Tendo, present day:
Shiro Kuramata sits in the garden and enjoys the spring sunshine. He is in his favorite rocking chair, one he made himself many years ago. There is a blanket over his legs, for it is still March and despite the sunshine the chill of winter is not entirely gone.
Perhaps later he will go into his workshop and put the finishing touches on the dresser he is making for one of his great-grandchildren. Despite being eighty-eight years old he still likes to keep busy. But he tires easily and for the moment it is pleasant just to sit in the sunshine.
He dozes off and slips into a dream. In the dream he is back aboard Hibiki. He has such dreams from time to time. Not all of them are unpleasant, though from some of them he awakens with his heart pounding. In this dream he is talking to Snake Man. What was his real name? Oizuma, yes, that was it.
He is awakened a short time later by voices.
“I still don’t get it,” someone says. “Why would we ever fight America?”
“We did, though,” says another voice. “I have great-grandfather’s book right here. It’s amazing.”
Shiro opens his eyes and sees someone standing in front of him. “Oizuma?” he says, disoriented.
“No, great-grandfather, it is Jomei,” one of them says gently. Shiro focuses and comes back to the present. Before him are two teenage boys. Jomei is 15 and his cousin Minoru is a couple of years younger. They are wearing blue jeans and t-shirts. Shiro can read the English words on Jomei’s t-shirt, but he has no idea what “Aperture Laboratories” and “The cake is a lie” means. Jomei is holding some sort of small electronic device.
“Our apologies for disturbing your rest, great-grandfather,” says Jomei. “My father told me about your book last week and I downloaded it and read it.” He holds up the device, which is about the size of Shiro’s wallet. How a book could get in there Shiro has no idea. “May we ask you some questions?”
“Would you tell us more about the war?” asks Minoru. “What happened? What did you do?”
Shiro looks around at the garden he helped build and that four generations of his family have enjoyed. Then he looks at the boys in front of him.
“I spent a lot of time wishing I was right here,” he says, and his deeply lined face wrinkles into a large smile.
CF,
You brought a tear to my eye with that one.
One of the last times I saw my great-grandfather alive was in his rocking chair on the back porch over-looking his tomatoes in Gadsden, Alabama. That was his favorite place to nap in the afternoons because the sun shown on him there. Also, he could shoot squirrels who got into his tomatoes with his pellet gun. Even as on octogenarian that man could shoot.
I was about fourteen and had just learned he had been in World War I and was curious about it. He had written a book in his lifetime but it wasn't about the war, it was a geneology - I have my engraved copy on my bookshelf, The Boyds of Boyd's Tank.
Anyway, I was curious about his service so I asked him about it. He said, "I was with the Etowah Rifles when it became a part of the National Guard (as it turns out he spent time in New Mexico chasing Pancho Villa, but I didn't learn about that until years later) and was sent to France with the Rainbow Division."
"Tay, what was that like?"
"They gave me a rifle and told me to shoot Germans."
Being the tactful fourteen-year-old I was I asked, "How many Germans did you shoot?"
"A few. MOTHER!...MOTHER!...HAVE YOU FED THIS BOY?"
That was the end of the conversation.
Sorry for spamming, but thank you for the memory.
