Defective
The night is alive, and lightning-bug clouds illuminate the moon. Two figures sit hand in hand on an overhanging cliff, watching the dark sky breathe and each other. An abundance of bugs clamber on the two, but they don't mind, and eventually the bugs return to a flourishing forest that started with gardens of homes whose inhabitants fled to other worlds. The two still sit, glowing like artificial fireflies. Once the data is shared, they head in opposite directions. But they always manage to meet again, these defective drones on a not-so-dead planet, with only the world and each other.
hanahaki
the sight of petals on fire is a beautiful thing; pink spring's child smothered by gold summer flame. the feel of loose earth in my fists brings me to lie on the ground, wondering if my grave will dig itself before deciding it will not. there are other graves that need digging, other petals that must be burned, curling into wisps of smoke, the touch of windblown ashes like soft kimono silk, like skin. like your skin.
your skin was the color of newbud sakura, pale and pretty, and you glowed in the sunlight that filtered through paper curtains. i could never bring myself to touch you for more than a second, for you looked like you could break from the slightest scratch. i tried not to like you, i really did. my parents were looking for a someone who could gift a dowry large enough to build a palace, and your parents were looking for someone that could possibly save you. neither of them ever found what they were looking for.
you started to turn yellow right before the stars fell from the sky, raining dirt around us, metal monsters waiting to bite. a neighbor who lived alone died from the iron rain, and the village sent him off on a raft headed to the end of oceans, his blood left a path that trailed sky water.
when the storm ended, you and i went outside to collect the pellets that brought breathless bodies. you rolled the bullets between your fingers and tied threads around them. we hung them from the cherry blossom tree that overlooked the sea, and let the metal rain hang suspended.
the stars eventually fell again, and you were too tired to go outside and work magic, hold time and blood bullets in place around threads and branches that reached to entwine with the sky. we thought it would be over soon, and it would be. the sun fell next, twice, in fact. one in Hiroshima and one in Nagasaki. everyone felt it shake the earth, tainting the air. there were more people like you after that. people that had to stay in bed and bear with needles in arms, people that there were no cure for.
i brought you flowers and sweets, as if they could cure your sickness, and you laughed and pretended like they did. we drank rice wine, which did nothing but give us toothache from the sugar, and i wondered what it would be like to run my fingers over your skin, i wondered if you would break into a million pieces, into a million bits of metal rain suspended by string.
the next day, your hair was cut short, like a lifeline. you whispered into my ear desperately, asking me to take you to the mountains. we left before the sun woke up, i dragged you behind me in a makeshift wagon. i nabbed a bottle of sake from my mother, and that was our dinner. you threw it up in the middle of your sleep, and i worried that you might not wake up.
the mountains had never been too far, only a day's hike, and before night fell, we reached them. i don't know if you wanted to go to the top, or head back home. you stopped breathing before i could ask you, and you were colder than frozen peonies in winter. i never cried harder in my life.
the ground asks me to give you to it. i feel as if i dig my own pit, although it is yours. in the wagon, i find a bag filled with things you never told me about. many, many cloths filled with blood and coughs and painful, breathless nights. a sack with dried flower petals. a paper with ink, and it is not a goodbye note as one might think. it is calligraphy, an old art that we lost with our gods, and the message you wrote is an old one. "with plum blossoms come the new year." the last is a box containing a plum pit. i know you thought cherry blossoms were old and cliche, meant for memories. plum blossoms are of spring and sweet fruit, meant for you.
when i lower you into the grave, i feel like choking. i feel like a sleepless night spent coughing into a bloody handkerchief and i feel like running away to mountains and vomiting what was supposed to be the best thing i've ever tasted and i feel like i am choking on blossoms, on memories, and on the fact that i don't want to let you go.
i bury your body, but not my sorrows. i burn the petals, for they are dry and dead, and i don't need any more dead things in my life. i leave the wagon and scarlet cloths and the plum pit, and the day i finally return, there is a tree almost as big as your cherry blossom one at home, and i can almost picture your magic holding rain in place, letting the wind blow in a new year.