Spring brings Sakura

“haru kaze no hana

wo chirasu to

miru yume wa

samete mo mune no

sawagu narikeri”

“the spring wind

scattering blossoms

I saw it in a dream

but when I awoke the sound

was still rustling in my breast”

—Saigyo Hoshi

A lone boy walks out of a building, a paper in hand. His eyes gaping at something, something far away, something invisible.

He clenches his fists and his jaws followed. He was shivering. Sure, April’s air was chilly but he was shaking a tad more than usual as though Ice blocks slid along the lines of his spine.

He walks steadily but quickly. A man, in his late fifties perhaps, dressed in a black sprucely pressed tuxedo, waves at him.

“The car is ready, sir.” Says the man.

The boy only stares. His eyes are like black holes. Pulling light in, bending it and forever disfiguring it. The light was in this case hope.

“Thank you, William.” he says.

William holds the door of the back seat open as the boy gets in and sits gingerly. From the front seat’s driver’s mirror he catches a glimpse of the crumbled paper in the boy’s hand.

“What did they say?” He asks.

Almost immediately as though on command the boy breaks down into a million pieces, each piece escaping him in the form of a tear.

William need not press the issue further. The answers were crystal clear and as strident as the stifled sobs.

“I called your father. He said he’ll—“

The boy near yells, his voice hushed and pained.“Yeah, I already did. He said he’s busy with a board meeting. He honestly can’t be bothered with me.”

Silence. It looms in the car for minutes. Both minds trapped in a bitter muse. A few minutes in William says:

“I’m sorry, sir.”

The boy with his face buried in his palms, retorts:

“Why? It’s not your fault.”

The spring air was getting cold and colder it will get.

“haru no umi / hinemosu notari / notari kana”

“vernal seas...

all day long swelling, falling swelling, falling”

—Yosa Buson

In another part of the world, Thousands of miles away, on an island. Mr. Hideyoshi sits drowsily on a hospital bed. A window flanks the bed and gives view to a huge Sakura tree in the hospital’s front yard.

He stares out. Enamored. A girl lays at the other side, she watches him and the smile that forms. Her eyes wonder and trace the creases on his face, his harrowed eyes and cheeks,his feeble movements.

“Dad?” She calls out.

The man looks at her with a weak smile.

“Yes?” He asks.

“What are you looking at?”

His skinny hands wearily point the tree and the pink petals flapping down like magic dust, like heaven’s blessing in the form of rain, in the form of flowers.

He steers his hands towards her. He roughens her hair.

“Sakura…” he says. “That’s what you were named after. The bright Marvelous beauty,the subtle aesthetic moment.” He adds almost imperceptibly, “The gentle sadness of it’s transience.”

The girl does not understand her father as if he spoke in riddles.

“…it’s impermanence reminds us of our own and the beauty of the moment we bloom, swell and fall.” More riddles.

She doesn’t understand but in a moment of bittersweet reverie she sees her father disintegrating. He becomes Sakura petals and meanders. She reaches out, trying to grasp him, To feel his warmth but she only catches pink.

Then as abruptly as her mind flitted away it came back. The room was back. Her father was back. Something told her not for long.

“Are You going to be alright? You’re not going anywhere, are you?” She asks.

“I’ll be fine And I’ll always be here”

He wasn’t fine. He wasn’t always going to be there for her.

“waga kuni wa / kusa sae sakinu / sakura kana”

“in my province

grass blooms too...

cherry blossoms”

—Kobayashi Issa

The boy, Archibald Richie, sits, as was his custom, at a secluded space in the school cafeteria. Months have passed since that cold day in April and the weather has become unbearably harsher. The paper of his affliction is nowhere near him. Perhaps, at home collecting dust. But somehow the anguish of it’s contents has become innate.

He wears this anguish on his face. It wavers in the air when he walks. It lurks in the sound of his footfalls. He reeks of pathos.

Three teenagers. Two boys and a girl strides fervently towards his table. Their faces contorted in anger. The taller boy, and clearly the more impulsive among them, strikes his palm on Archie’s table. Archie’s lunch plate rattles.

“Archie Richie,” the boy howls. His voice sonorous. “I thought I told you that we don’t want you here”

Archie scans the cafeteria. Everyone’s watching.

“I’m sorry. I just…” he starts slowly, quietly. “There’s nowhere else to—”

“Huh? Does it look like we care?” The other boy interpolates. He speaks rapidly. His words are like venom. If only it truly was.

The girl gives him the stank eye, If only looks could kill.

“We don’t want you Richies here,” the taller boy continues. His hoarse voice drawing rapt attention. “You’re all just trouble. With all the money and power your dad has all he does is extort from the weak and drive people to their graves. He’s a cancer! You’re a cancer!”

The words punch Archie down violently. He tries to get up but gets knocked back down. ‘Cancer’ echoes in his mind. A cacophonous ringing.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.I’m sorry.” Over and over he says, like the words of a man drowning at sea his voice is suppressed, inaudible.

“Not enough!” The girl shrieks, flipping his lunch all over him. Satisfied with the blow they’ve dealt, all three walk away.

The milk drenches his clothes, spaghetti and sauce engraves graffiti on his white tops. Archie gets up and walks out slowly with feets of lead. Eyes trace his steps out of the cafeteria. The ghost hovers out.

He never went back there. He never went back to school.

“kimi nakute / makoto ni tada no / sakura kana”

“without you–

the cherry blossoms

just blossoms”

—Kobayashi Issa

Hanami. Hanami. Hanami.

Sakura. Sakura. Sakura.

Everywhere she looks they haunt her. Japan is in spring. Spring brings Sakura. Sakura brings Hanami.

Happy faces, laughter carried about with the spring air. People celebrate under cherry blossoms,in the awe of the moment. Enraptured.

A man sips sakè from a cup. A dog runs in the fields after a boy. A couple sits on the grass, hands clasped together. All smiles.

Spring brings sakura. Sakura brings happiness.

The girl couldn’t feel it. Where had all that beauty gone to? The attraction to watch it’s slow drop? Now all she sees in them are her father’s last moments and broken promises.

He wanted to see them that day. He said, “Could you please take me out there? Under the tree.” When Sakura saw him she was bewildered. He sounded weaker, he looked thinner. Something was continually leaking out of him, something almost palpable. His life force?

She shook her head as if brushing off disbelief. A few minutes later he was outside, under the tree. In silence he sat on his wheelchair, he smiled, he sobbed, he shivered and then stopped. Forever.

A hurricane started from her innards. It ripped her open. Her eyes were a shimmering green swamp. She squealed.

‘You promised! You promised!’ She thought.

Her pain deepened, but she couldn’t stop envying the smile on his face. Envying how at peace he looked.

“hana ni akanu

nageki ya kochi no

utabukuro”

“The blossoms unfailing

my grief this unopening

pouch of poetry”

—Matsuo basho

Days turn to months and months to years. Archie loiters at home, slowly falling to pieces, he floats about in the many halls of his father’s mansion. Something in him had hoped and was somehow still hoping that his defiance would get his father’s attention, But the man couldn’t care less.

Archie sinks into a couch in the massive living room watching  T.V, it’s on the news channel. William was coming down the stairs when the usual sports news was interrupted by a breaking one.

The headlines:

STABBED…DR. DONAVAN RICHIE…FOUND DEAD IN CELL.

He was arrested for fraud in January.

At that moment Everything blurs, even sound.

William runs to the side of the couch. He’s at a loss for words. “I’m so sorry.” He says.

Through gritted teeth Archie replies.

“Why? It’s not your fault.” He walks to the window and looks out, at the front gate. It’s being assaulted by the press. “With all the enemies he had, it’s a miracle he lasted this long.” Archie says, then with a long sigh walks back to the couch and buries himself in it.

William notices a book,placed on the table in front of the couch, he’s seen it a dozen times with Archie. On it’s front page the words “mono no aware” are inscribed boldly and in the background is a white and pinkish flower. Cherry blossoms.

“Is it that good?” He asks, gesturing to the book.

Archie looks over the cushion he had earlier placed over his face. “It has an interesting theory.”

“I see.” William muses.

“It’s about Accepting transience as being part of reality. They say watching the cherry blossoms would give me the epiphany, perhaps to understand why.” Archie goes on.

“Why?”

“I mean understand why life ends so…abruptly”

“Oh…I hear it’s lovely this time of year”

“What is?”

“Japan. The cherry blossoms. Spring.”

“You’re not really suggesting I leave everything in disarray and fly off to Japan, are you?”

“Yes sir. I am.”

“That’s absurd!”

“Then why do you keep reading this? Don’t you want to see it for yourself?”

“I…I can’t leave.”

“Sir,” William sings. Low in volume and high pitched. “Standing still, sitting on a fence, life moves on, nonetheless.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Archie roars.

“Even if you choose to stay here forever, time will not stand still, it will keep on moving and the only thing the passage of time brings is regret. Trust me. I have experience.”

William looks aggrieved. His expression were like a rubber band drawn to its limits and snapping.

Archie was too surprised to speak. He’d never seen this expression on his butler’s face, A face that was always so impassive. He knew at once William couldn’t stand to see him waste away, he couldn’t possibly refuse him this one request.

“Some things never change; some things never stay the same. Some things change the more they stay the same.” William presses on. “That’s what’s so scary about life. The unpredictability.”

The boy lowers the cushions guarding his face. He stares at the book knowing his desires lay at the end of William’s suggestion, but a fear overcomes him: 

What if even after he goes there, no answer awaits? Would there have been any meaning? When all that awaits at the end of your journey is an acute realization of nihilism,why go? He wants meaning.

After an interminable silence he says;

“Make it Kyoto.”

The words echo on the living room walls, it solidifies and sits tidily in front of a suave old man sporting a neatly pressed shirt. His countenance explodes. If faces weren’t elastic, his would’ve snapped.

“Yes sir.” He says. “Yes sir.”

“Yase sune mo

Areba zo, hana no

Yoshino-yama.”

“Though my shanks are thin

I go where flowers blossom,

Yoshino Mountain”

—Matsuo basho

Hours upon hours in the air. Archie sleeps through most of it, though a lot earlier in the flight he entertained himself with the thought that since there’s an eight hour time difference between London and Kyoto, he was time traveling. It was short lived though as irrationality gave way to rationality, but he was unexpectedly delighted, he thought he had lost all his humor but it was right there in those few minutes of disjointed thoughts. is it Japan bringing back his old self? Or was it chasing his dreams that did?

He is awake When Mount Fuji came into view . Something about it symbolizes Japan. It’s icy white caps give a warm matte to the more yellow sky. They are in Japan.

The plane lands, They get their luggage from the carousel. Two huge suitcases. So this is Kyoto they thought, the feeling was very…Japanese, all sound waves carry the Japanese language. Communication is bound to be impossible for two Englishmen, for that reason William had earlier employed the services of a tour-guide/translator personnel who they were to meet at the terminal.

The terminal was packed with greeters, some in kimono, holding cards. One Among the many cards, with the words “ARCHIE’SBALD AND RICH” flies high, elevated by the arms of a teenager. She has pink hair like cherry blossoms, she wears long jeans and a crop-top with floral print.

Was this a substitute for a floral print kimono? If so, where was the substitute for her brains? Archie thought.

They stroll towards her.

“It’s ‘Archibald Richie’, miss…?” Archie protests, pointing at the card hanging over her head.

“Oh I’m so sorry, Mr Richie.” The girl pleads, bowing repeatedly. “I’m hideyoshi sakura, your translator.”

“It’s alright,Sakura.” Archie says. Sakura’s face twitches.

“hana no kage…aka no tanin wa…nakari keri”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“Under the cherry blossoms strangers are not really strangers”

“You’re saying this because I used your first name?…sly innuendos. I love that.” Archie remarks. “How about I call you cherry?”

“Please don’t.” She declares. William snickers.

Sakura shows them to a taxi. Their destination is the 6seasons (a four star hotel).

It is a dreamy evening and the stars have come around, glistening in the distance, illuminating the brilliance of Kyoto night life. The streets are busy. Markets still open and Asians trudging by.

The streets smell of vanilla, the sweet scent of sakura.

Lamp lights illuminate the flanks of the road, up ahead the moon seems to be spotlighting a certain temple. Sakura called it the “kiyomizu-dera temple.”

It hangs high on a subtle cliff. It’s tips pointing the sky. It gleams of red and black paint. It’s austere beauty highlighting the little fissures along it’s walls, same was true for most houses in eastern Kyoto; Lines of age on the surfaces, each line a memory, each memory an emotion.

They arrive at the hotel and after moving their stuff to the hotel room William ushers Archie and Sakura out.

“How about going for a little stroll?” He asks but didn’t wait for a reply; he closes the door and the teenagers wander into the night.

“He went too far.” Archie proclaims. They are on the uptown streets with stone pavement where little houses are squished together with no wiggle room.

“Well, what’s the point of coming to Kyoto if you don’t look around?” Is Sakura’s reply.

“So where are we going?”

“The train station.”

“Why?”

“We can’t get to central Kyoto on foot.”

“Why the hell would we want to go that far?”

Sakura sighs dramatically. “We’re locked out. We might as well enjoy the night.”

Archie Acquiesces. They board a train to central Kyoto. To Nishiki market.

It was a tiny middle lane with shops flanking it. Food, strange food(to Archie), we’re sold there.

Sakura guides him to a tiny shop. A canteen. She orders hamo for them both. After Archie takes the first bite all the food that looked so strange and cryptic became an edible prospect.

The food is delicious.

They sit beside each other on wooden stools, facing the booth.

“So…what’s London like?” Sakura asks.

“New, conspicuous…in some Ways affected. It lacks the beauty of old age.” Archie remarks.

“Oh…it seems dreamy to me. The Residents sound so royal.”

Archie grins. “Yeah, The accent.”

“I would do anything to live there. It’s so tedious here”

“I doubt that. Traditions,temples, cherry blossoms in spring…I think it’s the total package.”

“You don’t know here like I do.”

“Well, you don’t know there like I do.”

“What’s so special about the cherry blossoms anyway?”

“I dunno. The urge to look at them, I guess.”

“The urge?” Sakura grimaces. “My dad he…he stared at those till he went under. Always, he smiled. It pained me that i wasn’t the Sakura he smiled at or the one he found solace in.” A suppressed chuckle. “Then He died under them.”

“Dying under blossoms…I’d love that too.”

It happens again. In a fraction of a second. A bitter sweet reverie replaces Archie’s face with her father’s. She’s stupefied. How did she miss this? The sunken cheeks, the swollen ankles and wrists.

She panics. “You can’t do that. You can’t just up and die.”

“Not much I can do about it.” Archie sighs.

“What about William? You’d just leave him?” She’s beginning to yell, not at Archie but something inward. A memory.

“Even I don’t…Even I don’t want to die.” Archie yells. Then quietens. “I don’t want to die.”

They pay their bill and leave. Tomorrow he will see the blossoms. The night ends.

He sees them at a park Falling from a huge tree. Glorious wings they are as The wind Moves them about. The moment is in slow motion.

A streak of tears flow down the boy’s left cheek. William sits on a park bench. Sakura shows up beside him.

“I think he also didn’t want to die.”Archie says.

“Maybe.”

“Everyone who longs to watch, wants to find meaning in the blossoms, from their ephemeral nature.”

“I like to see myself more like the lasting memory of the moment they swell and fall. Not the cognizance of transience, but the immortality of the moment.”

“I’m sure it’s in there…among the many memories that flash in your final moments, the reason and meaning of life are there.”

The girl watches him and thinks:

“Under the cherry blossoms, a man stands transfixed; watching, longing for something” 

“hana chirite / konomano tera to / narinikeri”

“cherry-blossoms having fallen, temple belongs

To the branches.”

—Yosa buson