by Jayne Joso
I check myself over again. My head is covered, my hands are free again. I place my right hand a moment on my chest to calm it. But now what happens? The clear tread of someone nearing. Someone comes? It cannot be. Please, please, it cannot be.
I picture myself turned to stone and turn my breathing inwards that I do not disturb the air, if only that were possible. I close my eyes. I am not here. I am not here. I cannot be seen!
I do not know how I managed to remain so still so long, but finally the walker has moved away. I dared not peer out, but I know full well it is possible I was seen, naive to think otherwise, and yet ... if I was seen, why did the walker not challenge me? Why didn’t they come closer, speak, even kick at the stone-like figure to see what I was about, what business I had here? I cannot work it through. And I have to get back to my house. Which I, fool man, left completely unattended. But I had better fill in this hole, cover it back over. Leave no trace. I scratch at the ground and battle this intractable sense of urgency to get home as soon as I can. I have to check the house over immediately, to make sure that no one has come there, that no one lies in wait. And what of the shapeshifter? Was it here just now? It can’t have been. Surely it can’t, or it risked discovery every bit as much as myself. And it lacked my specific purpose here, so for sure, for sure, it can’t have been. The walker here tonight was certainly human. I know this by the tread, and I do not truly believe the intruder that enters my place is human. It’s possible that the shapeshifter took human form while it ventured here, but it makes no sense, the sight of a stranger would draw attention. It would rather take some animal form, a racoon dog or a palm civet, allowing it to move about the gardens with ease. No, the walker here was not my intruder, of that I feel certain. I realise now that the most likely candidate is the light-footed menace. That stupid monk. Is it possible? Was it him? In this instance the tread was anything but light. And since I know, or at the very least, suspect, that Light-foot means me no good (sneaking around at times, arrogantly parading his good looks, as he is apt to do), he is sure to have laughed at me on the spot, or to have hounded me out, held me up for ridicule, or dragged me from this place and to the police. But who else? I cannot resolve it. I have to get back, and yet I hesitate, my courage lost.
I settle myself on the ground awhile. Light rain falls. I press down the soil here, then lift it again and attempt to sift it through my fingers. I have to take hold of this distress or it will soon give me away, and all the nourishment I have been in receipt of will count for nothing if I do not keep the body calm and allow it gently to tickle its way in and strengthen me. My mother would impress this on me in my youth: the need to take adequate time about things, and this so often with regard to eating: to sit and carefully digest so as not to upset nature’s rhythms; and since this is an entirely new way for a human being to take nourishment, then I imagine it calls for even greater care and attention. I am, by now, a far more complex prototype. Or perhaps a simpler one! The planted man.
I must return home and settle myself comfortably in the quiet before anyone else sees me. It rains more heavily and I grow cold.
I almost cannot believe my eyes, but as I raised my head just now, I witnessed Light-foot in the distance. Has he seen me? I have been locked in position so long in fear, and now again I’m almost paralysed – this time in fury. As I glanced up and witnessed the quickening in his step as he moved there, right to left, back towards the temple, I was left with a strong impression that only moments before he had closed a door behind him. My door. It is a trace, a shadow of perception, but I truly sense the remnants of this activity in his movements, the motion and angle of his body as he glided past, the position and movement of his hand; the tilt of his clean-shaven head. I am sure he has not long since left that dwelling and closed that door. Is it possible? Has he trespassed in my home, my dwelling, my workshop? And there witnessed the results of my many hours of joyous private labour on the prototypes, my beautiful paper dwellings, those I am making before embarking on the ultimate box. The ultimate box? I call it that? It seems that way, and I should not, for the words make me tremble. It’s never good to deal in extremes. The ultimate. That’s not good. What pressure. Things need to be measured, balanced, perhaps, at times, modest. Extremes force all else to fall away, to be judged too harshly. It is a sickness. I must stop myself, sit down calmly somewhere safe, and contemplate what it is I mean by such a thing. Do I truly harbour this idea and expectation, this extreme desire? I do not know. It may be nothing more than vanity, impetuosity, I am capable of both. But what is it ... and what would it be ... this ultimate box? I shiver again. In any case, whether the internal declaration holds true or not, I must limit the thought until later.
The rain steadily increases as I wait, biding my time. I feel it wiggle its way inside my clothes and underneath the bindings. Ink runs from the scarf about my head and stings my eyes. How shall I see? Such intense stress to stand wrapped up like this in the darkness. My eyes smart again and again, and this autumn rain makes me cold. Out here, just the moon for a friend. Just a lone figure below a big dappled moon. What a sad feeling grips my heart. I bend here like old pampas grass, then I look up at my moon friend, and really wonder at what I have become. I am sad, but strangely I could laugh. Out here and with my head in the ground like that, I felt true joy. And this in a way I have never known before. And yet it seems, a joy so easily lost! It seems it might be time to make my move. I look around. No one about. I have to get to the house. The menace has not re-emerged from the temple, and there are no fresh lights switched on. I sigh as I struggle like wet grass with bound feet, back to my dwelling.
8.
Closing the door, being back inside, I feel safe again, and contemplate a return to a more balanced state of mind – the palpations in my chest coming to rest, a gentle tingle in my feet.
Forgetting myself, I leant against a wall, it groaned, bidding me to stop, straw and clay crumbling against my hand. So strange to feel such a great sense of safety in a house that might at any moment fall about my ears.
The rains gather now at a powerful rate, the downpour so heavy the water begins to find its way inside this place. I hear it slipping through in many places, and already the air is different for its effect. But there is something else. Moisture rises and with it something attractive, I would even say, seductive. I smell food, but as though the aroma begins, this time, inside this place.
Someone has been here. A trespasser. I should not have ventured out, should not have left the place unattended. In a fury I clench my fist. But I had already guessed as much! Suspected as much! So what is the anger? To know that my suspicions have grounds? What is it, what is it truly that I feel? Fear? I was sure that Light-foot had been in here, was certain I had seen him leave this place. I remember his movements, the position of his hands. Has he really been inside this place?
A bowl of noodles in the shadows. Still hot. Truly, there is plenty of heat in them. Ramen. Oh, why do I weep? And how can only half a man, such as I am, find himself in possession of a whole man’s tears? I am wet and cold and should get out of these rough bindings before I sit and take this food, but I lift the bowl and the tasty aroma drives me insane! I want to impose discipline. I want above all else to be civilised. And I can. I just have to keep my pace. I put the bowl down and remove the textile layers, unwinding, unbinding as though I am a gift. What happened to my skin? Veins appear at the surface where they did not lie before. And as I undress more and more fine blue-green lines erupt as the cloth falls away, tributaries. I am a map. A blanched and inky map. I hop about just now, unwrap the last of myself, and yes, all over I am marbled. I can pose as though I am a great statue from the Western world. Like this, someone might even quite like me. Is that possible? It might be so.
Well, it seems that my endeavours to recover myself are working in some small measure, though I am clearly far less recovered in any normal sense, but rather, am transformed, transmogrified. I hail from somewhere far away with a
blazing sun and an ice-blue, sky-blue sea. I am a map of some unknown place, a place of fertile soils and sparkling rivers. Yes. I am a map.
Well, Takeo, it is no good to be so distracted, you must eat, and so I do. The marbled man takes his seat, and though cold and damp, he is warm inside. He will be warmer still with this fat bowl of ramen to feed upon. The steam has faded, but the soup is tasty and the noodles soothe a too-dry palate. Bliss.
It is strange, but again, treated to a meal that is anything other than old yellowed rice, my stomach is in knots; and the flavours, savoury and distantly familiar, almost cause my head to ache. And now that I have finished, my stomach is swollen, as though I carry a child.
I ate too quickly of course. But if I can sleep now, my body can surely settle itself. Nutrition now from two sources! Lucky man that I am! Perhaps all the goodness I have been exposed to will join forces inside and make a good start on the rebuild, the remake, the reconstructed Takeo. I lie here and smile at the thought, and stroke my ample aching belly.
9.
I must not have slept long, for still the night is here and it is dark outside as I wake up. Faint slips of light lie in curious configurations on the walls. My mind feels strangely easy.
I sit up and try to make things out in the darkness. The ramen bowl has gone. It cannot have gone, and so I conclude that I must be dreaming for I know the meal of noodles to have been real for I feel its effect and know it helped me sleep. I might also factor in the nourishment I received from the earth, but I cannot think it would have left me with this heavy feeling in my abdomen. No, the noodles were real, and I can no more explain the arrival of the ramen than the removal of the bowl. I have checked around the place and in the kitchen, but I do not see it, and I cannot devote any more energy to this new puzzle for the rain I have benignly witnessed as it spluttered its way in now gushes in through an increasing number of openings, and how it swells the walls. Will they withstand this?
I cannot account for my reaction, or rather, my inaction. I have remained cross-legged, just sitting here in the darkness, and though aware that I am cold, I watch in a kind of paralysed wonderment as one window after another yields to the power of the rains. Around me water gathers. I cannot just sit and watch all this as though I am truly made of stone; and if my skin was indeed a map I am not convinced it could lead me to safety. I grow excessively cold now, and if I do not move and cover myself soon I am very likely to slither away in these rising waters like an eel enveloped by some giant tidal movement.
I am quite afraid. Is that why I don’t move? Where is the sense? A typhoon blows in! It is the season. I pinch my arm as though to check that all of this is happening, that it is real. That I am real. I should have planned for this. It’s really no good to just sit still.
So many things already sodden, walls and shoji drenched. So fast! The water rises as though the ground beneath would raise it up, I scramble up the steps to my kimono store.
For a moment I thought I saw Cat. I called after him. But he’s not here or did not catch my voice. I worry for his safety, but cats might survive such situations better than many. Most likely he has found himself the safest spot. I hope so.
Shut off up here, the storm seems less intense, at least the waters cannot gather round my feet, and I do not need to sit and watch them rise – a sea inside, drinking in, gulping down my home. I should have shored the place up properly. Instead I have dabbled in design and made only the most basic attempts to fill the holes here. I vow just now to fix the place as best I can once this is over. Too late, my efforts. Insufficient all around.
Best I keep my wits and find some good distraction till this passes. The kimono put to air is gone. No way to explain this, and so, shivering, I have dressed myself in fresh robes from the special drawers here, truly, the most ridiculous finery, and all of them women’s for I find no other kind. And so, another beautiful kimono now hangs on too-thin shoulders. Only hours before my stomach looked and felt as though I might indeed carry a child and now, here I am, dressed in the most elegant gown as though I might be a woman of great taste and high social standing. Already it is affecting my movements. I do not mean so much that it is restricting (though in part this is the case), but rather that I feel emboldened, mischievous, playful, and in some curious way, liberated. What a thing. I move about up here and feel I am floating, light, ethereal. I move my hands and arms trying to approximate the finer movements of a woman. I do not know what woman I have in mind. And so crazy to think I have a sense of what it is to be a woman. And what kind of woman? They vary a great deal ... it might be that women vary from one to another far more than men... Most of my former work colleagues were male, and there was not so much to distinguish between them. But every woman I have known seems to have been unique – my mother, for example, is not like my aunt, my aunt and mother were not at all like my grandmother; and Yumi is not like my work friend, Shizuka, not in any way at all.
I have never thought of this before, but, what woman am I? I dance about the room and sense myself blush as I attempt to imitate the mannerisms and movements of some elegant, highborn woman. I cannot be certain of the accuracy or authenticity of my moves. This is just what I imagine. I cup my hand to my cheek in some excessive and coquettish move, and place my feet upon the floor in the most delicate and precise manner. But is this really ‘woman’? Nothing more than a poor and worthless caricature, for sure that is the case, but just for these moments I lose myself, I become something else, and dancing here, I imagine that I am beautiful. I am a woman. I am a shapeshifter.
The touch of the fabric about my neck causes the skin to tingle; this silk, so fine and beautifully decorated, falls in a great swathe of elegance before me, for so far I have not sought to lift it and tie it about my waist. I would rather enjoy its full length and glide about here, my arms outstretched. There is no one here, no one at all, and perhaps the beauty in my lonely existence (for I do find beauty here) lies in these strange and curious fragments of time, fragments in which I encounter something I did not know before. I would not choose to be so alone, that much is certain, and the true shapeshifter makes use of the neighbouring room down below, and comes and goes, and is no friend to me (though, so far, neither is my enemy), and so, I am entirely alone, in essence, and must make the best of this.
The rain flushes in from the sides and torments the floor below, and up here, like a small nested bird, I hide from it, wrapping myself in fine feathers.
I listen out. I hear the storm afresh as it rounds upon this place, loud and weighty.
No use at all to think of paper, notebooks. The journal. Prototypes... I can only hope that the storm has not been broad in its reach, and that it has not touched my family. I hope my dear friend, Shizuka, is safe. The local people hereabouts. And Cat.
And still, the rain.
Beguiled by this long robe, I have decided to try some others. They slip easily onto the shoulders, and I observe how comfortably they rest there, how each of them moves. The subtle weight of the sleeves. I dance, barefoot. The textile rolling in the shadows. Afraid of the storm damage down below I know I must keep busy until it passes, and so I lay out each kimono with care, and have decided to study them more closely. I have never seen, nor cared for anything as fine as these, and find myself filled with all kinds of emotions. I dress up as though I am a child at play or an actor, but am neither. I sit cross-legged awhile in this fresh green gown and I am overwhelmed; filled with an easy and tender happiness. Decorated with scenes from springtime, I read this gown just now as though it is a book, tracing its story along the hem, adding myself in as a player in one of the scenes, wishing myself the young man lying beneath the tree; pale blossom in the air, people picnicking, drunk and laughing beside a river, silver blue; children playing, running in jade and yellow grass, teasing, dancing. Rainbow bubbles hover in the air.
I will wear this green gown longer.
I peer down to the floor below; still the water builds. I am at sea, and this ty
phoon blows itself in at quite a human level, attacking from all sides with lashing rains that force themselves through low-lying windows, squeezing through walls. So far, it has not been eager to crash in from the top and I hope this does not change or the roof will surely give out. And the walls, though they swell and lean, somehow they stay put, and we sway and moan together.
I knew an even greater typhoon in childhood. Or so it felt. The local river burst its banks. The flooding was immense. I remember just how quickly we were ankle deep in mud-water right inside our house. I splashed about in it. I will not do that here. Then someone took charge, and quickly I was swept up in their arms, brought to a dry place, a safe place. We ate rice cakes. Or perhaps, that’s misremembered, perhaps I added that afterwards.
When you are grown up there is so much to dread in the weather. And yet I realise I have treated this much as I would the weather of childhood. I have hidden away up here and done nothing more than rest and play. In truth, up here, it is a dressing-up paradise, and these robes have really been some luck. All I had wanted was not to feel cold. And I do not feel cold at all, but I have experienced something more, something of deep value, something moving, so to say, and these painted robes have filled my heart. I feel free in them, lighter in mood, joyful. I cannot explain it entirely, I cannot capture it well – something like dancing, something like being still.
I have returned the remaining kimonos to the appropriate drawers and hope that that will be enough to save them from this monster rain. The roof seems to be holding up very well. So far it is still the edges, the fringes of this place that seem most vulnerable. The rains drum away, but at no greater intensity than earlier, I can only hope the typhoon has done its worst by now and gains no further strength.