons of water. She knew this gift now, this Gaia power. Her heart warmed with a new thought, This is how I will get to Taiji!
She held the baleen and waited for the thick flesh of the whale’s tongue to push the water out and for the deep dive to begin. Riding the whale ping was not as scary, now that she knew what was happening and why and how it would end. Understanding. Nothing is as scary when you understand what is happening.
As before, another whale scooped her from the biting chill of the southern waters. It must have been a right whale, for its mouth was tall enough for her to stand in! She inquired and learned this whale’s name too—Ice Runner. Maybe it was “Racer.” She couldn’t actually hear the great whales speaking. It was more like having a thought that was not her own swish through her mind. She barely had learned this whale’s name when it dove, leveled, and sent her on her way to the warm and balmy blue of the mid-Pacific.
Miho had no idea how long each ping took to send her through the hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles of open water. But she sensed the sky above graying, darkening, and lightening up once more. As she streaked along, she tried to combine what little she could glimpse of the sky with what she knew about time differences around the world.
She finally gave up. It was like a super-hard word problem in a math book. Miho knew that in this case, understanding didn’t help her much. It was what it was. She would know when she was in her room in Goza and could look at the time/date stamp on her cell phone.
In the endless clear water of the Pacific tropics she met a humpback whose name could only be thought of as Laughter. And why not? She once met a lady named Joy. Why couldn’t a whale be named Laughter?
By the time Miho did see the familiar shoreline of Goza, she was full to bursting with love and laughter. Her mother would have loved this! Miho could learn the names of whales and knew how to travel between them as they shared the news of the wider seas.
She called a few times to see if the lags were anywhere nearby. Nothing but the pops of snapping shrimp and the endless rumble of waves came to her ears. It must be time to get home, Miho thought, then laughed. Home. I guess Goza is home. Miho was looking forward to seeing her Oji and Sensei and even grumpy old Tomiko. She was also starving. For all she knew, it had been two days since she had last eaten.
She climbed the hill on leaden legs. The light of the full moon was just beginning to skip across the crest of the hill, as if it were already bored with Ago-wan and sought the wilder water of the sea. Miho was relieved to see that the lights were on at Ojisan’s house. Our house.
The smell of Ojisan’s cigarette signaled his presence. Sure enough, after she passed the front gate, there he was.
She wanted to rush to him for a hug and gush out the story of her wide-ranging travels. Instead, she gathered what was left of her energy, bowed politely, and said, “I am pleased to see you, Ojisan. How have you been?”
A strange expression twisted his face; he opened and closed his mouth several times. Miho could tell that he was testing out several things to say to her before he said anything at all. Finally he gave his head a couple shakes, as if to clear out the competing words and simply said, “Konbanwa, Miho-san. I am…relieved to see that you are well.”
Miho had her own competing words. Part of her wanted to say, “Wow! Ojisan, you’re not yelling!” Part of her wanted to tell him the wonders of traveling by whale-ping. However, Miho, being more Japanese every day, continued the polite conversation. “Shinju is with her pod, her family.”
Ojisan smiled, pleased. It was a real smile, and it was startling how much he looked like her mother. “You must be tired from your journey,” her polite and understanding Oji said. “Take a shower and I will prepare a meal.”
Miho’s more American half couldn’t stand it any longer. She took a giant, bounding step and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Thank you. Domo,” she whispered. He ruffled her salt-laden hair and said, “Come.”
45
Yabai!
Miho told Ojisan the whole story. She watched him go from astounded to skeptical and back again. One minute he would look wide-eyed, like a little kid; the next he would guffaw and roll his eyes. But he kept saying, “And then what happened?”
She was relieved to hear that Sensei was a bit better. Sensei had even beaten Ojisan at a game of Go! Miho laughed as Ojisan describedTomiko hovering and hinting that Sensei should be in bed, not playing games. As the evening deepened and Goza quieted, the spaces in the conversation lengthened. Miho didn’t mind. It was a comfortable silence.
When Ojisan began patting his pocket, looking for cigarettes, Miho didn’t hesitate. She reached out and grabbe
d his searching hand. “Don’t,” she said in English. “Don’t steal yourself from me.”
“It not so easy,” he replied, also in English.
“Was learning Aikido easy? Was it easy to move to Nagoya? You’re smart; you know how to do hard things.”
“Good point.” He wiped his hand on his pant leg, as if to brush away the urge to let his fingers climb into his pocket for cigarettes. “So what is next? What does this Gaia want you to do?”
Miho was about to say she didn’t know, but found she did know! “I am going to Taiji. They have planned a…Oikomi.” She hated the bouncy sound of the word that meant so much sadness and destruction to the minds in the water.
“Yabai!” Ojisan almost shouted. Miho’s mind whispered, Risky? Yes.Yabai means risky. She watched the lines of Ojisan’s face deepen as his old, familiar scowl came back. “This is no game, Miho-san. People have gone to Taiji many times to stop Oikomi. People get hurt, go to jail.”
Miho thought about this. “They won’t see me. I won’t get close. And I’ll make sure that no cetaceans get close.”
“Cetaceans?” Ojisan didn’t get the English word she said.
“Hai—whales, dolphins, porpoises.” Ojisan still looked concerned. “Yaranakucha,” She added, amazed that, just as she understood Ojisan’s ‘Yabai,’ she somehow knew how to say, “I gotta do it!”
Ojisan didn’t look convinced. As a matter of fact, he began to look anguished, trying to think of what to say to her. Miho reached out her hand to clasp his, this time gently, and said, “I am Ama.”
“Hai.”
The next morning Ojisan and Miho went to see Sensei. Tomiko was busy with customers and barely gave them a second look as she waved them out the back door toward the garden. But Sensei wasn’t in the garden. Miho saw the pair of shoes outside the classroom door and knew where he was. She nudged Ojisan in the ribs.