You got a Call from the Other side

Something may be quite comforting, by and large: even if you have been taught Buddhist and Taoist wisdom –and that clearly gives you pre-eminence upon human trivialities -you may not be spared of having stupid ideas.

Like, bringing home your little niece, her eyes-burning overalls and her whims when you have a nasty allergy to anything aged less than eight.

I’ll spare you the details about our trip, the crossing of the few streets from the kindergarten to my brother’s house. I looked like a damn fool and I don’t like it. I find rather funny to be able to catch a yôkai by its nose and tell him it’s unwanted here and not being able to handle a five-years-old snotty kid. She ran away from me twice, nearly ended crushed under a bus -said bus brakes screeching and calling me every name under the sun-, and she hit me repetitively in the ankles with her red shoes calling me “mean” –that is so true, my niece-. As I am quite optimistic, I was able to see the hand of destiny within this ordeal: I shall never reproduce. Definitely.

My sister-in-law Miyumi opens the door. She looks me up and down for a long time and allows herself to smirk –I remember this smirk quite well. When I saw it at the wedding, I had a small sadistic thought about my brother. He was going to have a hard time.

“Well, well… Looks like you’re nearly a man now? I wouldn’t have bet any money on that…”

Was that SO LONG AGO?

“No need to look so stunned. Last time I saw your face, Satoru-kun, it was hidden under layers of teenage acne.”

Told you she was a sweetie…

“Talking about youngsters, here is your offspring.”

Miyumi looks at her daughter, almost surprised.

“How did she follow you up there?”

Smiling, I remove the fuda stuck on Naoko’s face and dispel the magic.

“You know how I am, I have my little thing to make them behave.”

“I hope for you, dear brother-in-law, that she will not have any nightmare.”

As if I was doing after-sales service… I let my niece running at her mother and she invites me to come in. The main feature in Kanata’s home decoration is a total lack of home decoration. There is barely a vase, furniture looks quite ordinary and looks like entry-level-cheap-price product, walls are blank, layout is practical. I sit on a rock-hard sofa and Miyumi offers me a tea so dark I can clearly see my own face in it.

“Is there a problem with Naoko? You were quite evasive on the phone.”

“Maybe. But I need some information before. What happened last week?”

“Last… ?”

She tightens and casts a glance at Naoko, playing at some distance. She leans to me.

“Did she talk about it at school?”

“Precisely, no. But it may be linked to weird events happening at school. They asked for me this morning and I find rather odd that I picked out your daughter’s name… especially when you know about her ancestors.”

“Naoko has no onmyôjitsu tendencies. We talked about that with ôka-san.” My sister-in-law’s face is clouding over. She still looks bothered by my job, as if everything supernatural gives her the jitters. I make a disapproving sound with my tongue.

“She “sees”, doesn’t she? She told you before about weird people crossing the house… she hears wailing next to cemeteries. Even if you ask her to shut her mouth, you can’t hide such a gift forever.”

Miyumi looks at me, still silent. Sometimes, I feel like she pities me. Kinda. And I don’t think that is nice of her. Kanata never told me about his wife’s antecedents, but when I watch such a reaction she reveals me more about her than if I was reading her secret diary. I guess she had a very “delicate” face-to-face with a spirit.

Slowly, I repeat my question:

“What happened a week ago?”

“Naoko, go to your room.”

As the kid looks like she’ll protest, her mother puts her on a spit with her gaze and she flees without further ado, toys loaded in her arms. It’s only when she leaves that I realize actually how much this living-room is cold, empty, nearly scary. One may even expect to see… ghosts? As I know Miyumi, I guess she never left Kanata choosing anything here. I really look forward to leave… I certainly put my sister-in-law ill at ease, but, so she does to me. When she finally speaks, she looks at me straight in the eye:

“Sunday evening, a car accident occurred in front of the house. I heard tires screeching, but I was busy, and Kanata-kun was working in his office. Naoko went by the window to watch, and couldn’t be heard for about half an hour. I wondered where she was and I finally found her outside, next to the road. I didn’t grasp immediately what happened, when I noticed blood on her hands…”

***

This morning, while I walk Naoko to school, I find she looks somewhat quieter. Arguing with her parents last night was quite stormy but it was when I had to tell her about this fuss that I really found myself walking on thin ice.

Actually, she accepted the facts way easier then her genitors.

Walking, she keeps on looking over her shoulder as we cross the road to the kindergarten, and I sigh heavily.

“Yes, it is following us. Stop fidgeting.”

“Will it flee if I fidget?”

“Maybe…”

To be true, I could have said anything to stop her moving like a flea high on cocaine.

Shimi and the receptionist’ faces dries as I enter the school, at least until I tell them my job here is nearly done. Especially when I tell them that I have good news.

Once in the classroom with Naoko, I kneel next to her while she sits on these colorful little chairs and she starts to silently take felt pens out of their box. At this time of day, the sun is not yet bright and the building is totally empty. Shimi closes the door when I wave at him and casts a puzzled look at us.

“What now?”

“Now, we wait.” I tell him quietly, leaning to Naoko’s drawing table. Waiting. That’s what I usually do. I am quite familiar with the exercise. Awkward silence, a bit lazy, fells slowly in the room and Shimi finally comes near his pupil too.

“What are you drawing, Naoko?”

I show him the children’s drawings on the wall, the kid’s sheet and its black fuzzy shape.

“Her cat. Isn’t it, Naoko? You’re drawing Shûya, are you not?”

She nods without letting go of her pens and keeps her gaze on the paper. Her face is tense and she frowns as she tries to draw the ears.

“I don’t understand what the…” the institutor sighs. I command him to be silent and raise a finger to tell him to prick his ears. At first, there is only Naoko’s pen scratching, because the street rumor can’t be heard from here.
It’s low, but still audible if you’re paying close attention: a gentle scratch, coming from the playground-side door.

“Here it is. Your guest...”

I stand up with a light spring, stop Naoko’s pen using the tip of my fingers and nod to her. She stands up too and takes my offered hand.

“You weren’t allowed to let him enter your room, true?” I say in a soft voice, eyes nearly squinted. I have to keep my distances if I want it not to run away…

Slowly, I cross the classroom, hand in hand with my niece. Shimi looks at us, nearly frozen. Even the dumbest can feel these moments: when the “other side” is on touch, on your fingertips, departed not yet gone, deads watching us, sometimes with kindness. And sometimes not human.

Animals too.

I stop at the door and look at the girl.

“So you never opened to him. Not even the front door. And Sunday… he was run over by a car. And you told yourself you were a bad girl, letting him outside to die. Was it what happened, Naoko?”

She says nothing, looking straight before her. She’s afraid, she guesses that’s not a living being scratching nearly furiously now behind the blue plastic door. I kneel before her.

“It wants to enter. That’s all. It can follow you, but it will enter only if you open the door. It is not angry.”

I can hear the sound growing louder, becoming plaintive meows, and I can now feel the little ghost’s aura… so it was this raw, rough feeling I had when I opened the door. An animal’s aura…

Naoko steps a few seconds, looking hesitant, then she comes closer, raises on her tiptoes and opens the door. I feel my stomach twisting as Shûya’s soul enters the classroom, and I breathe heavily to prevent staggering. They often think –wrongly- human souls to provide a stronger influence than animal souls. Based on my experience, I can assure you I would rather enter in a human cemetery than in a pet cemetery.

A few awkward seconds, and Naoko looks in the air, smiles and holds out a hand that I immediately pull down.

“You can’t touch him.”

“What did you do?”

Shimi came behind us and looks at me with a totally incredulous face. Lucky him, he suffered no aftereffects and probably wonders if he has to call men in white for both the uncle and the niece. Getting up, I suddenly feel dizzy as “Shûya”, now guarding Naoko, looks at me with a pensive glare. I stand still.

“Kondo-san?”

Won’t he leave me be? Well, I can understand that witnessing one of your pupils marveling at a draft may be disturbing. Shûya arches its back when the institutor comes closer.

Smiling like a salesman who just flogged ten pounds of rotten soy bean, I put my hands on Shimi’s shoulders, seizing the moment to keep him away from the kid. Her guardian spirit watches me, ears flat on its head and emitting a sort of low growling –purring, I suppose-.

“Congratulations! Your class has just won a guardian. What a chance for you, to be at the cutting edge of esotericism. Every tarot and feng-shui adept will have their brats tied to your apron. So then, my advice: put a cat-flap on the door. Ghosts are creatures of habits, you have no idea how much they are homebody.” I explain him, then I slip in a secret tone: “By the way, if I was you, I would go low on punishing Naoko during the next weeks… let’s say months. Guardians can be easily upset. Will you remember everything?”

He stares at me with the look of an anchovy dying in a pot of salt.

“Well, I was saying that for your door.”

Shimi briskly frees himself from me and raise his voice.

“Will you explain anything to me, in the end? What were these noises we heard?”

“Man, what a slow one… I’ll say it again so listen closely: Naoko’s dead cat.”

“That is not funny.”

So you think my face when she opened the door was a prank?

This guy asked for an onmyôji to exorcise his classroom, but he can’t imagine a cat’s spirit coming back for its owner? Maybe he would have found it easier with a furious oni?

“Okay, look, I don’t have the whole day and I admit I don’t want to kick your heels. We’ll do as if. Let everything boil down and call me back when you understand by yourself.”

Another smile to Shimi. No improvements for his dead fish face looks. On her side, Naoko casts a contrite look at Shûya.

“How will I explain that to mommy?”

I clear my throat and roll my eyes.

“If I was you, I would wait a bit before telling her. Waiting until you’ll be legal would be a good idea.”

The idea of telling my sister-in-law about the spirit guardian her daughter got is definitely more than she and I can handle.

Then, i'm leaving for Saitama (my family home). See you later.
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Certains droits réservés par walknboston

Raiding the grasshoppers

Sometimes, I wonder what the Minister’s counselor is on. And I’m actually thinking about asking him his supplier’s name.

When he called me last night to give me the address I was expected to be tomorrow morning, I confess it wasn’t very scrupulously competent of me not to check where he was sending me. I scribbled it on a bit of torn paper and get rid of it on my desk without further ado. Needless to say this morning I dig for it around twenty minutes in order to find it–I’m quite prone to believe moles and stickies to be close cousins. Or maybe the mayhem on my desk finally came alive and attempted to take in what I tossed out to him. The late giving rise to a quite interesting zoological hypothesis.

As soon as I arrived, I admit I suspected a defect in my note taking skills, and felt obliged to call back the Minister’s office –God they hate so much when I ask anything. My interlocutor looked very angry at me, dare to say very close to bawl me out.

“Kondo Satoru speaking. I’m at the meeting place but… I think I made a mistake. That’s a kindergarten.”

*insert windbag on its last legs sigh here* “No, there is no mistake. They asked for your services.”

Big dismayed silence (mine). Toddlers and I are like, Nutella and sashimi. In theory they do not fit really well together. In practice, they are a disaster.

“The Minister asked that you don’t do any old thing, for once. Won’t be hard for you, this is a mild case.”

Click.

So you’re sending me to the nursery school with zero information, zero contact and zero clarification, piece of cake, dream on that, you oyster face?

Well then. If something really dangerous was hidden in this school, the average age would probably have climbed up in the polls, but it seems not to be the case… and from where I am, I don’t feel anything more than the youngsters’ aura.

“Who’s the one you’d pick up?”

Stuck behind her desk, the receptionist looks as relaxed as a climbing plant stake. My face seems to panic her –Didn’t know I was so ugly- and I finally understand I do not ring any bell in her and she’s desperately ransacking her mind to find which brat I am related to.

“I’m sent by the Minister’s private office, Miss. Mixing up instant coffee and starch does not do any good to you. You’d better stop.”

“Ah, Kondo-san!”

The institutor rushes toward me, all smiles out –let me feel like being a kind of kid easily softened by a smile- and bows at me, so low that I wonder if he’d like to polish my boots with his tongue… at least that would have been funny.

“You’re right on time, children are in the playground, and you’ll have plenty of space to take a look and do the first move.”

Kids less than six years old gathering together are like a swarm of grasshoppers, you pray that you would not be their next target… like, first move, thanks! I’d rather have a coffee. Said grasshoppers still are playing around us, not disturbed at all.

“I was expecting you a little sooner, I let them outside so they’ll let you be. They’re a bit nervous, you know…”

“Clearly, Shimi-san, why did you call me for?” I cut off, arms crossed. I’m not at all bothered by him blabbering about his mornings, full of joy and short-legged trolls. Not at all.

“That.”

Coming closer to the building, he points what seems to be his class door, facing open to the playground, made of plastic, scratched nearly eight inches high from the ground. Resting on the amount of scratches and the depth, these look not new. I kneel and touch the deepest scratch but feel nothing, neither good nor bad.

“Started a week ago or so. At first I thought a child made them with a toy rake, but…”

“But Hannibal Lecter is not attending your class. These were hardly made with a plastic rake, for sure. Did the children tell you something?”

“They… They say that when they arrive soon in the morning, they hear something like a whimper, crying. I tried to come sooner and pricked up my ears, but I never saw nor heard anything. We’d like to avoid the parents getting involved in this. What could it be, according to you?

“No idea. A yôkai would rather smash the door open, I think… looks like something tried to enter the classroom.”

When I stand up, I feel a gaze weighting on me and turn slightly. And I find myself facing a kind of miniature black long tangled hair Sadako, in atrocious lemon yellow overalls and red shoes, glancing at me with a bewildered look. From what I feel, she has some kind of aura… I wonder if she’s powerful enough to “see” like I do –“those who see” is a common term used to talk about extra-sensorial-abled persons.

“Naoko! Don’t stare at people! What do you want?”

“Did you come to repair the door?”

Looking at the brat, I sigh.

“You’re right girl, I’m the handyman. Shimi-san, I’d like to enter the classroom, if you’re okay with that.”

By touching the door I feel a fleeting sensation, nearly primal. Kind of a rough feeling, raw… not necessarily bad but it’s so quick I can’t grasp it. Not very surprising, I’m in a school, hundreds of hands touched this door, some of the kids maybe let muddled sensations printed in it and I was granted the remains.

Inside, nothing more. No aura, no ghost dozing off on teddy bears, no yôkai crawling in the neon lamps. Just an ordinary empty room…

"Did something happen before?” I ask, stopping by to look at drawings pinned up on the wall. I study them while Shimi thinks about it.

“No, nothing out of the ordinary.”

There’s only common stuff, all the drawings look similar up to the colors: houses, suns, trees… but one of the drawings pictures a.. sort of… black mess, totally vague, in which I can make out a pair of triangles and a kind of line coming straight out of it. Signed: Naoko.

“So, about the children?”

The institutor glares at me with an offended look… People are so damned annoying, when they sob me about their problems but irk when I come to solutions clearly out of their “good vs bad” conception – as if they were anywhere but in Disney movies-.

“Don’t you dare imply that a child…”

“I do not imply, I ASK. Answering questions is your job, isn’t it? Mine is to ask them. I’m not part of your brood, so stop looking stern and answer. There is nothing in your classroom nor in the playground, therefore if that is not something coming from the inside, it means that somebody brings it with him. Maybe you do practice black magic?”

Looking how quick his face has changed, I think I’ve just met a friend. Looks like my voicemail will boo me again…

***

“What do you want?”

Me trying to charm a girl is as funny as a legless cripple on a trampoline: always wondering when he falls flat on his face. And the receptionist does not look either convinced by my attempts to pry information out of her.

“Look, there’s a problem, kind of, with the bra... children, I really, really would like to know if you heard something lately? Say, a week ago? Maybe one bringing an old toy to school, or back from a family trip?”

She snorts.

"I don’t see what is the point for you to ask.” Maybe that’s what I’m paid for? “The kids are quiet actually, there was only Naoko last Monday…”

Hey… micro human-shaped lemon interested by me has got into trouble last week…

“She arrived red-eyed, she did not want to tell anything to us and her parents just asked us to let her be.”

I smile, thinking. Don’t come closer, you curious nosy-nosed. May be a mild case, but matches quite well. In my job area, one is often very skeptical about coincidence. The receptionist stands up, visibly better at ease than when I arrived.

“And I will not give you their address. That does not concern you.”

“Yes it does.”

My hand sinks on her desk and fishes the file box, causing her to sharply squeak. She tries to catch my sleeve.

“Stop it, you can’t do that!”

“Yet it looks like I could. Stop pulling at my shirt, it’s already a rag, you’ll finish it off.”

Naoko…

Naoko Kondo??

The kanjis are the same. And the address…

Looks like I have a little niece. Well, thinking about that, I recall that my brother has reproduced. More than one time… bringing his offspring back home tonight, no wonder I’ll please my bro very much…

I give back the file box to the receptionist, her back to the wall. I smile at her again.

“If you would lend me your phone, you’ll be a sweetheart.”

To be continued... 

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Certains droits réservés par Janne Toivoniemi

Bad day for a music-lover

One previously pointed out to me that as I’m living in a fifteen-square-meters flat, I might be working for peanuts –actually, my pay may sometimes be so but that’s not the point here- I’ll avoid any misunderstanding by telling you not a bias but the simple truth: in Tokyo, we’re living literally cramped together. Unless you’re an enthusiastic member of the orgy circle –and I am not- this fact is known to drive Japanese people… anxious, to say.

Let’s take an example: next to my luxurious less-than-one-room flat is living my quite charming neighbor. He breaks off all ties with his desk-and-computer at home only to find again the same osmosis in his employer’s building. My “physical and moral decaying state” –end of quote- seems to move him greatly, and he does not understand why I’m indeed allowing myself to decay in joblessness.

True, he thinks I’m on the dole: considering the specimen’s pedigree, I didn’t feel brave enough to explain him that I happen to be a kind of facilitator for yôkai and ghosts summer camp. I think the good fellow would have been quite disturbed by this revelation.

So, there’s no ordinary day without him asking for my story life: did I find a job, did I stop eating junk food –he caught me in the act with a chocolate spread jar and put me on file since - and shall I give a try to the latest trendy health pills to solve my chronic fatigue issue –when you can’t sleep during two days because you’re hiding away a kitsune, sucker, you may appreciate to do so without being bothered by random fella offering little pills.

Lately, he started a new how to wake him up on mornings: playing the very best of –or worst- Japanese and American pop music, and up to my own flat thanks to walls thin as paper –maybe with a tiny bit of plaster on top-. Believe me or not, but Avril Lavigne or Ayumi Hamasaki as morning alarm clock may drive anyone to a state of rage. I’d like to think that may surely be tagged “extenuating circumstances” in a nasty crime case –and I have a lot of ideas about that.

The first time it happened, I went to his door, knocked and asked him if he’d like to lower the volume, mite below the giga high-decibel level. It seems that the rare fact he recalls from my visit is: my hair was a mess, my eyes shadowed of cerulean blue and I was in my underpants.

The second time, I hammered his door, and the third, I purely and solely promised him that when the next note of “Complicated” would come buggering my doziness, he will be driven to his office in a white taxi with a screaming siren. He answered dryly that everybody has not the joy of being a burden to the society and a dropout like me, and that I was the only one buggered by his music. O, the delight.

Everything seems quiet now, kind of a day off because nobody seems to need my services today. So I’m ready to relax in the garden, a chocolate jar and a manga on my lap –in mangas, sending a ghost back where it belongs is always quick, efficient and without ever a single drop of blood split… makes me jealous.

“Everything is all right, Hirose-san?” I ask loudly, starting the second third of the jar with a big spoon.

Raising my eyes from my book, I can see my neighbor beyond the garden door, trying for the third time this week to unlock his car. Repairman may start thinking he’d like to propose…
He rubs his hand and looks at me, disappointed.

“I’ll be late again… that’s a bad day.”

You bet. From what I understood, he mistakenly deleted files he was currently working on, his tire went flat twice this week, and considering the stink floating next to his door, his flat has a nasty leak issue.

I give him a chastened smile and shrug, as if resigned.

“Try to go to the temple, maybe that’s a sign.”

“I tried. Three times!”

“Shit happens…” I conclude with a smile, back to my book, spoon in mouth.

It happens even more when an akashita is following you everywhere: often shaped as a black puffy cloud, this nice little yôkai really loves human company. Like a Japanese variation of Lassie, it has only one little flaw: although it’s neither harmful nor violent in any case, it tends to carry bad luck with him. Totally involuntarily of course, and besides, it’s still a sweet little demon (and very fond of you).

One of them seems very fond of my neighbor, and he’s following him everywhere since two weeks. Speaking of it, while Hirose prepares to hurt his hand by forcing open his car door, the black shape on his shoulder moves a little, pops out a hairy head, yawns, and casts a yellow-eyed glance to me. I wave him a “hi” and watches him going back to sleep.

Satoru Kondo, Japan’s first onmyôji, warrant of the balance between deads, livings, yôkai and humans. Sober, pure, devoted to his government and neighbor’s cause, he is the symbol of the archipelago spiritual greatness.

But that does not mean he doesn’t hold any grudges.
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Source de l'image :  http://www.flickr.com/photos/andilicious/4279831984/

Interlude

No, I’m not fired, I’ve not been exiled and I’m not currently furnishing Setsu’s office as a desk blotter.

I’ll spare you the details of the interview (I’ll try not to call it a scolding… woops, too late) I have been called for in the Minister’s office, to be reminded that being a state officer I have to be exemplary. I retorted parley was seldom if ever necessary when exemplary preventing yôkai, ghosts and other demons to put in two cents with thy neighbors.

So I ended with a “warning” -I can tell you my next family gathering will be killingly funny- and an obligation to apologize to Gekkô.

I think the Minister really blew up when I told him smiling that I’d rather be tied by the tongue to his car and dragged along on Tokyo’s belt highway during rush hours than to apologize. Retrospectively, I may have had a heavy hand with him, but nothing in the world would piss me more than licking this ill-omen-kyûbi’s boots, considering that I’m already more or less forced to do so.

Clearly, after this revolting morning, I came back slightly annoyed to my fifteen square meters flat in Yanaka, next to the cemetery. I selected this area because I like quietness, and also because of the abundance of temples. I don’t like my job, that’s a fact, but this type of district remains the cleanest -from a spiritual point of view- that can be done, thanks to the sacred building still standing. I’m in my element. And not being continuously bothered by local spirits when taking a shower or washing the dishes is quite pleasant too.

“I knew you’ll be back soon.”

She had to come from the garden’s door and sat on the stairs leading to the first floor. In her short blue dress, with her naked shoulders, she still looks like she’s twelve. She keeps on wearing her hair free and even her inquisitive gaze fails in giving her a stricter look. She has a pair of shadowed pits, black apples in which irises and pupils are melting. I don’t like when she looks straight at me because of them, she knows and she overdoes.

“You could have phoned, you would not have been obliged to wait,” I point out to her, playing with my keys.

I pass her and climb the stairs, not offering her to come with me.

“You should be the one phoning, Satoru…”

I don’t look back and put my key in the keyhole with a mocking smile. Women… instead of really sock it to you once and for all, they need to play it by escalating melodramatic tone.

Anyhow, Hana is very good at this game.

“Why? You think it would be better to see each other more often?”

“You never visit me, not a single drop by, and if I was not the one coming to you, I may not be able to remember what you look like anymore.”

“Sounds not so serious to me. Unless I’ve missed an event?”

“My birthday.”

Ouch. I didn’t realize I was this much on the blink… and it seems to be a little too late to make up for it, considering her face. For my defense, I seldom give any news to Hana, so much that she used to ask after me directly. Sometimes everything is well and we’re happy with a weather conversation, a perfect osmosis.

And sometimes she reminds me we barely manage to row each other.

“Ok.”

I turn to face her and raise my hands.

“Did you put a price on my head or just called for the cops?”

“Sounds not so funny to me.”

“Nothing sounds funny to you. And yet I remember it used to be so.”

“Same for you, don’t you think? You did not always used to be a twenty-two-years-old crone, perfectly unbearable in every way.”

Judging by the fact I’m as petty as she is, I recognize I may have a big “doll side”, too. This revelation does nothing to improve my mood.

“Look, Hana. You’d break my knees with a bat if you want, but not this morning. Not now. I just had a truly shitty morning so please, I beg you, I plead you, go home and come back to blame me when I have slept.

I probably look pathetic, I’m nearly whining her to leave me be. She stamps on the stairs a few seconds, gauging me, then she turns heels and I sigh heavily with relief.

“Hana…”

She freezes in the stairs, one of her black shoes –these I offered her last year, late, of course- on hold above the last step.

“I apologize. I just had a crazy week, I’m back from the minister’s office, I even didn’t take a breather… promised… I’ll make up for this.”

I can see her head moving slowly as she looks at me with her pitch black glance. I think she smiled to me.

“Okay. Didn’t know you were so rich.”

Not so far away from mine and not so much more popular among the family, what I like the most about her is her sense of humor. And her smile. She crosses the garden door and waves at me.

“See you, little brother!”

And she disappears at a fast pace round the street corner. I’ve never understood why my sister always looked like she was in a hurry, as I vaguely recon she does not work. But I always saw her in a rush, as if she was worried to be late, even if she knows punctuality is far away from being my best quality –whatever that jackass of Gekkô thinks-.

Entering my flat, I was totally worn out. And I swear for the thousandth time I shall immediately yield to the next girl scolding me. Less work for my nerves.
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Certains droits réservés par c@rljones

See? I’m no bitter antisocial

On the evidence of my previous messages, one can guess I’m living all alone by myself, since I caused all nearby living forms to run away from me –in their shoes you would probably run away from me, screaming-. Well, I am sorry to inform you that I do have excellent friends, some of them I recently saw, ill-timed, round the corner of a street…

***

“Move your ass!”

Forgot to tell you that my friends are plain-speakers. I was going out of a coffee shop –yes I happen to idle a bit when I’m celebrating one-more-still-alive day- when they stopped the “intimate special” car (the one with smoked windows) next to my sidewalk.

Shinzu, Maro and I are close friends: we’re on first-name terms, nearly nickname, and sometimes, we smack each other. In their defense, their boss is usually sending them to “call me in”, invitation that I would always courteously decline. Speaking of, my latest courtesy is still spreading on Maro’s arch of eyebrow, swinging between the color of rotten meat and a peach yellow. Shinzu sticks his gun between my ribs and grabs me by the neck as I make enquiries about his health.

“Shut up and move!!”

He takes the driver’s seat while in the other seat, gun pointing at my head, Maro keeps me at bay. He’s telling me that “Gekkô-shachô” (company manager honorific title) wants to see me.

“You sure we cannot drop by a coffee before? We never have time to chitchat…”

I give them the buddy-buddy smile and end up with a slap behind my head and the order to shut my shit-hole. God, I love their humor even better than their trash-talking… Usually, they’re kind enough to let me decline three times before dragging me up to “Gekkô-shachô”.

If there is one person I must introduce, that’s him.

Gekkô Setsu is the head of Gekkô-AL, the biggest company of the fattiest and stodgiest industrial food in the whole country. Even if I love the conveniences of quickly cooked-gobbled-expelled junk food, I’ve never ever ate anything coming from his factories. Principles choice rather than a taste issue.

Sometimes, he requires my presence, in a very diplomatic way as you can notice –nonetheless, if he really was in the diplomatic area I would kindly send him to hell the same way as I actually do-. Setsu is the kind of guy a man can either envy or despise, and I picked the last. His outward appearance is of a deeply involved business-man, and also a filthy rich, influential, self-satisfied arrogant little schemer. Inwardly, one may smell a rat, and not belonging to the minor species but a big fatty.

“Gekkô-shachô, your guest is here.”

Carrying me up to the last floor wasn’t an easy job for the two watchdogs: proof is, when we are in Setsu’s office, each of them is holding firmly one of my arms and the mouth of the gun is lovingly squeezing between my vertebrae. Gekkô-shachô seems not to mind the lack of formal in my arriving: he’s used to, as I sometimes drop by smashing open the doors.

“Thank you, sirs. I think you can let him go.”

His crooked smile makes a dimple at the corner of his mouth. Setsu is around two heads taller than me, wrapped up in a white suit matching his hair. Right between the bangs and the collar, there’s a pair of yellow eyes that never blink and a smile that makes me want to rearrange its symmetry (buuuut master onmyôji, no violence… bla bla bla).

Shinzu and Maro dump me on the floor, turn around and walk away. I wink at them proposing to postpone our coffee, and failing for coffee Maro seems quite willing to shoot at me. Shinzu holds him back and they go out of the office with a nasty glance towards my direction.

Gekkô circles around his desk –which size would appear indecent to any megalomaniac manager- and looks at me trying to get up, without offering any help.

“If you keep on taunting them, you’ll be found one day with all your bones unstrung. Coffee? ”

I refuse the cup he’s handing to me and stare straight at him, remaining silent. I pride myself in having a glance full of meaning, deep enough to keep my mouth closed. At the moment, it means something like “lucky you that I practiced hours of zen meditation”.

“Nice to see you having a break.”

“Whatever you call having a break I call it abduction. That raises a vocabulary issue.”

He shrugs and sits down in his chair, crossing his legs and gazing upon Tokyo’s sunlight gaining ground, nearly thirty floors under him.

“I was referring to the coffee shop you’re hanging around each morning. Ten minutes, not a second more… consistency is one of your best qualities, Satoru-chan.”

I hate, I abhor, I loathe this obsequious sucker and his tv show outfit calling me Satoru-chan. Non-Japanese speaking here? Well, the act of giving some –chan to a master onmyôji is like patting him on the head, give him a lollypop and a balloon and tell him to go coloring-in somewhere else. I see you get the idea. I may turn a blind eye to the average joe struggling with the idea of giving me credit, but not to a kitsune openly jerking me around.

Did you notice that word? The one just before “openly jerking me…”? That is the big fat rat I was talking about before. Should bring a new light on the very own personal affection I display for Setsu Gekkô, shouldn’t it?

I suppose the word “kitsune” – or rather "kyûbi" may remind some of you to that orange stuff with a nasty case of teenage mutant acne, living in a mass market success manga which name I shall hold back (Do I really need to name it?). If anything, a kitsune/kyûbi is more of an illusionist. Look at him, pretending to be perfectly human is his favorite hobby. That and creating the most havoc it can within the less amount of time it requires... Optimum chaos, sort of.

If the word “kitsune” is not ringing any bell to you: a kitsune is a fox-spirit, mind-games buff, metamorphosis enthusiast and sometimes human meat gourmet. Depends on which way the wind blows.

“Are you tailing me now? I wouldn’t like to be in your minders’ shoes, because my days may seem very long to them.”

He and I have the displeasure of knowing each other since a long time, even before he reached the position I’m doing my best to make him fall from. That’s my way to remind him that humans do not exist for his exclusive service. Quietly, I come closer and slam the palm of my hands on the desk, shaking it a little.

“Open the door. I don’t have time to play with you.”

He keeps on staring at me, still smiling, and quietly puts back his coffee cup. A second before he lets go of it, the cup blows up and coffee spreads, staining his sleeve –looking by the small scowl altering his smile, I bet that coffee was burning hot-.

“As a rule in that situation, a true human would have sworn like a trooper, Gekkô.”

“And he would have thrown you out by the bay window. I know.”

Looking nearly sad, he looks at the stain on his sleeve.

“How childish, Satoru-chan. So unworthy of you. I feel you are in a poor form lately… maybe because of what happened at the courthouse?” (He’s probably alluding to my wonderful 19 of July).

He slowly crosses his fingers, giving me a better glimpse of his fine clawed hands.

“As a rule in that situation, a true human would have told me to screw myself, wouldn’t he?” he adds, slightly amused. He’s staring at me straight and I must gather all my composure to keep a poker face.

As if all my offenses still had any effect on this tie-guy, as if I wanted to loose my time cursing him. That’s a game you can’t win with a kitsune: if he manages to mentally abuse you, then you’re running a risk of being eaten.

I turn back and walk toward the door, on which a beautiful yôkai seal hangs proudly. Extending his neck, Gekkô watches me with interest while I join my hands together, forefingers up to the sky, and starts reciting a fed-up sounding destruction mantra which cracks the wood from top to bottom.

A step to the side and the door collapses at my feet, neatly cut in two parts.

“Say hello from me to your board of directors,” I drop while going out.

Lately, I prevented him from using his factories workmen as part of fast food raw material, without any further consequence from the Prime Minister than a single eyebrow raising and the factory manager’s internment as ideal fall guy. The only consequence for Gekkô was a “ministries’ notification” –understand: a meeting in the diet palace with a request for being at least more discreet and not to beat the crap out of the onmyôji sent to tear a strip off him.

When you have the yearly record of hired people –even if you also own the same record in work-related accidents- you’re more likely to end up with your fingers whacked with a ruler rather than ending in the slammer.

And I have in mind that was the reason he called for me this morning. Better saying that his projects were absolutely spectacularly ruined because of me. Needless to add that both his stockholders and his yôkai little friends might have a lot of rusty nail incrusted bats and galleons of scalding hot oil fantasies involving my inestimable person.

As I’m almost to the elevator, a pair of clawed hands pinions my hands to the metallic wall, framing my head. Never turn your back to the unhappy kyûbi. One may live longer by doing so. Slowly, one of his hands slides from my wrist to my cheek.

“Scratch the slightest inch of me and you’ll eat your next employees with a straw.”

“Interesting threats you can’t execute…”

Cocking a bit my head to the side, I give him one of my “don’t try to screw me please” smiles.

“Don’t be mistaken, Gekkô. The only difference between a minor yôkai and a kitsune is the range you need to kick its ass.”

His smile unhide sharp white teeth, slightly but enough to stay discreet… he’s struggling to keep his human look.

“Be careful.”

I pinch his lips with two fingers.

“Don’t try to terrify me like you do with your subordinates. They might call for an exorcist… Wait, there’s something more. If I come upon one of your minders tailing me somewhat too much closer, I’ll send him back to you in more than one parcel.”

I know how to adapt myself to the person who’s speaking with me. As I rush into the elevator, I wave a good-bye to an arms-crossed, still smiling Gekkô.

Status quo, same between us since more than ten years. But I can see he still finds it funny. Lucky him, that’s not mutual.

***

There’s an epilog to this nice interview.

Two days later I received a letter, here are the best parts:

“Further to your extremely poor behavior lately… insulting company head… material damages for which we do not wish to pay for… offended employees… scandalous… spiritual elite… must set an example…”

Well, you have surely understood that the Minister wants to see me. Noticeably, although I am not the best of diplomats, he may not want me to bring him croissants with his coffee.
_____________________________________

Source of image :  http://www.flickr.com/photos/deapeajay/3046121538/

Show is over

Not a single line in the weekly newspaper in spite of the flock of journalists attending the show on the Tokyo’s courthouse parvis: even after years of practicing, I’m still impressed by the way my respected employer is able to cover up any mess I got involved into.

That said, I must admit that being the second world power, they can hardly leak about shintô priest used as a ghost buster, they would look like damn fools even before Americans.

This morning, the Minister phoned to remind me that “would be better to provide appropriate information about my trips and missions on business out of the governmental jurisdiction” –meaning: would be nice of you to let us know when you’re gonna create mayhem without us asking for it, duck- I unctuously answered that I shall soon think about a GPS transplantation. Failing for subtlety, it occurred to me he hanged a bit rudely.

In case you were wondering, no I did not paint crimson the courthouse stairs, nor did I rampage part of the building by mistake. But I did meet my mysterious “sponsor”, the one who has nearly burnt my lasts useful brain cells. And I went quite… disappointed, truly speaking.

Mainly because I was a mere spectator as I didn’t take any part in what happened. Truth is, the fact irks me a little. Being able to send back a soul where it belongs, to blow up a building without a single sweat drop, and finding yourself powerless and inefficient in front of an “ordinary tragedy” is deeply frustrating.

The wise would say “better to know about your own limits”.

Bullshit.

Good heavens, what’s the use of all these years of training?

Usually I make my entrance when it’s already too late, to minimize loss, like guys paid to throw away plague-stricken corps in order to avoid survivors’ further contamination. Ok, they were useful. But they didn’t have to spend ten years of their lives learning Taoist magic, dipping into frozen baths and hours of meditating cramps.

So I don’t give a shit for the Minister’s call.

***

At dawn I arrived in front of the courthouse, and stood there against one of the trees guarding the front entrance, waiting for my sponsor, determined to wait all day long and merge with the trunk if needed. I wonder if my pen pal would leave me alone if I didn’t show up because of the drizzling. Nothing would please me more than trashing away computer and keyboard, but I sincerely doubt that would solve the problem.

A few people are passing by: magistrates, white necks walking at full throttle without even looking at me, a group of girly students giggling and glancing at me –seems that I am the sort of man who appeals to this age group of the fair sex, I bet it comes from my trendy “hobo” look. Whatever sinks your boat… - and I’m waiting here, empty-headed, waiting for the shiki on my shoulder to react any time something vaguely unusual is passing by.

Ha. I can feel a touch of perplexity saying “what’s a shiki?” No, I didn’t adopt a faithful dog (although the Minister’s counselor, always sniffing on my heels…). It’s a bit more subtle.

Here’s a detailed description for curious ones: a shiki or “servant spirit”, is an embodiment of the onmyôji’s mind and psyche, a living extension in a tangible shape. Used for scouting -it can sneak in closed places or travel quickly on far distances- and also for fighting. It is generally shaped like an animal or a little demon, depending on whom or what is invoking it. Mine look like birds or little mammals.

Short-description: animal-looking invocation useful when I am in an intense laziness state and I don’t feel like fighting or moving by myself.

Once semantic issues are solved, let’s be back to our course of things: courthouse, it’s raining and I’m taking roots.

My phone cell tells me it’s nearly eleven in the morning, I’m dozing, sitting under a drizzle which will probably send me back to my sickbed with galleons of cough syrup when a piping voice calls me out.

“Why are you on the floor?”

I hate kids. What does she think I am doing, head tilted and eyes closed? Mimes? Opening an eye, I cast a more than hostile glance at an eight-years-old miniature.

“I’m playing dead.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong. It ain’t the way it should be done”, she says with pedantry.

“Sure?”

“You will catch death, true.”

True indeed. My jacket and t-shirt are soaked wet in the shoulders area. Rain drops are running along the leaves and keep dripping on my head. I stood up and shake myself a bit, sighing heavily, still staring at the kid. I don’t have the know-how with the children part of mankind, besides, I don’t have it either with the other part. Maybe because I don’t scare them. Yet.

Maybe because they can see more than meet the eye.

“And you, may I ask what are you doing here?” I say, methodically wringing my jacket. “Your mother never told you don’t talk to strangers?”

“Mommy is not here with me. She’s there.”

She points at the courthouse, in front of which a small flock is gathering. Judging by the army of mikes waving, they do not look like magistrates. As a rule I don’t work with judges, so I admit I didn’t inquired about the latest mainstream trial –what’s the point in court-appointed attorney for a demon?-. My shiki looks troubled when the brat holds out her hand to touch him, and I absent-mindedly cluck my tongue to ease him.

“I want to play with kitteh!”

“Is your mother among the journalists?”

I turn to see the doors opened, framing two figures holding each other, and suddenly I feel like sinking under water.

It’s not a suffocating feeling –that I can endure- but a sucking up sensation burying me under a cold and heavy blanket, my heart pounding in my ears as the only sound in the silence around me… total silence while less than two yards from me a swarm of journalists is snapping away, jerking mikes at the couple climbing down the stairs. Slowly, stunned, I look down and see the kiddo taking my hand and dragging me to the bottom of the stairs.

My shiki snarls, startled as if in agony and I’m finally following her as if I was not the one ordering my legs to move. I should be freaking out, looking for a way to free me…

But no. Not for this soul.

We step together at the bottom of the stairs and our eyes look at the group, at the man and the woman answering the journalists’ questions. Especially the woman, talking about her daughter, about the punishment her murderer deserved, finally convicted by justice after long months struggles… her husband is adding so, saying he’d never had guessed about the kid’s institutor, and thanking the media and policemen for their job and support…

I’m not bonding with others, that’s a fact and I have a lot of hard time trying to understand what people hides in his inner self, at least while he’s still alive. But here, the child’s hand squeezing mine, hearing the false cries in the mother’s voice makes me feel sick as I never were.

“I loved Aya” she utters in front of a female journalist having eyes only for her.

“So then, why did you kill her?”

My voice is easily heard over the hubbub, and it is not entirely because of my lungs. A heavy silence falls on us while my question fades into the air and they turn to face me one by one, like automatons. One feels so alone before these glares and minds craving for easy, so much more popular moving answer than for the miserable truth. One feels alone when blaming a mother for killing her own daughter, even when said kid is holding tightly your hand, silently asking for justice.

“You won’t answer?”

However, if my voice is so cold, it is entirely because of me. I do so to hide my sudden weakness, this fucking feeling stuffed into my gasping throat as I’m stuck between Aya’s aura squeezing me and the slowly awakening terror of the mother, suddenly able to catch a glimpse of her dead daughter by my side: I can see her pupils expand with fear. Bruises, blows, blood stains… and the deep dark look ghosts have when they come back to bother you. Drives you crazy.

I don’t react when Aya’s mother collapses with a cry, convulsing, calling for her husband. Accusing, she shouts he left her alone, not taking care of the «burden » Aya grew to, him wanting to keep her in spite of her disability… I close my eyes, I try not to see this restless mob… pressure is slowly turning down as the ghost finally let go of my hand and I fall on my knees, gasping, chilled to the bones.

“Sorry. I didn’t wanted to hurt you,” Aya whispers, smiling. “Mommy wasn’t able to hear me but it was easier with you. Sorry.”

Take a deep breath, don’t let yourself been distracted. If she attacks her mother, I can’t let her do so, as a rule: only livings settle scores with the livings. I stand up.

“You want to fight?” she asks, backing off.

“That is not entirely up with me.”

I finally notice her crooked legs, nearly blurred. She looks at them, undecided.

“So these were the reason?”

“Looks like so.”

On the stairs, the mob begins to move, some journalists are looking at me again… damn, I don’t want them into the bargain!

Suddenly Aya moves her little face closer to mine and flings her arms around my neck.

“Thank you.”

I stood here, definitely frozen by her kiss on my forehead, as she seems to melt in the ever-pouring rain.

***

In the end, journalists weren’t able to catch up with me, but running when you’re soaked wet and just-hugged by a revengeful ghost is like running a 110-meter hurdle with a cannon ball locked to each ankle. Surely I could have looked for Aya’s file, could have tried to understand… and I think that’s what everybody would have wanted.

But I alone have felt each of Aya’s feelings, and I have no interest in her desire to understand or to get answers. I feel even less affected as I was only a mere communication channel. That’s not my first time, but they were teenagers, not a child in a wheelchair.

That sounds not like a frankly romantic ending… but what could I do?

The hell with it, I’m no different from a grave digger. And I’ve never saw any of them crying at burials.

Free show tomorrow

After passing a week of high fever buried under my blankets, I find myself rather happy to be able to bear a stand-up position for more than thirty seconds. That being so, I still don’t look very fresh but I’m vaguely working, therefore allowing me to take care of an e-mail quite… unexpected.

I was talking earlier about the altered use one can do of my mailbox, entrusting me with oh-so-prestigious missions, and about the sort of answers one is entitled to expect when one takes an onmyôji for a nutritionist or a feng-shui chiropractor. So I was slightly convinced that the email I received was along the same lines than the one much talked about (when my sinuses tried to kill me): no sender, no title, no signature, just a word.

Come.

Indeed, if I happened to be a shaman-chiropractor, that email could only possibly have been a hoax, a mail sent by error, potentially a computer bug. However, in an onmyôji mailbox… but my head was more than 102°F with fever and I admit I didn’t think it twice before sending the mail to its right place : in the trash box.

Then happened… how can I say … a little “problem”.

Next to nothing.

To describe it to you the best I can, let’s say a truck full of nitroglycerin came crashing with the remains of my brains in a first-ranked seat sounds and lights show. Without usherette or popcorn.

I woke up to find myself face to face with the carpet, with stiff aching muscles, burning eye sockets and an unbearable humming in the ears. I probably stayed unconscious for one or two hours, huddled up on the floor before my chair. Getting up, I had the rather irritating enjoyment to find blood stains on my carpet, probably coming from my eyes and ears –pity they were my only facial openings that were not pouring down liquids last week-. In spite of the illness I managed to understand that my cold wasn’t worsening to a lethally tropical disease –the only tropical plants I mix with are in ministries, and they’re scrubbed with bleach.

So I opted for the most rational option: unplug computer and go back to bed, thinking stained carpet, damaged brains and said disturbing email would be nice enough to wait for a few days.

This morning, here we go again: second email, same mold, but with a second word.

Come tomorrow.

Without being a computer super crack, it seems to me that if virus may induce black out of the computer, it rarely blacks out the user himself. No blood in the cdrom drive nor in the power cable –I checked.

On can say that you wouldn’t venture yourself in meeting someone who can knock-out a master of Taoist magic with a single pile of pixels, don’t you? Even more when it’s no nicely notified.

Well, firstly my rhinustuff-pharyngitia-colditis-thingy helped him a lot.

Secondly, I hate being given orders and more, being beaten when I don’t want to cooperate. Really truly hate it. It bugs me very much, drives me aggressive. Anyhow, a master onmyôji never indulges himself in gratuitous violence, and, why, ain’t it perfect timing? He did the first move. Therefore I’m allowed to retaliate with barbarically aforethought action.

In order not to end up dripping blood on the carpet, I created a small kekkai around me and answered the mail, using his synthetic and uncluttered syntax:

Where ?

I barely had time to hit the “send” button that the answer popped in, in the form of an address I acknowledged as Tokyo’s courthouse. Perfect.

I restrained myself from sending a “why” to my pen pal. In fact I kinda like to go and see what’s up by myself, must be my muck-rake side -the only part of my character fully satisfied by my job-.

I’ll be there indeed.

And the smartass who thinks he can take my head for a can would be well-advised to have a solid good reason for calling me out. Otherwise an onmyôji fight in front of the courthouse should be picturesque (and will help in keeping a low profile).

In any case he’ll be put on a show.