Mr Sakura's Story
...
It was the Wednesday to beat all Wednesdays. There was green grass in Mr. Sakuras garden and blue skye above his black-hair head looking threw the window of lovely summerhouse. He was gazing at his brand-new, pretty, gentle wife- Yumiko. She was supposed to weed her little charming garden. Mr. Sakura liked her quite much when she was doing what she was supposed to do. She looked like a primrose between all this flowers with her delicate face and small, pale hands, besides she was a fatal cook and really clumsy tea maker. But his well-known, rich neighbors said she is gorgeous and suitable. “A bit of peremptoriness and she will become a jubiliciously, obedient lady.” So he tried.
At this right moment she wasn’t weeding, as he told her to do. She was sitting in her clean, white apron and gossiping in her bright, nice soprano with a sloppy looking girl who stood outside fence. It was a fish renegade, he admited. He hated her. She was strage, ill-mannered and she stinked with fishes and flowers. What would say Mr. Yamatano if he heared Mr. Sakuras wife talking to this provincial wench!
“Yumiko!”- Mr. Sakura shouted gently.- “Come here now, my dear”.
“Ofcourse Sakurasan”.- she answered with her naive, sweet voice and raised up quickly. She ran to him, bowed with respectful menner and smiled timiditly. “I listen to you Sakurasan”.- she said still smiling. “I will do everything you want me to do”- she bowed the second time.
“So be quiet and donot speak when you aren’t supposed to.”- he said decidedly.
She nodded.
“Who were you talking to at the moment I called you?”
“It was just Kioko a Fishseller, Sakurasan. She told me a new poem she had thought about before saw me. Do you want to hear some? <<I ache. The void is like death, the sky is red...>>”
“Stop that you stupid women. The poems... Always this bloody poems! Oh, and that one is new. You had to met her, ofcourse. I told you not to talk to any ragtags and bobtails, didn’t I?”
“Well yes... but I met her on a market few days ago and thought she was really nice to me so...”
“She is MAD. What would said neighbors if they saw you with her?! That you are mad, that I am mad!”
“I’m so sorry Sakurasan!”- she cried softly with her beautiful, dark eyebrows banded in bows. “I will never do it again, I promise!” she tried to touch his arm, but he beated off her little hands.
“Now I will say something I wan’t you to remember, Yumiko”- he said in voice people use to explain things to children. “You will not interrupt me while I speak and you will not ask my any stupid questions after that. Is it clear to you? Is it clear Yumiko?”
“Yes, Sakurasan”- she answerd politly.
“That’s nice. That’s a good start.”- Mr. Sakura always liked to repeat himself. That made him the best in his opinion. Also he thought he deserved the best.- “Yumiko, as your husband I encourage you from time to time and always in esteemate way to question my orders. If you're unconvinced of a particular method of action I've decided, is the wises then tell me so. But allow me to convince you and I promise you right here and now no subject will ever be taboo. Except of course the subject that regard your behaviour. Your father sold you to me because he wanted me to take care of you, Yumiko and your money. So I expect from you due respect. The price you pay for bringing up either my words or conditions is, I will not tolerate you. And as I not tolerate you I treat you like animal. Do you wan’t that Yumiko?”
Yumiko dropped her eyes and muttered something like “No, Sakurasan”
“Now if you, my dear Yumiko, have got anything else to say, now is the time”.
Silence.
“I didnot think so” Mr. Sakura hit Yumiko on her white cheek. She reeled threw the room and prostrated oneself.
* * *
“What... where am I?”- asked Mr. Sakura absently.
The place was dark, cold and stinked with rotting moss and stones. He was lieing in a ice-cold, mudy water. There was darker than in the moonlitless night. He started to twitch.
Mr. Sakura tried to stand up but his leg failed.
“Ouch!”- he screamed painfully. It was broken but he was too chilled to had felt that before.
“What is that place?”- he asked stupidly in the hope that somebody will answer him.
Drip. Drip. Drip. The icy water is dripping.
He goggled to see anything in dense darkness but without succes. It seemed to him he had to be somewhere under earth. And then he remembered something.
Flash of light, giggling girl, falling down and a hollow crash of his own bones. The dried up draw well in the garden!
“Yumiko! Hey. Can you hear me?! Help me! I Am here, in the well!” No one answered him. He was alone in middark, thirty feet deep hole without any food, worm clothes and any chances to get from there.
Mr. Sakura fainted bravely.
“Come to the dark placed below the water falling, and listen through the silver mist of ghostly voices calling. Hi hi hi.”
Mr. Sakura woke up suddenly, with cold sweat on his forehead. The high, cool voice was travelling in response in his new prison.
Is it possible?- he thought. – Is it really possible that this Mad Girl is here?
“Yo ho00. Here I am Mr. Sakura. On the top of your weird dreams.”
She was there even if he couldn’t saw her.
“Who the hell are you Fishseller?”- he shouted but he immediately wished he hadn’t done it. The response pricked him painfully in head.
“Wave the flag for Hudson Highborn, show them how we stand! I’m a rovling gambler, how do you do?”
Mr. Sakuras anger was most still like a breath of his soul that need not exist.
“Stop that you little loony girl! You’d better help me or I will crash your neck!”
“Clay lies still but blood’s a-rover, yessir. Red rover, red rover, let Charlie come over. Hi hi hi!”
“What are you playing? Stop that. And what are you doing in my garden, you fisher? Whatever. Go and find my wife. I will pay you.”- he cried.
“Won’t you come home Billy Beily? Won’t you come home? My wild Irish rose! Victorious! Excellent then, you’re a fishmonger! Hi hi hi.”
“Och gods, I gonna die here.” Mr. Sakura moved a bit. He screamed when a couple of rats run away under his arm. He found his leg bite but he couldn’t feel that.
“Help me! Please! Help me. I have money!” But she has already gone away.
* * *
Mr. Sakura didn’t want to get up from the mudy floor of his draw well.
The thing like that had never happened to him beforem.
No, that’s not a truth. He has been a sluggard all his life. He used to be a bitter about getting up early, but finally he always pull together and tried to “stay up stright, dry eyes in the pouring rain”, as he liked to call it. However this Wednesday was quite special so Mr. Sakura was still lieing in a cold mud.
Drip. Drip. Drip. The icy water is dripping.
“There came a time for me as it comes for everyone”- thought Mr. Sakura. –“I’m dying in this bloody draw well with only my own company. Well, there are also rats, eating my body. But there is one bright side of my situation- that’s nice I hadn’t tried to kill myself, because with this dripping near my ear I wouldn’t be able to concentrate upon my suicide so I would absolutly destroy the august moment of my death. I should die like Seneka with gradious farewell speech. Or rather like Sokrates but it would be more difficoult because I haven’t got any hemlock with me.”
It would be a shame if he doesn’t stand up. But he will. In a minute.
“I will try to climb over the stone-made wall and I will get off from here. Right now.”
The idea of eternity in this place become momentarily unbearable to Mr. Sakura. Living in a shadows, feeding in the darkness... Rots into a solitary, hollow existence.
Ofcourse until he would die from weakness and cold before the week ends. But still eating worms wasn’t so bad idea.
Drip. Drip. Drip. The icy water is dripping.
Or I can pretend someone murdered me. I can cravl to this little stream, soak up water into lungs. A moment of pain and panick and all my problems will go away. And if I hit my self a bit it will seem I fought with aggressor and was murdered. People would even see me as a martyr. They would think I was enough important to have enemy, enough worth to be killed.
That is pointless. I know my luck. Probably someone will find me screaming in here from pain, give me food and medicines. Then he will realize I’ ve have got all these bruises and there is no aggressor. In result people will hear tiding of my maonful tries to change suicide into brutal murder. So my life will get even worse.
How could you done it to me you Mad girl?!
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
He didn’t try to get up and climb over the wall to get off.
* * *
He woke up because the stink of his own body rotting in his own feaces was not to tolerate. He vomited with bile on his bleeding legs. Rats smelled it and crawled to him with intrest.
“Go away you bastards. Let me die in peace. You will eat me even thought after I die, won’t you?” They didn’t adopt the idea. He has been in his prison for three weeks now. Ofcourse he couldn’t know that because in this world there was no day, no light, only cold, rotting body and rat’s skeletons, which he was chewing in hunger. Sometimes he grasped this little animals by tails and bite their heads to eat them. It wasn’t so easy as he couldn’t move from his place. He lost almost all his foot week ago when he was sleeping and didn’t realize rats ate it. Besides he wasn’t complaining. Sometimes he even thought he deserved what he got.
* * *
“Can you hear me, Sakurasan?”
“I can always hear your voice, my beautiful Yumiko.”
“I will get you from here. I know what this girl did to you. I am so sorry, Sakurasan, I didn’t realize...”
“Stop explaining and don’t worry. You’re here, that is all I need.”
“Oh, my dear husband...”
“Your looks so beautiful tonight, Yumiko.”
“But... you cannot see me in darkness so how can you...”
“Ofcourse I can see you. I have been having these weird dreams lately...”
“I’ m not a dream. I am real. I’m here, I am getting you out of these place.”
“Oh no your not, Mad Girl.”
“How did you know it was me Mr. Rotting Cherry?”
“Gotcha. Remember, you control the dreams. They don’t control you.”
* * *
“My love entwains me in a breeze free from time, but broken and listening in the heart of mine”
“That wasn’t your best, Mad Girl.”
“Well, you’re right. But you know, I am loosing my inspiration... Hi hi hi.”
“Your charming besides your a stinky fishseller and a crazy murderer.”
“That flatters to me.”
* * *
“Death is comeing. She will take you tonight, I can smell it. And your little friends, they got your soft parts of body”
“I am glad even if I live nevermore, they can feed their hunger.”
“Are you afraid of death?”
“It can’t be worse than life.”
“Yeah. Your life is a horror. Hi hi hi.”
“No. It used to be a horror. Now it is paradise.”
“Och.”
“How is it outside today, my friend?”
“Like this Wednesday, do you remember? The sky is blue, no clouds, no cold, no wind. It is so sunny today. Peace and worm. Why are you laughing?”
“I lost all my tears. Besides I’m glad it is a nice, beautiful day despite of all that had happened.”
Drip. Drip. Drip. The icy water is dripping.
At this right moment she wasn’t weeding, as he told her to do. She was sitting in her clean, white apron and gossiping in her bright, nice soprano with a sloppy looking girl who stood outside fence. It was a fish renegade, he admited. He hated her. She was strage, ill-mannered and she stinked with fishes and flowers. What would say Mr. Yamatano if he heared Mr. Sakuras wife talking to this provincial wench!
“Yumiko!”- Mr. Sakura shouted gently.- “Come here now, my dear”.
“Ofcourse Sakurasan”.- she answered with her naive, sweet voice and raised up quickly. She ran to him, bowed with respectful menner and smiled timiditly. “I listen to you Sakurasan”.- she said still smiling. “I will do everything you want me to do”- she bowed the second time.
“So be quiet and donot speak when you aren’t supposed to.”- he said decidedly.
She nodded.
“Who were you talking to at the moment I called you?”
“It was just Kioko a Fishseller, Sakurasan. She told me a new poem she had thought about before saw me. Do you want to hear some? <<I ache. The void is like death, the sky is red...>>”
“Stop that you stupid women. The poems... Always this bloody poems! Oh, and that one is new. You had to met her, ofcourse. I told you not to talk to any ragtags and bobtails, didn’t I?”
“Well yes... but I met her on a market few days ago and thought she was really nice to me so...”
“She is MAD. What would said neighbors if they saw you with her?! That you are mad, that I am mad!”
“I’m so sorry Sakurasan!”- she cried softly with her beautiful, dark eyebrows banded in bows. “I will never do it again, I promise!” she tried to touch his arm, but he beated off her little hands.
“Now I will say something I wan’t you to remember, Yumiko”- he said in voice people use to explain things to children. “You will not interrupt me while I speak and you will not ask my any stupid questions after that. Is it clear to you? Is it clear Yumiko?”
“Yes, Sakurasan”- she answerd politly.
“That’s nice. That’s a good start.”- Mr. Sakura always liked to repeat himself. That made him the best in his opinion. Also he thought he deserved the best.- “Yumiko, as your husband I encourage you from time to time and always in esteemate way to question my orders. If you're unconvinced of a particular method of action I've decided, is the wises then tell me so. But allow me to convince you and I promise you right here and now no subject will ever be taboo. Except of course the subject that regard your behaviour. Your father sold you to me because he wanted me to take care of you, Yumiko and your money. So I expect from you due respect. The price you pay for bringing up either my words or conditions is, I will not tolerate you. And as I not tolerate you I treat you like animal. Do you wan’t that Yumiko?”
Yumiko dropped her eyes and muttered something like “No, Sakurasan”
“Now if you, my dear Yumiko, have got anything else to say, now is the time”.
Silence.
“I didnot think so” Mr. Sakura hit Yumiko on her white cheek. She reeled threw the room and prostrated oneself.
* * *
“What... where am I?”- asked Mr. Sakura absently.
The place was dark, cold and stinked with rotting moss and stones. He was lieing in a ice-cold, mudy water. There was darker than in the moonlitless night. He started to twitch.
Mr. Sakura tried to stand up but his leg failed.
“Ouch!”- he screamed painfully. It was broken but he was too chilled to had felt that before.
“What is that place?”- he asked stupidly in the hope that somebody will answer him.
Drip. Drip. Drip. The icy water is dripping.
He goggled to see anything in dense darkness but without succes. It seemed to him he had to be somewhere under earth. And then he remembered something.
Flash of light, giggling girl, falling down and a hollow crash of his own bones. The dried up draw well in the garden!
“Yumiko! Hey. Can you hear me?! Help me! I Am here, in the well!” No one answered him. He was alone in middark, thirty feet deep hole without any food, worm clothes and any chances to get from there.
Mr. Sakura fainted bravely.
“Come to the dark placed below the water falling, and listen through the silver mist of ghostly voices calling. Hi hi hi.”
Mr. Sakura woke up suddenly, with cold sweat on his forehead. The high, cool voice was travelling in response in his new prison.
Is it possible?- he thought. – Is it really possible that this Mad Girl is here?
“Yo ho00. Here I am Mr. Sakura. On the top of your weird dreams.”
She was there even if he couldn’t saw her.
“Who the hell are you Fishseller?”- he shouted but he immediately wished he hadn’t done it. The response pricked him painfully in head.
“Wave the flag for Hudson Highborn, show them how we stand! I’m a rovling gambler, how do you do?”
Mr. Sakuras anger was most still like a breath of his soul that need not exist.
“Stop that you little loony girl! You’d better help me or I will crash your neck!”
“Clay lies still but blood’s a-rover, yessir. Red rover, red rover, let Charlie come over. Hi hi hi!”
“What are you playing? Stop that. And what are you doing in my garden, you fisher? Whatever. Go and find my wife. I will pay you.”- he cried.
“Won’t you come home Billy Beily? Won’t you come home? My wild Irish rose! Victorious! Excellent then, you’re a fishmonger! Hi hi hi.”
“Och gods, I gonna die here.” Mr. Sakura moved a bit. He screamed when a couple of rats run away under his arm. He found his leg bite but he couldn’t feel that.
“Help me! Please! Help me. I have money!” But she has already gone away.
* * *
Mr. Sakura didn’t want to get up from the mudy floor of his draw well.
The thing like that had never happened to him beforem.
No, that’s not a truth. He has been a sluggard all his life. He used to be a bitter about getting up early, but finally he always pull together and tried to “stay up stright, dry eyes in the pouring rain”, as he liked to call it. However this Wednesday was quite special so Mr. Sakura was still lieing in a cold mud.
Drip. Drip. Drip. The icy water is dripping.
“There came a time for me as it comes for everyone”- thought Mr. Sakura. –“I’m dying in this bloody draw well with only my own company. Well, there are also rats, eating my body. But there is one bright side of my situation- that’s nice I hadn’t tried to kill myself, because with this dripping near my ear I wouldn’t be able to concentrate upon my suicide so I would absolutly destroy the august moment of my death. I should die like Seneka with gradious farewell speech. Or rather like Sokrates but it would be more difficoult because I haven’t got any hemlock with me.”
It would be a shame if he doesn’t stand up. But he will. In a minute.
“I will try to climb over the stone-made wall and I will get off from here. Right now.”
The idea of eternity in this place become momentarily unbearable to Mr. Sakura. Living in a shadows, feeding in the darkness... Rots into a solitary, hollow existence.
Ofcourse until he would die from weakness and cold before the week ends. But still eating worms wasn’t so bad idea.
Drip. Drip. Drip. The icy water is dripping.
Or I can pretend someone murdered me. I can cravl to this little stream, soak up water into lungs. A moment of pain and panick and all my problems will go away. And if I hit my self a bit it will seem I fought with aggressor and was murdered. People would even see me as a martyr. They would think I was enough important to have enemy, enough worth to be killed.
That is pointless. I know my luck. Probably someone will find me screaming in here from pain, give me food and medicines. Then he will realize I’ ve have got all these bruises and there is no aggressor. In result people will hear tiding of my maonful tries to change suicide into brutal murder. So my life will get even worse.
How could you done it to me you Mad girl?!
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
He didn’t try to get up and climb over the wall to get off.
* * *
He woke up because the stink of his own body rotting in his own feaces was not to tolerate. He vomited with bile on his bleeding legs. Rats smelled it and crawled to him with intrest.
“Go away you bastards. Let me die in peace. You will eat me even thought after I die, won’t you?” They didn’t adopt the idea. He has been in his prison for three weeks now. Ofcourse he couldn’t know that because in this world there was no day, no light, only cold, rotting body and rat’s skeletons, which he was chewing in hunger. Sometimes he grasped this little animals by tails and bite their heads to eat them. It wasn’t so easy as he couldn’t move from his place. He lost almost all his foot week ago when he was sleeping and didn’t realize rats ate it. Besides he wasn’t complaining. Sometimes he even thought he deserved what he got.
* * *
“Can you hear me, Sakurasan?”
“I can always hear your voice, my beautiful Yumiko.”
“I will get you from here. I know what this girl did to you. I am so sorry, Sakurasan, I didn’t realize...”
“Stop explaining and don’t worry. You’re here, that is all I need.”
“Oh, my dear husband...”
“Your looks so beautiful tonight, Yumiko.”
“But... you cannot see me in darkness so how can you...”
“Ofcourse I can see you. I have been having these weird dreams lately...”
“I’ m not a dream. I am real. I’m here, I am getting you out of these place.”
“Oh no your not, Mad Girl.”
“How did you know it was me Mr. Rotting Cherry?”
“Gotcha. Remember, you control the dreams. They don’t control you.”
* * *
“My love entwains me in a breeze free from time, but broken and listening in the heart of mine”
“That wasn’t your best, Mad Girl.”
“Well, you’re right. But you know, I am loosing my inspiration... Hi hi hi.”
“Your charming besides your a stinky fishseller and a crazy murderer.”
“That flatters to me.”
* * *
“Death is comeing. She will take you tonight, I can smell it. And your little friends, they got your soft parts of body”
“I am glad even if I live nevermore, they can feed their hunger.”
“Are you afraid of death?”
“It can’t be worse than life.”
“Yeah. Your life is a horror. Hi hi hi.”
“No. It used to be a horror. Now it is paradise.”
“Och.”
“How is it outside today, my friend?”
“Like this Wednesday, do you remember? The sky is blue, no clouds, no cold, no wind. It is so sunny today. Peace and worm. Why are you laughing?”
“I lost all my tears. Besides I’m glad it is a nice, beautiful day despite of all that had happened.”
Drip. Drip. Drip. The icy water is dripping.