Juunigatsu

An excerpt from my LTWR115 final, which turned out to be one of my most cherished stories.

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The months flew by like the snow in the frigid Edo air. And I was trapped in the perpetual winter of it.

My body languished away in the pleasure quarters, in that small, damp room. I clutched his letter to my chest, strands of my black hair sticking to my face because of the tears. And the extensions of the black are seen on the pages where tears have made the ink run into thin webs, still extending their thin fingers along the page.

And I wonder how he does it, that Tamasaburo. How he can make his whole life a performance. To endure the pain of breaking the natural connectivity in his body so that he can accommodate to those plays that had been adapted from bunraku puppet theater.

How does he ignore that pain? The protesting of his weak leg as he breaks its natural form, squeezing his legs together tighter as he glides across the stage. The perpetual ache in his neck as he maneuvers his head slowly and carefully, ignoring the pain that the wig inflicts on him. And the pain in his knees as his roles often call him be to kneeling for long periods.

I can only imagine how he copes with the pain. And I wish that he would tell me. So that I, too, could somehow cope with the pain. The perpetual, inevitable pain of it. But then the roles of Tamasaburo and my life begin to merge into one and I find myself becoming the characters, moving along with him.

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