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31_days2007-05-03 06:18 pm
tongari.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2007-05-03 06:18 pm
[May 3] [Mushishi] stepping through time
Title: stepping through time
Day/Theme: May 3: e la chiamano estate!
Series: Mushishi
Character/Pairing: Taku (NOTE: SPOILER for ep 26)
Rating: G
September mornings; dawn showers, so sudden that the water falling on roof-tiles seemed to be jumping in surprise upon hearing itself. Throughout the warm weather his wife left their windows open until the leaves on the trees began to change colour, and the mountain's lush green flushed faintly gold when you turned and looked at it with the sun behind your shoulder. The night she finally went to close them, murmuring some soft, habitual apology about youkai and early frost, he knew he would wake in the morning and it would be there on his roof, filtering in through the cracks and between the edges of walls and sills; a distant sense of rain, an old friend returning.
It was not the same kind of rain that woke you in spring with its loud joyous roar drumming in your ears as if trying to wake your very heart; that was the rain that broke, violently, after a long winter filled with the unbearable silence of snow falling. The rains of late summer were gentle, almost wistful. After the long weeks slanting one into the other, like the yellow fields of corn whispering silkily across the tilled valley, watching children at play, fishing in the stream and listening to stories told by amiable visitors on the porch, his head was so light when he woke; the rain seemed to fall right through it. And continued to fall, through the heartbreak and sobriety of the years that had passed, reducing them to dust. It was such an unremarkable sound; why did it stir his pulse to such a pitch?
Is it rain or footsteps? he'd ask the grey mist behind his closed eyes. It's too gentle for rain, surely it must be the sound of travelers. I couldn't have fallen asleep out by the waterfall, could I? Man, Isaza's gonna laugh at me...
"Dear?" a woman asked. She leaned over him, touched his hair lightly. The rain did not cease to fall, but it was as if it could not fall through her. In a few drops he recognized his wife, remembered their wedding, their children, her love, his despair. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. A long time ago, he had lost the ability to read the colour of someone else's feelings. Overhead, the rain trickled softer and softer, drying up. Leaving without saying hello? he asked, but only his mouth moved, the words wouldn't rise.
"What's that, dear?"
"Sorry," he said. His voice was rough with sleep, his tongue scratchy as sandpaper. "These kind of mornings, I forget what time it is."
"It's still very early in the day," she said.
Not the time of day, he thought, but he was too kind to tell her so.
Day/Theme: May 3: e la chiamano estate!
Series: Mushishi
Character/Pairing: Taku (NOTE: SPOILER for ep 26)
Rating: G
September mornings; dawn showers, so sudden that the water falling on roof-tiles seemed to be jumping in surprise upon hearing itself. Throughout the warm weather his wife left their windows open until the leaves on the trees began to change colour, and the mountain's lush green flushed faintly gold when you turned and looked at it with the sun behind your shoulder. The night she finally went to close them, murmuring some soft, habitual apology about youkai and early frost, he knew he would wake in the morning and it would be there on his roof, filtering in through the cracks and between the edges of walls and sills; a distant sense of rain, an old friend returning.
It was not the same kind of rain that woke you in spring with its loud joyous roar drumming in your ears as if trying to wake your very heart; that was the rain that broke, violently, after a long winter filled with the unbearable silence of snow falling. The rains of late summer were gentle, almost wistful. After the long weeks slanting one into the other, like the yellow fields of corn whispering silkily across the tilled valley, watching children at play, fishing in the stream and listening to stories told by amiable visitors on the porch, his head was so light when he woke; the rain seemed to fall right through it. And continued to fall, through the heartbreak and sobriety of the years that had passed, reducing them to dust. It was such an unremarkable sound; why did it stir his pulse to such a pitch?
Is it rain or footsteps? he'd ask the grey mist behind his closed eyes. It's too gentle for rain, surely it must be the sound of travelers. I couldn't have fallen asleep out by the waterfall, could I? Man, Isaza's gonna laugh at me...
"Dear?" a woman asked. She leaned over him, touched his hair lightly. The rain did not cease to fall, but it was as if it could not fall through her. In a few drops he recognized his wife, remembered their wedding, their children, her love, his despair. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. A long time ago, he had lost the ability to read the colour of someone else's feelings. Overhead, the rain trickled softer and softer, drying up. Leaving without saying hello? he asked, but only his mouth moved, the words wouldn't rise.
"What's that, dear?"
"Sorry," he said. His voice was rough with sleep, his tongue scratchy as sandpaper. "These kind of mornings, I forget what time it is."
"It's still very early in the day," she said.
Not the time of day, he thought, but he was too kind to tell her so.