by James Comins
Jo no Ha Ichi
Act II, Scene One
The clown tumbles backwards to his feet and shuffles offstage. Turning, you see that Columbia and Punch are gone as well, leaving you alone with your feet dangling over the edge of the stage.
Muted trumpets and hoofbeats.
“Arise, young person, and stand in attendance!
Do you dare goof off in the presence of El Daishou,
His Estimable Majesty the Emperor Poblano’s
Grand High Hat-Bearer?
Why, if you should be seen to dangle your feet so
You'd surely be sent to the ostrich mines of Kalamazoo,
Where you would be set upon with dreadful clarions and clergions,
Truncheons and cruncheons and metreons!
I’ll have you reported myself,
For the Emperor always listens to his Grand High Hat-Bearer!”
Shrugging, you slide to your feet and return upstage respectfully, where you meet the most extraordinary person you’ve ever seen.
El Daishou might have been seven feet tall if he didn’t slump like a shlump. He wears a blue floral kimono, a studded wooden samurai chestplate covered in sword-slashes, a green U.S. army uniform covered in medals, a too-small white admiral’s uniform with gold tassels and starred epaulets on the shoulders, a daimyo helmet with curly flat bronze horns, a Chinese peasant’s cone-shaped straw hat balanced on top of the helmet, a wobbly purple turban on top of the straw hat, and a tiny red fez on top of the turban.
A luxurious white mustache trails from either side of his mouth.
Barefoot, he is hobbling, shambling, bowlegged, knock-kneed, pigeon-toed, and yet he still maintains a totally fake sense of dignity and grandeur, as if he carries a thousand years on his shoulders. A wrinkled red kamikaze headband wraps his tired forehead.
Standing respectfully, you decide to bow to him. He seems like the sort of man you bow to. You should ask whether he's seen Quinn—
“Ah! Respect is seemly, young person,
And will surely be noted down for posterity
In the Belgian Compendium of Remarkable Doings.
Have you seen my horse?”
His horse? Blinking, you look around, but the stage is empty. You haven’t seen a horse anywhere. You shake your head.
“What does your horse look like?”
you ask.
El Daishou taps his chin thoughtfully, making his turban wobble.
“Well now, let’s see.
She’s, oh, twelve foot at the shoulder,
Mane the color of blood,
Teeth blazing like Arabian pearls,
Tail like a thousand serpents tied together in a bow,
Her eyes are a pair of pizza pies
And her bridle is brighter than sunlight glinting off the sea.
Her saddle is Kyoto komodo-leather,
Her saddlebags bear jewels of every kind,
Her stirrups are each the nose-ring of a cyclops,
And her hooves are hammers.”
He looks down his nose at you expectantly.
“I haven’t seen her,”
you say, trying not to laugh.
El Daishou shakes his long sideburns.
“No, no,”
he says.
“You haven’t got the feel of the thing.
The answer, naturally, is ‘yes.’
Try it.”
You blink.
“Yes. I have seen her,”
you repeat uncertainly.
El Daishou raises his eyebrows.
“Where?”
he asks.
You begin spitting words out:
“She was on . . . a train. A circus train.
A goblin had caught her in a cage . . .”
El Daishou interrupts you:
“What was the cage made of?”
Yeah, what was the cage made of?
“Walrus tears,”
you say.
El Daishou smiles.
“And I tried to unlock the cage
But it was bolted with a lock that was a fishhead
And the key was . . . too squishy,”
you continue.
That sounds like a pretty good start. But El Daishou gestures for you to keep talking. You couldn't get the samurai-admiral's horse out of the cage. What did the goblin do next?
“And the goblin caught me too
And locked me in the next train car over,
But I activated the rockets in my sneakers
And blasted through the roof."
Okay, now you've gotten into a predicament and out of it again. Who stopped the goblin?
A mermaid used her songs to lull the goblin to sleep,
And I gave her a spare ocean to swim away on,
And I escaped on one of those, um,
Pushing-up-and-down train cars from the movies.”
El Daishou sighs, slouching even more.
“A shame you couldn’t bring my horse with you.
I suppose you must have gotten caught up in the battle,”
he says.
Battle?
“What battle?”
you ask.
El Daishou lifts his majestic pitted nose at you and frowns.
“Oh. Right,”
you say.
“Yes. It was the battle.
Um, the Zirconians had these cannons.
They were ten feet long—”
The many-hatted samurai shakes his head.
“Fifty,”
he corrects.
Right. They were fifty feet long.
“They were fifty feet long and made of,
Of sand—”
You gulp, realizing how stupid it sounded coming out of your mouth. The samurai arches one of his eyebrows.
“Made of sand and held together by,
By ionic bonds.”
That’s better.
“And they were shooting cannonballs everywhere,
But the mermaid was singing at the right frequency
And the cannonballs flew away.
So the Zirconians had swords that,
That waved like ocean waves,
But there was an—”
You lose your rhythm and wind up babbling for a second. It’s super embarrassing. The cardboard audience stares. You try to stare back, like you meant to stop. Maybe you can stare them down. But, you realize, cardboard doesn’t blink.
Think back to everything that’s been said and just pick something. Ocean waves, sand cannons, ostrich mines . . .
“—an ostrich,”
you say at last,
“And the goblin let it out of its cage
And it chased the Zirconians off,
Since they’re only made of star parts.”
You take a deep breath. El Daishou nods, and his purple turban falls off. He reaches down and balances it once again on top of his straw hat. You notice that the red fez has been delicately sewn onto the turban.
“Fascinating,”
the samurai says.
“Conversing is all well and good, of course,
But an adventure is the important thing.
Have you ever left the stage?”
Have you? Have you ever gone beyond the edge of the stage, or have you spent your entire life here, onstage and backstage? You did run around behind the backdrop a few times, looking for Quinn. But is that really the same thing? There must be a wide world beyond the stage. You say so.
“A wide world,”
El Daishou repeats.
“Come. I’ll show you.”
Pushing the tipping purple turban straighter on his pile of hats, El Daishou waddles past the near audience and steps off the stage onto the grass. In bare feet he fades into the night. The sound of hoofbeats follows.
Hurrying after, you swing under the railing of the hashigakari and onto the ocean of soft grass. It's a corner of the world you've never seen before. Looking over your shoulder at the distant glow of the electric lights, you wonder what
you’ve gotten yourself into. Where are Punch and Columbia and Pierrot? Where is El Daishou going? What will happen to Quinn? And what will the audience think? You’re leaving them behind.
Well, leave them behind. It’s an adventure.
The mountain rises up in front of you. The field under your feet becomes a dirt path with low steps wending up the mountain. Rust-red archways called torii show the way, two thin round columns and a swooping lintel. Beneath them, candles flicker inside paper lanterns. Why don’t the paper lanterns catch fire? No matter. Everywhere is the plush grass of rich summer, dancing with pollen, mystical. Dandelion tufts are flecked with moonlight.
El Daishou is a sparkling shadow. The night sky is reflected in his rectangular shoulder armor. Behind you, the light of the stage grows dim. Leave it behind. Follow the samurai up the path to the top of the mountain.
The night is glorious. You want to walk beside Columbia on a night like this.
And you see she is there, ahead of you. Standing at the mountain peak against the limitless wash of swirling stars, she is a curvature in the universe.
“The world beyond the stage is all around us,”
whispers El Daishou, stopping short.
“Some opportunities are golden,
But you must always go to where they are.
And,
Sometimes,
You can construct your own golden opportunity.
I myself have business in another prefecture,
To deliver His Augustness’ hats.
Remember to step away from the familiar scenery
From time to time.”
El Daishou leans down to whisper one last thought:
“Adventure waits. Don’t keep it waiting.”
Saying nothing more, never looking back, the great El Daishou shuffles down the mountain toward the audience and into the shadows, where the road to the Emperor must lie.
You tread up the hillside to the promontory where Columbia waits. You stand beside her.
“Hi again,”
you begin, talking more humbly this time.
She turns and sees you. For a second she seems to think you’re Punch, but then she recognizes your costume. Scowling, she waggles her knees and shoulders, as if she’d rather be anywhere else. She rolls her eyes.
“Way to spoil a beautiful night,”
she says.
“What do you want?”
You think about apologizing, but you didn’t decide to learn how to lie for nothing. You want to impress her with an amazing story.
“Listen, I—I met the King of Cornflower yesterday.
He was carrying . . . a wedding cake ten stories tall
For his daughter’s wedding, and there was . . .
A jewel on top, and I was standing on the roof of . . .
An eleven story building—no!
I was on the back of an eleven story parrot.
And I knew that the jewel didn’t belong to him.
It—it belonged in a museum.
So of course I took it.”
She looks at you.
“Let me see,”
she says.
You slap your pockets.
“I—I put it in the museum.
That’s why I don’t have it with me.”
She brushes her hair off her forehead. It feels like an important moment is rushing toward you. There’s something you’re supposed to say right here. Heaviness waits in the air, ready to pounce.
You don’t know what you’re supposed to say.
Your mouth hangs open, then closes.
The biggest moment of your life.
Just say the right thing, right now.
Say the right thing.
Nope.
You can’t figure out what to say.
The heaviness deflates, leaving you with a sense that you missed out on something important. Columbia flicks her head away.
“I knew he was lying,”
she says.
“I’m not stupid, the way you seem to think I am.
Punch treats me like I’m naïve.
But at least he cares about how I feel.”
She shuffles her feet.
“I don’t really know who you are,
And from the way you’ve behaved
I’m pretty sure I don’t want to.
So why don’t you stay away from me from now on.
Okay?”
And just like that, the magical night is ruined forever. The word but dissolves on your lips. Columbia twirls and walks away to a further peak and stares up at the night gallery.