Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1998 01:41:38 +0800 From: JSA Subject: "Feast of The Dead, 2032" Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: jsa@curricula.net To: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.3 (32) I decided I might as well send all the sQ stories I have so far here. FOTD is a letter Kimura writes her dead parents on the Feast of The Dead. I don't know about Westerners but to us, the Feast of The Dead is a solemn occassion remembering our dead -- not at all a happy occassion like your Halloween. J *** The Feast of The Dead, 2032 by Jessi Albano Beloved Mother and Honored Father -- It has taken me a long time to write this letter to you, and it will take a while longer before I can take it to the surface to burn it properly in the tradition of our ancestors. I have not risked it before, knowing how my work could be undone by the slightest slip, the slightest error, but I can not ignore this day as I have ignored it these last two decades. Some would perhaps say that after all this time it doesn't matter, that I have forgotten everything and that this will serve as nothing more than a grand gesture, an attempt at closure. They would be wrong. I remember everything. Time passes strangely under the ocean, without seasons, without the sun, and there have been times when I wondered whether it was not yesterday the purge occurred. If the years have not been a dream, a horrible, painful dream that can be banished by light and noise. But all I need to do is look into a mirror to dispel that fantasy. I have grown up, Mother and Father, and soon I will go up to the surface where perhaps your spirits will be able to see me. How glad I have been, as glad as anybody with a dead heart can be, that I was hidden by the ocean through these long years. For if the stories you told me are true, the sea hides all my sins from you, and you have not been witness to all that I have done, to all that I have gone through to live to this day. How many feasts of the dead have you waited for me, my parents? Waited for a letter, for a candle on the water? For me to offer incense to the gods in your name? Have you grown tired? have you given up? Do you believe, as so many others do, that I have forgotten? I have not. I remember everything. I remember the color of the sky. I remember the smell of trees in spring. I remember every shudder, every smothered scream -- the light dying in your eyes as you slipped away from me. I remember everything. I would like nothing better than to live the rest of my life at the bottom of the sea. To hide from the world and your eyes, to lose myself in the currents -- ensuring that my ashes will never scatter in smoke, that my soul, or whatever is left of it, will not rise to face the gods I no longer believe in. But I can not. The sea hides many sins, my parents, not only mine. Nurturing them in cold and dark, feeding them with fear and secrecy. As with the monsters of legend, the sun must shine upon them so they will disintegrate and die, the wind blow upon them so they will scatter, never to return. This is my task, my parents, for this I must live. Father, you have always taught me that death is preferable to dishonor. That our honor is all that we have, all that makes us, all that we are. Some would say that I have forgotten this lesson. I have not. You taught me that the truth is the greatest weapon we can have. That the truth must be made known so that our people can fight more than shadows, more than nameless fears. You said the truth would set us free. I have not forgotten this either. And yet I have chosen another path. I am no longer an honorable woman, my Father, and I no longer serve the truth. Once I reach the surface you will know this, and I will lose what little of you I have left. You will know that I have turned my back on honor and truth, choosing life, choosing vengeance, choosing the promise of freedom. Mother, upon my birth you burned candles and incense, each flame a wish for my happiness. You gathered a thousand and one pieces of string from a thousand and one strangers, each string a wish for luck. I am alive, my Mother, so my luck holds. As for happiness, it is as useless to me now as honor. As the truth. Honor. The Choadai have taught me a greater lesson, my Father, my Mother. I have learned that honor is for those who have the luxury of choice, for those who think of war as glorious, as something to be won and not something one must live through. Honor is for those who are free. And I have found a purpose greater than my honor, and for this purpose, I have forged weapons more deadly than the truth. I am alive, and I will live to see the Chaodai fall. I will live to see their deeds brought to light -- very life accounted for, every atrocity paid. And when the ashes of their sins have blown away, I will try to make reparations for mine. Shall I tell you of my sins, Father? Shall I tell you what has become of the bright-born beloved daughter that you tried to raise in the highest honor, in keeping with the most ancient traditions? She has lied. She has stolen. She has schemed. She has plotted the downfall of men guilty of nothing more than standing in the way of her vengeance. She has eaten with the enemy, given tribute to its kings. She has turned her back on the gods of her ancestors, discarded all the teachings and wisdom of her clan. She has taken lives. Not in self-defense but in cold-blooded calculation, naming herself judge and jury, with the power to decide who will live and who will die. Deciding that one life is worth a thousand others, claiming the good of the many in return for the sacrifice of the few. And that is not the worst of it. I have been weak. For a moment, I lost sight of who I am, of why I am here. I risked my vengeance, my purpose; risked what little is left of my soul and my sanity for a lie of my own making. A dream crafted by a master, and brought to life by a fool. A fool. How weak I had been, to be defeated by a fool. How easy it had been to be lost here. To be lulled by the warmth, by the softness. how easy it was to be tempted. To believe in the promised strength of the UEO, to believe I was safe, that I was free, that I was not alone. I almost believed. For one moment I allowed my burdens to fall free from my shoulders because I thought I had found someone to share them with. For a moment I glimpsed a reality greater than the Chaodai, a purpose higher than my vengeance. For one moment I believed there was more to my being than the warrior, more to my destiny than the downfall of the Chaodai. All because of one moment of softness, one confused vision of something more. All because he made me believe I could be saved. Remember those tales you used to tell me, Mother? How you would smile because I believed every word, cheered every happy ending? I told myself the greatest story, Mama, and I almost trapped myself in my own lies. How laughable, the spider getting caught in her own web. But never again. Never again. How fortunate that the fantasy was so fleeting, so weak that it died so quickly. But now I must be ever more vigilant, not only against the enemy but also against myself. I must not weaken again. I must not fail. There can be no more room for weaknesses. No room for mistakes. I must never waver again. Never question the my purpose, never doubt my chosen path. The Chaodai must fall. This is my truth. This is my purpose. This is my honor. All other truths are malleable, all other realities expendable -- no matter how bright and shining they may be. No matter how loudly they call, no matter how softly they whisper. This I swear to you, my Father and my Mother. I will not falter again. On this day, the feast of the dead 2032, I honor you my parents, I honor the memory of your lives. Know that I have not forgotten and I give you my promise that your murderers will be made to pay for their crimes. The day is coming, my parents, but until then I must not weaken, I must not falter. I must not hope. I will not think of you again. But perhaps we will meet again soon. Your daughter, Heiko Kimura @copyright Jessi Albano 1997 - ******************************************************** "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." - General George Patton The Goddess of War Homepage http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1730 The ESCAPED/TALES Archive http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/7124/ ********************************************************