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The Karakaze

I.

It was only a matter of hours before Bunnu was to be imprisoned and it would take several more years before he was able to marshal the resources for his daring escape, the first in a series of which would eventually propel him to notoriety within the Republic as one of the greatest escape artists of all time. Yet, at the moment, his immediate concerns were of a different nature.

Now, he stood frozen in place, listening to a sound that usually wouldn’t otherwise capture his attention; an insignificant, everyday sound that, for some reason, brought the past back to him with a renewed clarity.

As he cocked his head, his eyes slowly rolled back to the sink in front of him. It was more like a washbasin than a sink, really. Above it, penetrating the darkness of the water closet was not truly a light, but more precisely a candle. It’d been years since he’d been in a place like this. But where exactly was this anyway?

He was far away from his home. That much was certain.

Far away…and in a foreign land.

Far from civilization in a town too primitive a condition for its people to understand truly and fundamentally why and from what perspective they might be referred to as primitive. Or, maybe it was just the lack of electricity and running water that made it all seem that way. Admittedly, these facilities were relatively rustic even for this area of the world. Other inns at least had indoor plumbing and electricity. Most even had radios. But not this one.

Perhaps it had something to do with the part of town he was in. It was known to the locals as the Nostalgia District, though no one really knew how the area had gotten its name. Did it come about through the feeling that it evoked in its residents and visitors? Or was it due to a lack of modern conveniences? The former certainly seemed less likely than the latter as it seemed doubtful that its long-time residents could continually, over the course of years, manage to be subject to a sense of nostalgia. After all, wouldn’t the perpetual absence of a modern context, eventually, defeat the purpose of evoking such a feeling? In fact, it would seem more appropriate to assume that visitors who spent enough time within the confines of this area were unwittingly apt to live in the past and become nostalgic for the modern day… or even the future.

Regardless, at a younger age—that is, in his childhood— this sort of setting would have seemed normal and everyday to Bunnu. The washbasin. The candle. Even the draft coming in from the window. And maybe at that time, his surroundings may have seemed primitive to someone else. But who might that someone else have been? Perhaps his future Self: the very same future Self that now stands frozen in the washroom reminiscing about the past because of some unexceptional, everyday sound.

That sound: Maybe it was seeking him out from somewhere in his past. That didn’t seem very possible, but then again, this was the Nostalgia District. The sound may well have created a rift in the fabric of Space-Time, thereby allowing elements of some previous event to leak in and prevail themselves upon the constructs of the immediate reality. It seemed improbable, however, that events in time and space should reoccur in such a manner as to correspond exactly with one’s memories.

No, perhaps, it wasn’t as complex as all that. It was just a sound, after all. In fact, it seemed likely that its source was simply the whistle of a tea kettle in the next room and nothing more. A high-pitched whistle that served the function that the kettle had been designed to perform: to signal when the water had started to boil.

Presumably, beyond that, it had no inherent significance. It certainly couldn’t conjure up a latent event in Space-Time. Yet, it seemed to remind Bunnu vaguely of something that happened many, many years ago. And with each passing moment, the whistle penetrated the volumes and chapters of his life, boring a hole further and further back through fleshy gray layers of archived existence into the distant past; reversing and spiraling into the depths of hindsight until, finally, Bunnu found himself reflecting with clarity upon the day his parents found and adopted his younger brother, O.

Truth be told, it had been years since he’d so much as thought of, much less corresponded with O., which is not to say, however, that it was entirely Bunnu who was to blame. O. had come into his own: or so it was said. Nonetheless, in what respect and to what degree O. had done this was something about which Bunnu didn’t have the slightest bit of information. Not for a lack of wanting to know, but more conceivably because O. didn’t seem particularly interested in making that information available to him.

The kettle was still whistling, which caused Bunnu to wonder for a moment, as he soaked up the blood under his swollen lip with a wet cloth, if it wasn’t, in fact, all happening in his mind. Hasn’t anyone noticed the damn thing yet?

He looked in the mirror, rinsing the cloth in the washbasin. In the flickering water-reflected light of the candle, his face was awash in bands of light and dark rippling over his features in tandem. At one moment, his eyes sparkled in the light and in the next they were enshrouded in shadow. What connected those bands of light and dark? Could they indeed have been distinct entities?

He closed his eyes and listened to the noise beyond the door. Amidst the whistling were the sounds of the other patrons: chatting and laughing and muttering away, seemingly unaffected by the piercingly loud noise. Why isn’t anyone complaining to the innkeeper about the sound? In stark contrast to the complaining or collective uproar any rational person might expect to hear in this situation, Bunnu could hear a fair bit of laughing and good-natured revelry.

There had been a group of 3 men in broad-collared overcoats who were sitting at a table in the corner, enjoying a good laugh, when he’d walked in. A glance in his direction had silenced them for scarcely a moment, presumably because he’d been covered in bruises, which was certainly enough to arouse anyone’s attention. But when the moment passed, they continued on in tones of mutual familiarity. Bunnu had, in a way, been impressed by the manner with which they shared that sense of camaraderie. Be it in the laughter, or in their gestures, or even in their choice of words—that may very well have been a kind of in-group vernacular—he couldn’t help but feel a bit envious, as that was once the sort of relationship he’d had with his friends in the Greater Kaiiba-8 Football Association. Before things soured, that is.

The pitch of the whistling now began to waver as he realized that the sound was not, in fact, that of a kettle, but rather of the wind outside. He went to the window and peered out at the city streets. Branches from trees in the tiny courtyard in front of the Algorithmist Temple flailed violently in the fury of the wind. People in the streets started running for cover as this could only mean a storm was on its way.

There was a knock at the door. Bunnu ignored it.

The wind. Maybe that’s what it was. He leaned against the wall, still looking out, watching the sky slowly darken, and thought about the Karakaze back home, which he now remembered used to cut through him, body and soul, at a similar pitch—frigid and mystifying and naked in its essence as it swept through town to signal the arrival of the winter season.

The person knocked again. This time louder. “Mr. Bunnu!”

Bunnu looked back at the door, but hesitated to respond. “That must be what it was,” he said to himself, recalling a day, years and years ago, when he was a little boy.

II.

It had been a particularly windy day: the first of the season.

He had been outside picking ants up with a twig and placing them into a tiny wooden boat of his own design. His intention was to have them set sail through the narrow canals of a nearby rice field. A field that he had taken it upon himself to assign the name: 011235.

This boat was the latest in a series of attempts to circumnavigate the Field, and perhaps, his best design to date. He had whittled the wood down himself with a sharp knife, bound each piece together with a strong adhesive that his father otherwise used to mend his work boots, sealed the exterior with wax, created sails from the thin fabric of his bed sheets, and stamped the hulls ceremoniously in red ink with his own name. And now that it was ready for its maiden voyage, he loaded the ants into the boat, pledging to each of them in whispers that all would be well and that they would be perfectly safe throughout their journey. Naturally, he couldn’t be sure that his words would provide much reassurance for them, so he had designed the boat in such a way that it had a latch on its compartment door, so as to prevent any of them from abandoning ship mid-voyage. He didn’t truly seek to force them into this situation, but, at the same time, knew that there could be no effective way of persuading them to partake voluntarily with the means at his disposal. Yet, this was no matter to approach lightly, for if he was to fail again in this attempt and passengers were to perish, it was him who would be held responsible and there would be no mistake in assuming that the brethren ants, or their posterity, would, one day, have their revenge.

This was, of course, a chance he was willing to take as it was for the sake of exploration: an undertaking worthy of any sacrifice. In any case, he was confident that, this time, his hard work would pay off.

The boat would sail. Glory would be had.

His father had helped him build his first boat. This crude, top-heavy vessel, however, had capsized the moment it touched the water. And so, the boy, thereupon mistrustful of his father’s input, endeavored to devise his own fleet of seaworthy creations: toy galleys, merchant boats, pirate ships. Vessels with hollow compartments for the purposes of transport. To him, something about these objects inspired him with a sense of wonder he could scarcely put into words. The ships were, to him, sentient receptacles that carried their passengers and cargo to and from the shores, insensible to what had transpired on land prior to the voyage and unaware of what would unfold upon arrival. They simply served the purpose for which they were designed. And thus, to have a function that served ends beyond the scale of one’s own understanding: something about it filled him with an urgent need to explore the possibilities. The ships were, thus, not just a means of play, but also of experimentation for workings that pervaded on a larger—and perhaps, even a smaller— scale.

As he slid the compartment door shut and fastened the latch, his mother called to him from the kitchen. “Bun-bun! Put your toys away and come in! It’s getting…” Her words were swallowed up by a strong gust of wind. Not swallowed, exactly, but intercepted. The Karakaze had intercepted them! Bunnu imagined the words’ syllables like beads on a thread, held together in array and swept away with the wind. And along with his mother’s words, he presumed that there must have been numerous strings of other people’s messages being carried about in a similar fashion. The beads of all the strings collided at once in mid-air: intertwining here and tangling there into one fused consonance (or cacophony, as the case may be) of sound. The Karakaze captured all these threads and weaved them in with its own. What it wanted to say in its new message was something Bunnu didn’t know, but was determined to find out.

Bunnu ignored his mother’s calls as he walked along the dirt path in the direction of the rice fields. “Bun-bun!” he could hear faintly behind him. The wind pierced through him, ruffling his hair, until a chill shot down through his body. He tried to rub his nose only to find that both his face and his hands had already gone numb.

The Karakaze swept down from the snow-covered mountains far in the distance, through the valley, whisking through trees in a series of howls and high-pitched squeals. It scattered smoke and parted dust as it made its way through the nearby village of Bahlia, swooped down through the dancing spider-tree orchards, ricocheted between the vast overhangs and solitary plateaus of the Coral Canyons, now and again puckering inward to create something like a vacuum among the caverns that tunneled inward to, as legend told, the distant past. The wind seemed to swirl through the fields as though it were a tornado’s eye scanning over the land, scrutinizing it.

Bunnu’s father had once told him that the Karakaze didn’t swirl, but that it had an unswervingly straight course for the port towns to the Southeast. Yet, he could see it in the movement of the tall grass stalks and weeds along the path: an invisible swirling pattern it drew over the landscape. He allowed a certain levity to fill him as his pace along the path quickened. His feet suddenly felt lighter.

Yet, despite his good spirits, he was slowly beginning to feel the chill of the wind reach his head. A dull headache spread from the back to the front as grains of dust blew into his face, causing his eyes to sting and nose to itch, in spite of the numbness. He coughed as he rubbed his eyes with a dull, frozen palm. The boat, which he’d meanwhile been keeping lodged at the mast between the middle and ring fingers of his other hand started to wriggle as its sail undulated violently. If he wasn’t careful, the mast would give, rendering the boat unfit to sail.

With his eyes still closed and a hand cupped over the sail, Bunnu ran a short way down the path. He opened his eyes again and, in the distance, could make out two small figures right next to field 011235: an adult and a child, but it was difficult to judge from this proximity who exactly they were and what they were doing.

The two stood stationary, fixedly staring at the field.

As Bunnu got closer, both turned to look in his direction and he realized that they were people of Mumtaz, a faraway village separated by the mountains about a day’s journey away. He’d never encountered a real Mumta before, but had heard stories about them from the Outlander that boarded with his family: an old friend of his maternal grandfather’s who called himself Rakesh-7. “The Mumta,” the Outlander once told him, “are really from a place far away from here, across the sea, but if you told any of them that, they would likely stare at you in disbelief, since all of their historical records have been purposefully altered by the elders of their tribe. If only they knew that their ancestors had been the envy of other civilizations as theirs was a well-developed and intricate culture, unsurpassed in their pursuits of the arts, the sciences and philosophical doctrine. Their mother civilization, with whom they’ve since lost all contact and historical connection, were also pioneers, one might say. Pioneers of the high seas!

“But somewhere in their history, in a way yet unknown to any modern scholar, there was some kind of schism in their society after some of their dissidents decided to migrate to this continent. It’s possible that some of the pioneers saw more opportunities here than back home. It’s hard to say what the real reason was and I’m sure each one of the dissidents had his own reasons for leaving. But if you asked any of the Mumta about it, now, they probably wouldn’t understand the question. The descendants of those who’d left don’t know their true roots. ..and most certainly wouldn’t know why their ancestors had left. And their ancestors weren’t inclined—and perhaps, still aren’t inclined to have them find out.”

He took a puff of his pipe and blew out a cloud of vanilla tobacco as he sat back in his armchair, “Which is to say, as far as they understand, they are people of this land. And when the historical record of your civilization gets wiped clean, you come to think you’re native, regardless of your true lineage. And even though their so-called ‘native’ culture is still on the whole quite derivative of their ancestors, there are also some marked differences between their New World culture and the ways of their Old World ancestors. At least, as far as I know and, truth be told, I don’t know that much about them. Truly, the ways of the Mumta are not well-known, as they had been nomadic for hundreds of years before settling beyond those mountains. And even now that they are here, they don’t associate much with outsiders. “As a society, they seem to have chronicled extensively the past hundreds of years of history living as nomads with no ties. They are very proud of their achievements in the New World. And any one of them would know their history as a collective in elaborate detail: right down to the names and positions of all the people in their society, prominent or otherwise, whether in recent history or 150 years ago.

“And apparently, over the course of time, the linguistic structure of their language has come to abandon the past tense, as it has become their intuitive assumption that the past and present exist at once and as one entity—and as such, the usage of past tense has become superfluous in their speech. Meaning that, to them, there exists only everything that has happened up until and including now and everything that will happen from the here on out. No distinctions are necessary beyond that. And everything that has happened until now is still, in effect, continuing infinitely onward to the here on out. The spirits of the dead are said to commune with the people who fill the roles they’d previously occupied. For example, legal counsel in their criminal cases is given by one lawyer and any number of his dead predecessors. The matter can sometimes get confusing when there is a disagreement among the predecessors as to the appropriate course of legal action. This, of course, being further complicated by the existence of recent precedents, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, tend to be overlooked by the deceased. Especially the elders.

“Of course, for a society like this to function successfully, there needs to be a self-imposed code of social conduct, highly specialized and more austere than the ways of their brethren in the Homeland. And maybe that’s what they had been looking for when they left in the first place. Who knows? Who knows why they migrated here? They certainly don’t. Your culture calls them Mumta, but where I’m from, we call them Drawans, which in my language means lost children.”

The Outlander often had stories about people from places far away. Places Bunnu had never heard of that sounded so distant from his own reality that it felt as though one may require a lifetime just to reach these places. And yet, they seemed to occupy special territories of his imagination that he often visited at night when he closed his eyes just before going to sleep. In calling upon these places at bedtime, his hope was to dream of and actually visit them, so that he could meet the people that the Outlander had told him about. Of course, he could never manage to do this, but he never gave up trying.

It excited him to think about those areas out there beyond his reach. It gave him a certain special comfort, specifically that of knowing that the world had more to offer him than the rice fields and the distant mountains, to which he’d long since grown so accustomed that one could have even called them extensions of him: the fields, the sky, the tall stalks of grass, the weeds, the dirt path and the mountains were all attached to his senses by invisible threads from which he wished to break free, if only for a moment.

He, unlike his parents, was fated to venture out into the world. To hit the high seas: he would be a captain in the Royal Navy and lead the fleet of his Lordship Bunnu-5, the patriarch whom his parents had chosen as his namesake, to cities of gold and sunken chests from pirate ships containing jewel-encrusted ornaments and antiques of incalculable value.

The old man’s stories gave a depth and a sense of detail to these dreams as he talked of his travels and adventures. In his stories, the Outlander always managed to depict himself as some witless observer, dragged into a situation by circumstances beyond his control, causing him to become embroiled in some tangled web of loyalty and betrayal, honor and deceit, generosity and greed. His stories always revolved around unlikely protagonists: Ghosts of Dead Cobblers, Mercenary Guardian Angels, Swordsmen who tamed wild beasts by way of the magnetic forces generated by their blades; Jungle shaman who, by communicating with wood spirits, could recite the living history of every tree down to the hour and minute; a society of deposed Kings, hailing from many a land, being made to spend their remaining years in exile living together on a far-off island, as they waged petty wars on each other for the small gains achieved only through the swarms of moths which served in their legions and which attacked their political opponents by feeding off the old fabric of their once luxurious gowns; Shadow Parasites that passed from host-to-host through the convergence of their shadows, allowing them to feed off of and slay whole villages almost instantaneously; a Carnival Freak Show Attraction composed of a complex of connected whiny green bubbles, known famously to the carnies as the Ethereal Scapegoat: a despicable and blameworthy being that had the ability to inconvenience anyone and everyone by the necessity of its mere existence.

The Outlander’s protagonists all lived in this world that just didn’t seem to be made for them. That was perhaps what Bunnu liked most about his stories. In the winters, they would sit together in the tiny attic space that the old man had been occupying in the house for the past 25 years and drink hot ocha as Rakesh-7 wove together seemingly simple threads into complex and detailed narrations that Bunnu could listen to tirelessly for hours on end, only to, upon hearing the finish, unleash a whole new barrage of questions about what could have happened to this character and why on earth did that character decide to be evil, and how come the guardian angel was so interested in money if he couldn’t use it in Heaven without God catching on, and so on. Bunnu’s questions were so persistent, in fact, that the Outlander often found himself remarking half-jokingly that Bunnu’s curious nature would not only be his greatest asset, but also his undoing.

And now, Bunnu wanted to speak with the Outlander more than ever. He had so many questions he couldn’t bear not to have someone around to ask. He was absolutely sure Rakesh-7 would be able to explain why the Mumta were here at field 011235. Why they had journeyed so far over mountainous terrain. Why they didn’t come more often. Bunnu had a flurry of questions running through his head, spiraling, perhaps, at roughly the same speed as that of the Karakaze, but no one was there to answer them. Anyway, to expect Rakesh-7 to be there with him would have been fruitless, as he hadn’t left that small space in the attic for going on 10 years.

The adult Mumta was a tall slender man with an olive complexion and an overall gentle demeanor. He had shoulder-length wavy hair, which the Karakaze blew back into his face occasionally. His features were sharp, one might even say watchful. If Bunnu hadn’t known better, he might have mistaken him for a guard or a ranger of some kind as the man’s entire face seemed to focus in completely on anything that his senses deemed worthy of further inquiry. As he viewed Bunnu, there seemed to be this strange sensation in the air, as though every sense were acutely aware, not only of the boy himself, but also of his specific condition in that moment.

Could this man, in fact, taste the apprehension in the air molecules that separated them? Could he smell the aromatic vapors of the young boy’s curiosity as it bubbled inside, escaping, perhaps, through pores in the skin or even through the ears like sizzling bacon fat having been laid upon the white hot foundations of his imagination? Could he feel the charge that Bunnu radiated in anticipation—an electricity that ran anxiously through his spine, down through his arms, legs, fingers, and toes?

Regardless of whether he could or couldn’t, after a short period of silent observation, the man cocked his head back abruptly and his son, who had, all this time, been staring at Bunnu in frozen silence, seemed to be yanked to attention, as though by an invisible thread connecting the two of them, and he awakened from his trance. He glanced casually up at his father, who, now, appeared to be digging in his heels, arching his back and, with his head cocked back, teeth clenching, veins now popping out of his neck, was struggling to maintain influence over his son’s attention, like a fisherman grappling with a stubbornly spirited fish just slightly beyond his control. After a moment’s hesitation, the boy turned effortlessly back to glance once more at Bunnu with an expression of amusement before gazing back out at field 011235. Bunnu followed his lead and looked out in the same direction only to find nothing of interest in the field. At least, nothing peculiar enough to arouse one’s curiosity, as he saw it. What are they looking at? He wondered. His eyes scanned fields that spanned outward from him to the horizon. Nothing at all worth staring at.

Except for…

He quickly turned back to them to find that they were already slowly walking in the other direction. He watched their footsteps from behind: they were slow and graceful. Careful as if they were tip-toeing. Surely, it would take at least 2 days for them to return at such a pace. Bunnu plodded after them in faster, louder, clumsier steps.

“Wait!” he heard himself call out. The sound echoed as though he were in a tunnel.

Both Mumta tensed up suddenly, presumably taken by surprise. They both turned around with expressions of disbelief. Bunnu stopped dead in his tracks. He could still hear the reverberations of the echo. His voice repeatedly saying Wait…wait…wai-…reminded him of the echoes in the caverns that tunneled underneath Coral Canyons. It looked like he’d startled them. But how could that be?

And suddenly, Bunnu noticed that he could no longer feel the wind ruffling through his hair. Not the slightest breeze could be felt, which is not to say, however, that the wind had stopped. In fact, it gained intensity all around him and the two Mumta. The Mumta stood motionless before him at a distance of maybe 5 meters, but the wind seemed to be swirling about the 3 of them as though they were being scrutinized by the Karakaze Itself. Silence resounded in the wind to the effect that Bunnu could only assume that the Karakaze had somehow formed a sound-proof barrier that encircled them. The Mumta, now visibly calmer than moments earlier, looked at him expectantly, perhaps wondering what the boy was going to do next, or more conceivably, why he had called upon them. “You are…um… That is, are you from…Mumtaz?” was all he could manage to say.

The words came out loud and abrupt to the point that even Bunnu jumped at the gruffness and invasiveness of his own words. The Mumta didn’t respond or even show the slightest bit of surprise or annoyance at the disruptive nature of his words, this time. Had I not been heard? Bunnu wondered. The wind still remained strong, yet he could hear his own voice loud and clear. In fact, it was rare that his words had such resonance. It was fair to say that this barrier created by the Karakaze even served to amplify them. He could not just feel their echo, but also their impact as they created ripples through his consciousness like pebbles in water. He could feel inside of him the depth of their meaning—and, beyond even the intrinsic meaning itself, he could sense the intuitive curiosity that seemed to underlie the words. In fact, he was so dumbstruck by their power that it would seem that these were not the same words that had left his own mouth.

The eye of the Karakaze passed over them and resumed its presumably unwavering course for the port towns to the Southeast and once again Bunnu felt the wind begin to ruffle his hair and the chill run down through his body.

The Mumta still stood before him, their expressions hidden by their long hair which blew wildly across the fronts of their faces. They stood there, not resisting the wind: trance-like with arms at their sides. They, too, must have been quite cold, as they were only clothed in thin-cotton sarongs which they kept draped around their waists. This sort of attire, while beautifully ornate, was certainly no protection against the wind and thus must have left their arms, legs, heads, and chests vulnerable to the elements.

Bunnu watched the fabric of their sarongs flutter in the wind and, thinking that it must certainly be too cold for them to make the journey back in this weather, did something that perhaps any boy his age might have done in this situation.

He invited them to dinner.

Raju and Yuri

“Are you sure you don’t want more potatoes?” Yuri asked them for the third time, “They’re fresh from Upper Bahlia! Better I’m sure than that awful stuff you folks are forced to eat out there in the mountains.”

The boy stared blankly across the table at Bunnu, who was now wrapped in blankets and laying next to the fireplace with a bladder filled with cool mustard oil on his forehead. Meanwhile, the Mumta father flipped through a small book with tattered pages that he’d produced from his pouch. He got out a wooden compass with a quill attached and drew arcs over hand-drawn maps he had on each of the pages. Neither he nor his son had so much as taken a bite of the food that Yuri had put in front of them.

“A map-maker, are you?” Raju inquired as he sat back in his rocking chair with his pipe. He was a short, but stocky man with salt and pepper black and gray hair, a dark Vasallan complexion and a big belly like that of a bear that Bunnu often liked to use as a pillow when they would lay out in the fields on a warm spring day. “Quite a future in that, let me tell you. Had a friend who used to do that back in the old days in Vasalla. That’s where I’m from. That’s why I might seem a little different from the rest of these backwards folk in Bahlia.”

“Papa!” Bunnu cried as he sat up and leaned on his elbow, “We should take them up to see the Outlander. He’d have lots of maps he could show him.”

“The last thing we want is that old fool scaring them away. Anyway, he’s no doubt undertaken his evening prayers. See? It’s a full moon.” Raju motioned back towards the window behind him. The Karakaze was still howling outside. Amidst the whistling, they could hear the rustling of the grass and leaves.

Raju turned back to look at the untouched mounds of food sitting on the dinner table in front of the two Mumta. He licked his lips as he said, “The chap upstairs is a bit batty. Not a member of this family, really. A friend of my late father-in-law: apparently they fought together in the same legion under Lord Ieyasu-13, so now there’s this lifelong association that exists between the two that appears to even transcend death. But we certainly can’t turn the man away. Common sense would assume that he’d have left of his own volition years ago, but apparently, that’s not how things were in his time. He’s become a sort of surrogate grandfather, so he feels it’s his obligation to stay for Bunnu’s sake. So, it looks like we’re stuck with each other. Bit of a strange one, though. Chose a ‘7’ rather than an ‘8’ to go with his moniker of Rakesh. What’s wrong with calling yourself Rakesh-8? Why the ‘7’? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of anyone using anything but an auspicious number with their name.”

Yuri put another blanket around each of the Mumta and placed another cup of hot ocha next to the other 3 untouched cups that sat before them. “Enough Raju! Let them eat. They must be hungry after their long journey!” Despite her reprimanding tone, she smiled at the Mumta warmly, while intermittently diverting her attention to her husband long enough to cast upon him momentary scowls with lasting effects.

Yuri had a very petite frame, which, despite its fragile appearance, radiated a kind of indescribable vigor, as though her spirit were fighting the form. At first meeting, many people might look at her and dismiss her as the shy and frail type, being protected by a strong and domineering Raju…but after some time passes, one begins to notice the remonstrative look in her eyes when Raju has tipped too much for the apple delivery, or the way she paces impatiently behind him as he chops more wood for the fireplace, or even the icy demeanor she seems to project toward him whenever Bunnu has disobeyed her.

Today had been no different as Bunnu had returned home with two unannounced dinner guests, along with a terrible fever and sore throat to boot. If the boy had had a better role model than this big-bellied fool and the cretin upstairs, he’d have obeyed her when she’d first called him in for dinner, instead of running off into the cold.

Of course, despite her initial annoyance, she was now trying to make the best of the situation. And the scowls she was now casting toward Raju? Well, they were clearly not because he was interrupting the Mumta, but more likely because it was all his fault that she was being forced to resort to such measures. He had, after all, turned to her with a smile after Bunnu had asked permission to have the Mumta for dinner and said, “You know, honey, it’s been years since-“

“Yes it has. I’ll take care of it…” she had responded instantly, despite knowing full well how much trouble she would have to go to in preparation for the meal. But of course, Raju never thought about these things. He only thought of himself and that big belly of his!

“How about some more green rice?” she now asked the Mumta sweetly with a smile, as she went over in her head, once again, how she would go about killing her husband that evening. This was nothing new as Yuri had made numerous attempts on Raju’s life in the past. Her lack of success probably stemmed from the fact that she wasn’t very good at planning these things out and had very little experience plotting murders. The tricky part was, obviously, to make it look like an accident so as to avert suspicion.

The first time she tried to kill him was when he was drunk. He had gone upstairs after a long night of drinking some of the Laughing Magenta he’d brewed from his own still. While he was passed out across their bed, she loosened a wooden floorboard on the staircase and called to him from the kitchen. Unfortunately for her, as the Laughing Magenta had come out particularly concentrated, this time, her husband was in too deep a sleep for her calls to elicit a response. Bunnu, on the other hand, awakened almost instantly by the noise, came plodding down the stairs rubbing his eyes. “Bunnu! Nooo!” was all she could say before he was facedown at her feet at the bottom of the stairs with a broken arm and a twisted ankle.

Early the next morning, as Bunnu was being bandaged by the doctor in the kitchen, Raju repaired the floorboard and Yuri was riddled with guilt. She began to feel terrible about her decision to kill Raju. Perhaps, it was temporary insanity, she thought to herself. She didn’t want to believe she was annoyed enough with someone to feel like killing them. The truth was that she loved Raju very much. It was just little things that bothered her. The way his jaw hung open when he read. The way his nose would whistle in his sleep, especially when he was drunk. The way he always shrugged his shoulders indecisively when asked simple questions such as: Are you hungry? Or: What day is it today? As well as, the inevitable: Are you even listening to me?

After lacerating herself over the matter for days and weeks on end, she finally decided to seek the counsel of O-bousan-34, a local priest. She had heard of him from some of the other village wives at the marketplace in Bahlia. He was known for giving very sensible advice, when it came to difficult matters, and was said to keep sensitive information private, which is perhaps a good reason why he had won the confidence of so many.

“And he always gives the most tasteful funeral services,” one of the wives had told her, “I call upon him whenever my mother passes away… and he always guarantees me a special place in heaven for her. Apparently, at quite a discount, too. Mmm-hmm.” The woman nodded her head blissfully, “Oh yes, he is a bit more expensive than the other O-bousan around, but he’s one of the few who accepts jewelry, in addition, to money. A cut of the inheritance isn’t just money, after all. Oh…he really is such a wonderful man! And so handsome! Why, if I weren’t married…”

Yuri visited the temple after one of the services and asked one of the boy apprentices where she could find O-bousan-34. “In the office through the gate. I can take you there.” He smiled calmly and turned to walk with her. Yuri was very impressed as the young boy seemed very well-mannered and refined. He was maybe the same age as Bunnu, but seemed a lot older in his mannerisms. That just shows what a good environment can do for these kids, she thought to herself, Imagine if Bunnu had grown up in this sort of environment rather than around that drunk buffoon!

They entered the office building, which was elaborately decorated and laid out so immaculately that it was far beyond the level of cultural sophistication Yuri deemed possible for people as simple as the Bahlians. The walls were of marble with an inlay of emeralds, rubies, and precious stones of the like in the shape of remarkable designs. Lining a ledge along these walls were various gold and silver receptacles designed for holding the ashes of the deceased. In the middle of the room was a set of silver chairs with silk cushions set up around a square wooden table with a gold engraved center. Seated in these chairs was a group of O-bousan engaging in seemingly delightful conversation. “Your Holiness, O-bousan-34,” the boy announced to the group ceremoniously, his arms at his sides. The group looked up in attention. “Someone is here to see you.”

“Thank you, Takeo,” the one directly facing them said with a twinkle in his eye. “Right this way, please, madam.”

He led Yuri into a smaller office that was a great deal less luxurious than the reception area. He motioned for her to have a seat as he sat down behind the desk. Yuri sat down to find that the chair she was sitting in was more a bench than a chair and that the desk that O-bousan-34 occupied was quite utilitarian—no bigger, it seemed, than that of a schoolboy’s.

“I gather you are here for advice,” he said with a pleasant smile.

He had a boyish face, round with doughy features, which Yuri imagined, must have gone a long way to win the affections of the women who came to seek his counsel. In addition to the shiny rings that adorned each finger, he wore numerous gold chains of varying length and thickness that hung down overtop a robe of the finest purple Wormdrool silk. The longest and thickest of them had attached to it a large medallion with the number 34 engraved into it.

On the wall behind him was a chart with the names of all the O-bousan with a series of red X’s next to their names. His name had the most next to them. The Chart Read: Month-to-Date.

“How did you know?” she asked.

He exhaled through his nose loudly as a look of amused complacence crossed his face, “Oh, you know…you do this sort of thing long enough. You can read someone the moment they walk in the door.”

“Well, it’s a rather serious matter. I wasn’t sure who to go to about this…and I’m not even sure you can help me, but I feel terribly guilty about it.”

“I’m listening.”

“My son…his name is Bunnu. He’s about the same age as Takeo. Is…er…Takeo your…uh…your-?”

“He’s the son of O-bousan-13. I’m unmarried.” He said quickly, all the while biting his lip. “Please continue.”

“Right…um…well, like I said, I have a son. And because of my selfishness, he ended up getting injured.”

He leaned forward, eyes widening, “Is it serious?”

“No, no,” she said, starting to wipe tears from her eyes, hunching slightly forward with her head in her hands, ashamed to show her face. “It was serious, at first…but it’s been a few weeks and he’s begun to heal.” The O-bousan exhaled from his nose as he leaned back in his chair again, slowly. “But actually, it was my husband I wanted to hurt.”

“What do you mean?” he said with a sigh. He slumped forward lazily over the tiny desk, relaxing his chin against the knuckles of his right hand. He stared out into space and sighed again, this time louder.

“I mean…I really wanted to hurt him. Not just emotionally. I think…I…I…wanted to kill him.”

There was a brief silence. Still hunched forward with her head in her hands, she finally heard the O-bousan lean closer and say in a nearly inaudible whisper, “Really?” She nodded quietly as she sobbed. He continued slightly louder. “Does your husband have a lot of money?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess we do alright. Don’t get me wrong, O-bousan! I’m not that terrible of a person. I’m not after his money.”

“But you still do want to kill him, don’t you?”

“Well…yes…I think so. That feeling still hasn’t subsided.”

“And you haven’t thought of leaving him and taking your son along with you? I mean, if you don’t love your husband anymore-“

“It’s not that!” she cried looking up again with eyes full of tears. “I still love him! I really do! He’s a good man. He picked me up off the streets and saved me from having to live my life as a prostitute. I’ll always be indebted to him for that. It’s not at all because I don’t love him that I want to kill him.”

“Then?” he asked impatiently.

She continued in a loud voice, “He’s just so annoying! I feel like I’m going crazy sometimes. He just won’t stop with that nose whistling! I can’t even get a good night’s sleep! And that incessant shrugging: I don’t think he’s even listening half the time!”

“And you want to kill him because of this?”

“Great! Now you’re judging me.” She said spitefully, quickly wiping the tears with a sweep of her hands. “I knew it was a mistake coming here.” She was about to stand up when he held out his hand in a motion for her to stop.

“Hold on,” he said calmly and she froze, as if powerless to respond. “That’s not at all what I’m doing. Anything you tell me will be held in the strictest confidence. I’m here to help you. I want to be here as your guide on the path to knowing yourself. That’s what life is all about, after all, isn’t it? Knowing oneself well enough to know one’s limitations. Do you know yours…um…I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.”

“Yuri,” she said as she sniffled, now slightly calmer than she had been a moment earlier.

“Yuri…right. Yuri, do you know your limitations?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” She said, settling down in her chair again.

“Don’t worry. You will. But let me ask you a little bit more about your husband. What does he do exactly? I have to say that he must be doing very well for you to be able to afford such beautiful earrings. They really are marvelous, by the way. Is that red pearl?”

“Why yes it is! You’re very observant, O-bousan!”

“Like I said earlier, you do this sort of thing long enough…” He had a self-assured look on his face as he leaned back in his chair. In doing so, his large belly pushed the tiny desk slightly forward in the direction of Yuri.

“My husband grows the Magenta spice. He’s kind of new to the business. I’m told there’s a great demand for it. Back in our hometown of Vasalla, he and his father raised Lesser Bison for their jellied eggs.”

“Magenta’s a growing industry. Very profitable business, I’d say. Fortunately, His Majesty Bunnu-5 has not yet imposed any sizeable taxes on Magenta farmers either.” O-bousan said seemingly impressed. “Your husband must be doing quite well then. I should have known. Your taste in clothing and jewelry show a certain refined elegance.”

Yuri giggled, “Why thank you!”

O-bousan smiled. “Not at all. Just an observation. For what it’s worth…”

“That’s very kind of you,” she said reassured, “But what do you think I should do? These feelings won’t seem to go away. Should I kill him?”

“You want to know something, Yumi?”

“Yuri.”

“You want to know something, Yuri? I’m going to tell you something that might sound a little crazy to you…but you asked, so I’m going to give it to you straight. This bloodlust of yours: it’s not going to disappear on its own. You are going to have to realize your limitations by pushing yourself further and further in the direction that you seem to be resisting. A path must be made to understanding. And it must be followed a step at a time. The first step is to let go of our hesitations. To throw caution to the wind, as it were.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“That you should work through your feelings? Yes! That you should understand them clearly and not resist the temptations that have been plaguing you? Absolutely! Frankly speaking…um…Madam, until you take yourself right to the edge of what you’re capable of doing, you won’t be able to get to the root of whatever it is that’s causing you to feel this way. I’m guessing that it must be some kind of deep-seated anger.”

“Yes. My husband seems to think it’s a result of a childhood trauma.”

“You mean your husband is aware of your intentions?”

“Yes.”

“And he hasn’t done anything to retaliate or escape?”

“Like I said, we love each other.”

“Huh…Sounds complicated,” O-bousan remarked, stroking his chin.

“It is!” she replied and with that, she took her leave of O-bousan with a whole new set of suggestions about how to go about killing her husband. His ideas primarily involved the use of farm equipment in setting up the accident, as some of the new machinery being shipped in from the cities was advanced beyond the common farmer’s capabilities.

“This may sound a little strange,” she had told the O-bousan before leaving, “but I think I would be rather sad if my husband actually died. What if one of my attempts is successful?”

O-bousan-34 thought for a moment before saying slowly, “Well, I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it…”

Dinner

Two years and 27 unsuccessful attempts later, Yuri was now scowling across the table at the back of Raju’s head as he unwittingly faced the fireplace and puffed at his pipe. Without breaking her stare, she gently put down a second bowl of soup in front of the Mumta father, who seemed oblivious to her presence as he wrote what looked like numbers along the edges of one map.

“Ahhh!” Raju said happily, taking a deep breath. “These moments before dinner are always best. But as much as I enjoy the anticipation, I sure am hungry. I do wish those Mumta would start eating faster…”

“Papa, that Mumta kid won’t stop staring at me!”

“Ignore him, then! Why aren’t you sleeping anyway? I told you I’d wake you up when the main course was done!” Raju barked back, holding his pipe.

“I can’t sleep with him looking at me like that. His jaw’s been hanging open like that for almost an hour now.”

“Well…then you shouldn’t have brought him here, now, should you? Well…no…actually, I don’t mean that. I’m quite glad you did, as a matter of fact. What were you doing out there anyway, boy?”

“Trying to sail my ship through the water in the fields.”

“Hmph! The boat probably didn’t even float. The water’s too shallow ‘round this time of year, isn’t it? In any case, I thought I told you to stay out of the neighbors’ fields.”

“It was a small boat. I thought the Karakaze would be able to navigate it through. Anyway, the mast broke before I had a chance to try it out.”

“Well, it was a foolish idea to start with. I don’t want you going out there like that in this kind of weather!” Yuri interjected. “And next time, you come back here when I call you in to the house. None of this pretending not to hear!”

“Hmmm!” Raju uttered in weary assent.

Bunnu sat up suddenly causing the bladder of cool mustard to land on his belly. “Oh yeah! I almost forgot to tell you. When I was out there, I saw something shiny sitting in the rice fields. Like a mirror…or something that can reflect the sunlight. Out past field 011235. That kid,” he pointed at the Mumta boy, who just stared back at him blankly, “was staring at it when I saw them...”

He paused for a moment.

“Papa, can you please tell him to stop looking at me? He’s making me uncomfortable!”

“Bunnu!” Yuri said, “Don’t be rude to our guests. Yes, they might seem a little strange to you because they don’t have the benefits of civilization, but they are still here as our guests. And as our guests they must be treated with the utmost care and preparation. Now, look how upset you’ve made them. They haven’t even gobbled the stuffing I’ve put in front of them. They obviously don’t feel comfortable eating it, even when it’s clearly better than the wretched swill they have to eat out there among the other savages.”

“Sorry about that, fella,” Raju said over his shoulder to the pair. “The boy’s been picking up the worst habits living among these backward Bahlians. The wife and I’ve been talking about making a move back to Vasalla someday so we can bring him up right. Things just aren’t the same around here as they were back in the hometown. Like I said before, we’re a lot different from the people around here. Bunch of simple-minded lay-abouts! No sense of hygiene! Why…my wife told me how, one day, she went to the marketplace. The place was flooded, since it had been raining for a few days. Apparently, some kids thought it would be funny to bathe with some of the cattle in a rain gutter. Bathing in the same water! And the parents? You’d think the parents would have been furious when they found out. After all, what kind of people are willing to let their kids roll around in filth with the animals? We certainly wouldn’t. And yet, the parents of those children were actually standing aside and laughing as it all happened. Laughing, mind you! Unbelievable isn’t it? Like I said, no sense of hygiene. Just look at my boy!” He pointed at Bunnu, “He hasn’t even washed his face once, since coming in. Where I come from, no one would have stood for it. But the people here lack common decency. I guess you must be wondering how people like us even ended up living among them to begin with. Well…it’s a pretty interesting story, actually. It started out-“

“Oh no, Raju!” Yuri interrupted immediately. “Not now! If you start telling them that story, now, we’ll never get the chance to knock them out!”

“Well, I just thought that-“

“Well think again!” she said sharply with her arms folded. “I’ve already started the fire under the cauldron!”

“Papa, we really should take them to see the Outlander. He knows tons of great stories he could tell them. Plus, he knows a lot about their culture. He told me that their language doesn’t have a past tense…and that the spirits of dead people talk to people who are alive all the time and give them advice and-.”

“Enough about the Outlander, already!” Raju barked at him in annoyance, “Anyway, that doesn’t make sense. How could he possibly know something like that?” He shook his head, “No…no. He was clearly making it up. He does that sometimes. Just like those silly horoscopes of his.”

“Well, that’s what he said. So, maybe he does know!” Bunnu said in a cheeky tone.

The Mumta father looked up from his calculations. His son looked at him for a moment before they both turned to stare out the window just behind Raju.

“Ah! I see you’ve noticed our Vasallan water-clock!” exclaimed Raju, motioning to the clock hanging just to the left of the window. “That was a wedding gift from the nice man who managed the brothel that my wife used to work at. What was his name again, honey? Anyway, I thought you might notice it sooner or later. Beautiful craftsmanship, isn’t it? Certainly not the sort of gift you’d expect from your average purveyor. The man certainly had an eye for this kind of thing, though. For example, that wood comes from a kind of tree that grows in the forest just to the south of Vasalla in a place called Neha. You’ve, no doubt, heard of the famous Battle of Neha? Same place. In fact, I’m a veteran of that battle. Thought I was going to lose a leg that day! Ha ha…but through a spot of luck, one of the field commanders had a set of spare medical supplies, so they didn’t have to go through with the amputation. ‘They really sheared the sheep on that one,’ as my old friend Anup used to say. Ha ha! You know, I really should tell you that story about how-“

“Papa,” Bunnu interjected. “I don’t think they’re listening.”

The Mumta were now, in fact, both standing. The Mumta boy stared down at the food on the table with a mixture of curiosity and amusement, as though bewildered by shapes, smells, and textures that were making themselves known to him for the very first time, while his father continued looking in the direction of the window with his watchful expression. He stepped in its direction, glancing back for his son to follow.

Raju looked through the window, too, and could see torches alit in the distance. “There are some people out there.” He muttered.

“What could possibly be so important that they should be out there at this hour in this kind of weather?” Yuri said as she rushed to the window.

“Are they out by field 011235?” Bunnu asked.

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