血まみれの糸　「There is Blood in the Thread」(1)

This is my take on the Decemberists' The Crane Wife/ Tsuru no ongaeshi, a kid's book I picked up in Shinjuku. I blended the versions and made it weird, as I am wont. I haven't written traditional fiction in awhile, though, and it feels kind of ucky. Help, please?

[Also, to pronounce the title: "chi-ma-mi-ray-no-ito"]

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Hokkaido 1947

It was Oshima’s seventeenth birthday.

Not that it mattered—his life was a ticking time-bomb, set in motion by the very same that had split the sky over Hiroshima. That day, he was in school, sitting on the grounds with a cigarette between his lips. He was thrown forward and his skin charred instantly—lips, face, arms, legs. The pattern of his school uniform stayed printed on his flesh, button-marks denoting where scar tissue held his organs in place.

They said he had cancer. Leukemia. It would kill him eventually—five years, maximum. He left the hospital an orphan with an expiration date, setting north on what was left of the rails for the ferry at the northernmost tip of Aoyama Prefecture. There, he set sail for Hokkaido. He had an uncle with land in the mountains near Furano; land logged for a profit. He would live there, somewhere.

His uncle had given him a cabin in the forest, with a stove and a well and a path down to a village. When there was food to buy, he covered his face with a scarf and bought meat and vegetables from the local people there. He spoke little and befriended no one. There was no use in getting attached to someone he would have to leave eventually—someone who would have to make his meals and mop his forehead when the fevers came.

Not to mention the scars laid thick—his skin was blotchy and wretched. He looked like a leper; something to fear, something to run away from.

But in the cabin, he kept his scarf limp around his neck. The tea kettle screamed in the corner and he pulled the pot off the burner and poured steaming water into a cup. He sank a tea bag into its depths—koucha, thick and strong. It diffused in thick whisps as he carried it with him outside. Snow was falling in lazy flurries, and the bulk of the flakes caught in between pine needles and in sparrows’ nests. He pulled a hat over his ears with one hand and sipped as he walked, the tea burning through his insides as his outsides began to stiffen with cold.

The ground had only a thin dusting of snow to cover it. Fallen needles still crunched under his boots, now worn and frozen. Over the sound, a kuu-kuu emanated from deep in the trees—soft, but urgent. The cries became increasingly louder as he walked north, toward the ledge he liked to dangle his legs over, just to feel gravity tugging at his shoes, threatening to pull him a hundred meters to his death.

He came to a clearing. There on the far side, a white shape lay huddled—a white crane, its beautiful white feathers dribbled with blood. Its beak was parted, and it bleated out shriller and shriller cries as the sun pulled itself higher in the sky.

It looked at him warily. He set his cup on the ground and stepped toward it, palms turned up in surrender. “Shh, toriko,” he whispered, kneeling at its side. “Not gonna hurt you.”

Its jaw trembled and folded into a single curved line. Its breathing was fast and its stomach puffed up and down, pained. There was an arrow shoved deep in its wing, its bloody iron tip thrust out toward the snow, dripping.

His stomach began to churn. Who would shoot an arrow at such a thing?

Oshima’s hands shook as he pressed his palms against its wing, slowly wrapping his fingers around the shaft. He took a knife from his pocket and flicked it open, holding the arrow still as he began to saw it in half. Once it was broken, he tugged—as gently as possible—at the tip.

The bird screamed and flapped its other wing.

“Shh, shh,” he said, stroking its neck as it turned its big black eye to him, now wide with pain. “I have to do this.”

The arrow twisted out of its flesh with a sickening sound—he winced and dropped the scarf from his neck. He cut out a piece long enough to wrap around its wing and tied it when it spread its feathers wide.

The two sections of the arrow, red and slick, fell against the snow.

The bird stood on its thin legs, wings bared. Oshima stepped backward. It tested two flaps, waiting to see how it would feel against its tourniquet, and crouched to take off.

He stood with his bare neck craned to the sky, watching as it soared with a green yarn fringe streaming out behind it.

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toriko -- little bird.