Mother of the Year

The mug slid across the table. The trouble was that Ryu wasn’t holding it, and no one else was either.

“No, don’t,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure who he was talking to. “Please, don’t.”

As if on invisible strings, the mug continued its slow trek across his kitchen countertop, making a scream like a witch’s nail against a chalkboard, leaving a water smear instead of a ring. If it kept going it would soon meet the counter’s edge and tumble over, shattering into a million tiny daggers. Ryu couldn’t bear to touch the mug for fear that his hand would accidently touch the one he couldn’t see, then the awkwardness felt from the same thing happening in mushy movies would occur; he’d pull back his hand, but still remember the tingle that penetrated his skin. Still, as much as he couldn’t fathom making contact with a phantom, he also wouldn’t be able to tolerate the hurt in his mother’s eyes when she saw the decapitated mug, dead and not put-back-together-able.

There was no doubt she’d blame a six-year-old rather than a vengeful spirit . . .

The mug was at the edge now, still moving inch by inch. When it was see-sawing on the counter, half on and half off, just waiting to take the plunge, courage swept through Ryu and he took action. He launched himself across the kitchen nook and caught the mug in midair, his little index finger feeling the weight of the Mother of the Year keepsake in its entirety. He sighed as he placed the mug in the cabinet where it belonged, out of sight but sadly not out of harm’s way.

The spirit had a habit of opening the cabinets too, pulling open the drapes and cracking open the windows. He didn’t know what it wanted, what it had in mind.

“Ryu, what are you doing still in the kitchen,” his mother said, entering in her kimono-styled night robe. “You should have been in bed ages ago.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “I got up for a glass of milk.” He wiped the evidence that he had indeed had a drink from his upper lip and white-mustached-old-man Ryu reactivated his boyish youth.

His mother laughed. “Well, you better get back to bed. You have school in the morning.”

“Okay, mommy,” Ryu responded, marching right off to his bedroom without another word. He wished he could mention the spirit, but trying would make him seem crazy or bratty or . . .

The door to his bedroom was swinging open on its own, inviting him in. The dark waited in the threshold, attempting to beckon him with the smell of cozy blankets and the sounds of cicadas playing their stomachs just outside the bedroom window, but Ryu wasn’t falling for it. He couldn’t go in there. Something wanted him to go in and so he couldn’t. Couldn’t.

But mommy will be mad, a voice licked at his ear. She’ll think you’re a baby, that you’re a trouble maker, that you—

“No,” Ryu whispered. A lion roared within him and set him in motion, bravery seeping through his pores. He stood just inside the room and stared at the dancing shadows, willing his eyes to adjust to them and start to form the shapes he was familiar with. But instead of catching his desk and his bed and his giant plush puppy, he saw a figure standing just in front of him, in the dim moonlight from the window—himself, but . . . not himself, older.

“I tried to warn you,” the older boy said. About thirteen, he wore the same pajamas Ryu wore now, blue cotton shirt and bottoms trimmed in red. He had the same haircut, had the same scar on his face from Ryu’s first bike tumble, everything was the same . . . expect for his expression. He looked sad, but not too sad, like his goldfish got flushed, something he knew would happen because fish don’t live long but still felt bad about because it was alive.

“What do you mean?” Ryu asked his older self.

His older self didn’t speak again, only pointed back towards the hall.

Ryu felt a chill that had nothing to do with his other self’s ghostly presence. He retreated back down the hall, to the kitchen. His mother lay there on the tile, not moving. Ryu’s eyes shook with tears, the lion in him diminished to a kitten.

“I tried to tell you, to warn you,” the ghost teen said behind him. “I thought you would understand when I tried to destroy her “Mother of the Year” mug . . . This was her last year to live.”

Sing Me a Fish

They said Tara’s voice could raise the dead, so why not resurrect her goldfish that her parents had sent down the commode?

Tara stares into the still water of the porcelain bowl, caught in the thought of her fish taking a final swim down there before batting its little fins like wings and going on to fish heaven. She doesn’t care what her friends said about losing a dog or cat taking more out of you than a fish going belly-up after a week, doesn’t care that none of them could keep interest in a pet you couldn’t touch for a good minute without it choking on air.

Tara’s fish mattered to her for all the hours it allowed her to invest in TV or books or video games without it begging her to be fed. It was special to her because it listened to what she had to say. When Tara’s parents took her to an animal shelter to pick a pet, the cats walked out on her words and the dogs craved her attention and affection as well as anyone and everyone else’s. Only her fish saw her as an individual, singular and vital. And that was how Tara saw her fish, beyond important, because it shared its time with her and no one else, and more so since it could talk back to her.

“How is the ocean?” she asked it one night, staring into one of its bubbly eyes.

The goldfish flipped and spun about, reflecting Tara’s nightlight with its scales, yellow hues morphing into liquid gold. Then its ‘O’ of a mouth worked, saying, “The ocean is but drops of water, little teardrops grown big. It is small. It is large. It is life.”

Tara couldn’t quite get her head around her fish’s monologue, but she stored it to memory as she would a teacher’s lecture because it sounded important.

“Are fish important in the ocean, where there are so many of you?”

“All is important,” Tara’s fish answered, “little or large, few or many.”

Tara understood this. Coach bashed this lesson into her head everyday during afterschool soccer practice. Kids are like ants – alone they appear feeble and lost; gathered together ants can get food from the picnic and kids can get goals on a field or sweets from unsuspecting parents’ cookie jars. Teamwork.

One night, Tara asked her fish one more question, just before it began swimming the wrong around, before its never-closing eyes closed out visions of the world. There was still one thing she couldn’t understand. “Am I important?” she asked. “Even if I’m not all pretty covered in bright-colored scales, or smart like you?” Anxiety was building up in Tara, though she didn’t quite have a name for it, anxiety over leaving elementary for middle school, childhood for almost-adulthood. Her fish couldn’t have left her at a worse time, but it did give her a few more words of wisdom prior to doing so.

“All are smart, in their own ways,” the fish spoke. “All are beautiful, to someone. Remember: All is important. Important is all.”

Tara swallowed her fish’s words, forced them down as she would cold medicine, so bitter. At the moment, they were hard for her to take because she couldn’t quite believe them. Tara couldn’t see the beauty in her dirty blonde hair and eyes colored swamp-mud brown; she couldn’t see her intelligence after having to repeat third grade for lack of computing multiplication and division. To her, she had no importance.

Tara stands alone now, her mother out with her baby sibling, her father in another world while his body lays a husk on the couch downstairs. She’s a squash-able little ant on her own, but perhaps she needn’t be. Perhaps she could be another sort of bug when not in a crowd: a bee that could sting and cause welts if harmed, or a butterfly, still squash-able, but only if caught mid-flutter and bottled up. Now was her chance to make herself important.

Water in commodes isn’t blue like the ocean and, momentarily, Tara wonders why. Unable to hold in hope or the air in her lungs any longer, Tara begins to sing or screech or caterwaul.

A miracle does occur immediately – her father starts to snore peacefully despite Tara’s disrespect for his rest. Eventually, when Tara has sung so hard and from so deep down that her toes are curling against the cold tile floor, she stops. Nothing seems different to her. She is still alone, no people, no fish, and the commode water remains static.

Tara growls as she clenches her fists and stomps her foot like her face is under it, she’s so mad at herself. That’s when the water decides to change. Bubbles pulse through the water like it’s about to boil, but rather than bursting on the surface, they collect and float in air, forming a sort of transparent honeycomb.

The honeycomb begins to play, like someone’s given it the command by remote control, and shows a video of the ocean, the ocean from deep, deep below. Anemone glow among seaweed and other sea grasses flitting back and forth like waving green and purple and bluish fingers. Fish cover every surface from the wide open blue to the sand floor where crustaceans occupy their fancy. Tara’s eyes tear up when one particular fish catches her eye, one that knew her contorted face and the tenor of her voice – her goldfish.

It looks at her, and she looks at it, though neither of them can truly see. One of them has misty vision and the other is but an illusion. Tara isn’t sure which she is, the girl dreaming of fish or a girl a fish dreamed.

The honeycomb shatters and the water droplets rain back into the bowl providing Tara with the short shush of an April shower. All is still again with the water replaced – the air, the bowl, Tara’s mind. She is satisfied. Her voice didn’t raise the dead. Her voice raised pleasant memory, regardless of its lack of tune.

Rabbit Moon

Usagi expected to burn. An old rabbit such as himself didn’t have long to live, and the beggar man didn’t have long either if he was only to eat the fruits the monkey gathered or the fish offered by the otter. Usagi knew what he was doing when he threw himself into Beggar’s fire. Everyone knew rabbits possessed a sea of luck in each foot and Beggar would need luck as well as sustenance to revive his blessedly weary bones.

Usagi expected to burn, but he did not. Beggar was astonished at the rabbit’s luck that spared the creature even death. Now it is said here that Beggar was actually a Ruler of Heaven and that he drew a likeness to old Usagi on Tsuki, the brightest and biggest orb in the night sky, but sadly that didn’t occur. Nothing so grand could ever happen to old Usagi.

Monkey and Otter returned and heard of Usagi’s grandeur, his attempt to brave flames, his resolve to offer his life and luck for the beggar. Beggar was thankful, but he was also greedy. Hearing the other animals boast Usagi’s courage and humility, Beggar got an idea, a dirty one that he would later regret but could never take back.

Beggar couldn’t doodle on Tsuki, no, for his arms couldn’t stretch that far, but he could throw. Beggar told Usagi about all of the ingredients stored on Tsuki, enough to make an infinite amount of mochi, sweet pounded rice that quenched hunger and revitalized spirit.

“You can make some for yourself too, Usagi-san,” Beggar assured him. “With your luck you can pound enough to bring youth back into your old tired paws. With your luck you can come back to Earth with energy enough to set the world at a faster pace by running it, run backwards and set back the clock for everyone.”

Usagi agreed that it would be great to give everyone youth even if he may never gain his own. He resolved to pound mochi on Tsuki and to send it down as snow until Beggar and his animal friends had enough life in them to stay young forever. So Beggar threw Usagi to Tsuki and the pounding began.

Years and years passed with Usagi doing as promised, making mochi and sending it snowing down. Beggar, along with Monkey and Otter and other animals on Earth, grew more youthful with each passing day. Usagi grew older. He wouldn’t eat the mochi because he felt others needed it more than him. And, although he never let on that he knew, Beggar hadn’t fooled him in sending him to Tsuki.

It was later discovered that mochi from Tsuki didn’t give immortality, but a longer, more fulfilling life. Usagi still works today, in Tsuki, what some now call Moon or Luna. He still works hard and long with his tired paws, his pace slower but no less diligent. And when he is able, he sends down the snow. You may notice that snow is no longer sweet and sticky mochi, but powdery ice. You see, Usagi has run out of mochi ingredients since they weren’t as everlasting as Beggar claimed. His sightless eyes can’t see that he is only pounding frozen water to a light flurry. And that is alright because Usagi still has luck and the snow still channels it. The snow touches all creatures with life as the mochi did. Usagi still has purpose, and so he keeps pounding.