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The Rats and the Oranges
- The Rats and the Oranges -
Based on memories of a past life I lived as Abe no Seimei, in ancient Japan...
I had this strange dream, back on the evening of Wednesday, September 27th, 2017. This is what I wrote about it when I awoke the next day.
“Last night I had a strange dream once again. Just as the night previously, I had a dream about a rather detailed near-death experience that I had suffered back when I was Shiro Amakusa Tokisada during the Edo period of Japanese history, so also last night I dreamed of another previous life I had in ancient Japan. From far, far longer ago even than that. Both dreams had various rather peculiar things in common, however due to the fact that all of my incarnations down through the ages have held a certain symmetry that remains to this day totally undiminished.
It began with me once again jumping and skipping towards a stone archway set into a larger, temple-like building. This is the second night in a row that I dreamed of that unusual place! The temple itself was horseshoe-shaped, like a large square "U". It was all made of wood and stone, and the archway was set in the left-most "leg" of the U where there were stone steps leading up and into the archway, which itself was set into a larger stone structure that was part of the greater temple. However, the archway led into a solid wall... if there was a doorway there it was hidden, and I believe that there was. I had always possessed an uncanny sense of intuition, and ever it served me in all of my life's doings. Once again, as before, the little black-haired girl who was somewhat familiar to me appeared behind me just as she had in my dreams of that archway on the previous night. I sensed her there, and I spun around, and suddenly as I did so she yelled: "Boo!" at me and suddenly I was someplace else. Whatever realm she hailed... or rather, hails... from, she had the power to cause me to relive memories of my lives long past.
I was walking through a very beautiful green bamboo forest in the middle of the day, during the early summertime. It was hot and humid, and I was more than a little weary and tired. I knelt down by some rocks next to a clear stream and I got out a flask of water that I was carrying with me. I drank a little from the flask and I chanced to look around me, making certain that there were no wild animals around. I felt more than a little bit nervous, as if I were being watched. I was a teenager at the time, and I felt filled with much angst and fear. I could not say what I was doing in that forest, and I may or may not have had a good reason for going there to begin with. I heard a woman's lovely voice calling out to me, and I saw striding towards me a woman wearing an outfit consisting of an ornate white kimono-like robe and a pair of rather baggy silver pantaloons. I saw that she had long dark brown hair and very deep-looking grayish blue eyes. She wore her hair long and parted in the middle. It was down to her back and she had two white ribbons that she wore in it... and a red choker-like ribbon that she also wore around her neck. "What is a little Oni doing in a place like this?" she (obviously) jokingly said to me, and I answered back honestly: "Running away from home for the day." She chuckled, sat down on a big rock neck to where I was kneeling, and said to me in a loving tone: "No hug for your mother?" And I said to her in a very flat tone: "Not today, mother. I am not in the mood for hugs." And she picked up a turtle she found in the stream and stared at it very intently before saying to me: "You know, I think you have too much of me in you... for your own good, my little Oni! When I was exactly your age and not a year older, I used to run away for the day too. Too often, I was told! I would just as frequently get into all manner of mischievous trouble, because I had such a profoundly mischievous streak, and when the day was done I would return home and forget about all the mischief (or was it havoc?) which I had wrought. Father would chastise me, and mother would pretend not to be amused. But I knew they both loved me and cared about me and worried after me to no end. I worry about you, my child. I worry about you very, very much." And I replied: "Mother, where did you grow up?" and she answered: "Why do you ask of my childhood? No one ever asks of my own childhood. 'Kuzunoha' they say to me, 'why should we wish to know of your upbringing when it seems as if you have been around far longer than is natural for an ordinary human?' and were I to tell them aught of it, what would there then be for any to relate to or find should they go looking? Nothing! Nothing at all. So do not trouble yourself with my rather archaic past, my silly little child... worry instead, about your own father and whether he may punish you or not when you get home from this ill-advised outing!"
And I shook my head (noticing I had long hair the same color as hers), totally disagreeing. I said to her: "My father does not approve of my clandestine outings, but you do if I take your meaning to be what it seems beneath the surface." And she giggled, saying: "It is what it is." Then she put the turtle down by my feet and said to me: "Do you think it has a Kappa spirit hidden within it?" and I replied: "It is just a turtle that wishes it was a Kappa." and Kuzunoha seemed amused by my seemingly ridiculous answer. She said: "Really? I would not have thought he would share his wishes with anyone. He just seemed stubborn to me, when I held him in my hands. Turtles are often very slow and quite stubborn creatures with very closed minds and secretive spirits. Why should he tell you what it is he wishes for?" and I jokingly said: "Perhaps it is because he knows that I have an open mind." and Kuzunoha smiled, shook her head slowly as if she were musing and thinking something over, before choosing her words carefully or so it seemed. She then said: "You see, this is why I gave you the nickname 'Little Oni' and sometimes even call you my 'Doji'... and most thankfully you are not at all like the namesake of that little nickname I have given you, but rather it is all in truth because you are so much like me, not fully of this world. Did you know there is another world that most ordinary people cannot see? It is true! Quite true, in fact. But I can see it, and I will bet that you can see it too even if you do not want to talk to anyone else about it. That is why I am thinking of apprenticing you to someone who might be able to bring out what is within you more fully. Some schooling may be good for you! I have tried to teach you all I know, and your father has done a splendid job teaching you practical things, but you have the potential for so much more... I want you to do your best. To be your best, and in the future you will not have to guess what turtles are thinking... you will know, because your intuition will divine things for you that your mind and heart cannot fathom otherwise." I smiled and relied to her, and I said: "But I am not guessing! That turtle wishes it was a Kappa because then it would not have to be picked up by strange creatures like us. After all, it is just a turtle and does not know whether we mean it harm or not." and at that the woman's mouth fell open and she closed her eyes once before opening them wide. "Well! Maybe you will be able to teach your new teacher some things. That is very wise and astute for a young child your age! I never expected that from you." and we talked at length about where I would be attending classes and what I would be learning and how soon it was all to be arranged. I asked why my father was not insisting on me becoming a warrior, since I once heard him say he wished I had the aptitude for that, and my mother replied: "It is because he understands that you are more my child than his." and I did not press to learn more beyond that. Then I was in that temple again, sitting on the stone steps, and I was all grown up by that point in my life (in whatever life this was). I was wearing some sort of white outfit, and holding in my hands a rather long-stemmed flower. I tossed it away in a bored manner when a man about a head shorter than me wearing an all black outfit showed up.
The man had a very round face and head, he had a thin mustache, and was totally bald save for in the back where he seemed to be trying to grow a ponytail hairdo of some kind. His thick eyebrows were exceedingly long and growing down a bit over the sides of his face on either side of his eyes. He looked a bit like a monkey but I did not tell him I thought this about his appearance. The black outfit he wore consisted of a black robe-like tunic over black hakama-like pants. He was carrying a conical black hat in his hands. He bowed once, put a foot up on a step below the ones I was sitting on, and then leaned in, speaking in a very low tone. He said: "I have a rather interesting little bit of a diversion for us to engage in today. What would you say to playing with me a bit of a game?" and I asked him: "What game have you devise for us to play, and by what rules?" and he replied: "Recently, I have had the good fortune to purchase a crate of rare oranges from China. They arrived just this past week, and I have been keeping them in my fruit cellar at home. How about I have my servants bring the crate here and you can tell me exactly how many oranges are to be found inside the crate? If you are at least close enough to being correct, then you win and I will pay you a bit of coin for your trouble. If you are way off, then I most obviously would win and it will prove that there are just some things a person just simply cannot easily divine, which will go a long way towards proving a theory I have on the limits of mortal mastery of the lore of the gods and such." And I smiled, thinking how silly this contest was, and answered the man. I said to him: "Very well, when would this contest be conducted?" and he said it would be in two days at the nearby walled garden. "Very well indeed, than." I agreed. "So... let us see if I can figure this out when the time comes. Remember... if I win, you pay me! Else, you will owe me, and you do not want to be in debt I am sure. Especially to me!" And he nervously agreed, as if uncertain that he could truly win against me after all... and then walked away. He was a fool.
I went for a walk to the garden to have a look about the place and to see if I could find two of my friends whom I knew frequented it. A grown man and a little girl. Both special friends indeed! On this day, only the girl was present, playing with a red ball near a lily-pad covered pond with tall reeds sticking up from it. She wore a pink and white kimono and a white hakama. She had a large, wide red ribbon-like sash belt around her waist. "Hello there Suniyoko!" I exclaimed as I approached the child. She ran up to greet me eagerly, her large brown eyes wide, and she was smiling broadly. "Hello there, Kou!" she replied. "Now, Suniyoko, I told you many times that Kou is just a nickname! I would prefer at least in public if you would use my formal name, just for appearances sake. A lady must always be mindful to address those of the nobility using their proper names... since doing so with me will get you used to this when you are a bit older." And she just frowned a bit an said: "But I like calling you Kou! It suits you very much." and I smiled, and stated: "So does my real name, silly one! But enough of this for now. I understand that you are often a welcome guest in my good colleague Saito's house... have you heard anything about a crate of oranges being brought from overseas?" and she nodded, explaining: "Yes, he has had them for at least two full weeks now and has not been keeping them in the best of conditions to be honest! That fruit cellar of his even has a serious rat problem." And I asked her to tell me more of the rat problem. "A rat problem, you say? Tell me more of it, Suniyoko!" And she told me a lot about the rat problem indeed. She said: "He hired a professional rat catcher to solve the matter for him, but the rat catcher could not find the rats anywhere. She...the rat catcher that is... said he thought they got away or must have crawled off into a corner and died someplace... about twelve rats in total Saito for sure saw but they've all gotten away." and I asked the little girl if anyone at all has actually opened the crate of oranges just yet. "No! No one." she said. "But I would think that with a rat problem going on they should have at least bothered to check it out. It would have been smart." Then I asked the child if the next time she is invited over to the Saito residence she might perhaps have a bit more thorough look at the crate for herself and see if any noises could be heard coming from inside of it. "But do not tell anyone if there are! Instead of doing so, report to me and to me only about it. I will take care of it myself at that point! Understood? If it is indeed rats, I will tell Saito about it myself since I will be seeing him for a little contest in the next couple of days or so (three total should he put if off a day in case of the weather)." and the girl exclaimed: "I will report to you directly, you can be sure!" and she gave a childish mock salute as she said this. "Good girl!" I said and hugged her, before giving her a paper flower that I had purchased earlier that day from an origami vendor in Heiankyo. All was going ideally, and if things went according to plan I would have some extra coin to spend when all was done.
The next day, I met the girl in the garden around mid-afternoon and she told me in some detail that she quite distinctly heard the sound of clawing coming from the inside of the crate and it seemed as if the bottom of the crate were wet with juice from the oranges. The servants heard nothing at all and just claimed that the juice was "saturation" due to the fact of oranges still being fresh, which I honestly laughed at given that it appeared they had all been eaten by the rats. The day of the contest arrived... one day after that second secret meeting I had with Suniyoko and I met with Saito in the garden. Now it was common knowledge that he was a servant of my infamous rival Ashiya Doman... and I had no doubt that it was in fact Doman himself who had arranged this entire contest in order to make a fool out of me if he could. Saito confirmed as much by telling me that Doman had stopped by earlier in the day and gave his own divination, stating that there were exactly fifteen oranges to be found within the crate. Precisely the number, I am certain he had himself instructed Saito to put there in the hope that this deception might bolster Doman's own reputation as a practitioner of the magical arts. He was always a theatrical sort of man, so this sort of staged display was typical for him. I rolled my eyes at the thought and sighed. Saito asked me what was the matter and I told him I was merely bored and wanted to get this over with. So he had his most trusted and able servants bring forth the crate, which despite having stains on the bottom of it appeared to have been dried off for the most part... presumably by the servants themselves. The crate was sat down in the grass, and I could distinctly hear a kind of chittering sound coming from it, which I could tell everyone else just thought was squirrels or something from the nearby pine trees. I kept silent about what I heard, naturally. I then inspected the servants closely and all of a sudden I recognized one of them as Doman himself, in disguise. I pretended not to notice, but this amused me. He wanted to be here in person to see me fail after all! It would be my honest pleasure to disappoint him once more, as I had many times in the past. I said: "Well then! Let us begin this tiny little simple contest of ours, shall we?" staring intently at Doman as I did so. Saito exclaimed the following, his arms wide: "Inside of this modest crate are a bunch of tightly-packed rare oranges from China... even I do not know how many in total. I want you to tell me how many you believe there to be! Divine this for me as accurately as possible, and I will pay you fifty coins in total which I have with me in this pouch." And he held up the pouch, grinning like a fool the whole time. "If you are wrong, it will come as no surprise to me... since no one can know something like this, at least in a natural way. And even if you are correct, all it will prove is you are a good guesser! Either way, it will prove my theory that there is no such thing as magical divination without at least a glimmer of reason behind it. Previously, the illustrious sorcerer Ashiya Doman took up the challenge and professed that there are precisely fifteen oranges within my crate here. He has never been wrong before... which makes him the best guesser I have ever seen. I will probably have to pay him the fifty coins should you lose this contest! But I do not mind, since he has always been generous to me in the past. You, however... I will prove know less than he.”
Saito was less humble than I had ever remembered him as being, and even more eager to please his master... though his master was by far a great deal younger than he. I had some measure of respect for Doman, but for Saito I had precious little. Saito was arrogant in the extreme, and known to be a very selfish sort of man. Every generosity he pretended to show in his long life, was ever done to gain something for himself at the expense of someone else. In this case, he was attempting to curry favor with Doman, a man who was definitely his better. And so, I said to him in reply to his rather contrived challenge: "I accept! But what if I were to tell you something rather shocking? Something like this... I know for a certainty that there are no oranges at all in that crate! Rather, it is my firm belief that you will find anywhere between two to twelve rats in their place! If there are any oranges left in there, they will most certainly have been reduced to pulp by now. I have divined this to be true. Now let us see if I am at least close to being right!" at which Saito looked at me very strangely. "I do not have any rat problem at my house... and I did, there is no way that you could possibly know about it. So bearing that in mind, let us have a look at my oranges shall we! I would wager myself, that there are probably at least a little less than a dozen of them. That is my own personal attempt at making a divination. Now let the lid be opened and let me personally take a look inside and see for myself!" Then the servants pried off the crate's lid using some tools (it was then that I noticed the hole in the right-most corner of the crate) and when Saito looked inside... and they (including Doman) looked as well, everyone screamed aloud in shock and fright. There were twelve fat large rats scurrying around in the smashed remains of the oranges. "Remember, my friend! You owe me fifty coins for my trouble." I chuckled, and Saito threw the pouch at me. "I do not know how you knew about this in a logical manner... even the rat catcher could not find them... but here. I will concede that there is no way using either human logic or reason that you could have divined this without magic or the gods to aid you. Now, if you will excuse me I have twelve rats to kill!" and he pulled out a sword and slashed at the animals furiously. "Filthy beasts! You cost me a lot of money... twice now." Doman was staring at me, shaking his head and looking defeated. He sighed, shrugged, and skulked off. After all that, I made my way back to the stone steps where Suniyoko was waiting for me. The girl appeared anxious to hear how things had gone, and was happy to see me.
"You did really good out there. What did you win?" the girl asked me while she was sitting upon the steps holding her ball. "A great deal of money." I stated and gave her a coin. Then I gave her two more. "This one because we are the best of friends, and that one because you are a very smart and pretty girl indeed. The third... well, that is because you just plain deserve it for finding out about the rats for me. As you can see, I already informed Saito of the problem and he is dealing with it as we speak. Never tell anyone about this though, okay? Our tiny little bit of a secret, just between best friends. Hey, you can probably buy something very, very nice with those shiny new coins, hmmm!" The girl then grinned at the thought, elated beyond reason, and skipped off towards the road leading to the marketplace down the street. "See you later, Kou! I just can't wait to show you what I buy today." And I smiled and waved back at her. Then I saw a woman standing behind me in the archway. She had blue skin and blonde hair, a color that I had never seen before on anyone in the country of my birth in that life. "It is good to have friends." she stated. "Can we become friends too, maybe someday?" and I said to her: "Perhaps... if you are not evil. Tell me something more about yourself, and we shall see." And just then a man wearing a blue kimono and matching hakama ran up towards me, his hair was tied up in a topknot and his face was clean shaven. He looked impeccable. "Talking to yourself are you? Bad habit! I heard of how you figured out about those rats... I just heard about it now, in fact. Very clever... but how did you do it?" and to him I then stated: "It was but a simple divination, and nothing more." And the man laughed before taking out a piece of wood that he began to carve with a small knife he had with him. "Simple, eh! That is what everyone says about things like that. Next thing you know, you will be telling me you can see Oni and Kappa and Yokai and Kaiden of all sorts. And you will tell me that is simple too. I know how it is, how it goes. Like warriors who brag about how many men they can kill... it is no different." I then said in response: "People are often all the same. Only what we do makes us different, and how we do it. What are you doing, speaking of which, with that stick?" and the man explained: "I am carving an offering for the shrine over at the circle near Tsubaki. I need good luck, and praying at the local shrine of Inari is only going to give me more rice." And he went on and on about quite trivial matters after that. Eventually, he said: "You know, your eyes are not typical. I only saw one person with eyes that color other than you, and it was some sailor who had gotten lost and ended up washed ashore out by a beach near the coast somewhere. This was a long time ago, so my memory is not very clear regarding specifics. But he wandered into Iwato, crazy as can be, and died of some sickness or another." And I said to the man: "So you are basically telling me that my eyes remind you of a madman's you saw once? That is not a compliment. Should I feel insulted, then?" and the man bowed his had, closed his eyes, and said: "I am so sorry it came out that way... I was trying to express how rare your eye color is, and do not mistake me it is beautiful, but I did not mean for it to come out like that. Pray, forgive me! Sometimes, my mind gets ahead of my tongue and it makes me speak without thinking of how it sounds." And I smiled and said to the man: "I will think about doing so... but fear not, I am not angry with you. Just surprised is all." And the man changed the subject back to talk about his impending pilgrimage to the shrine he wanted to visit. All the while, he kept carving that stick into a man-shaped likeness. I still saw the blue woman behind us, but the man did not see her. "We will talk later." she said. and then the dream went on to ordinary things from this present life before I woke up. It had been a pleasant enough dream, and a good memory from long ago."
Based on memories of a past life I lived as Abe no Seimei, in ancient Japan...
I had this strange dream, back on the evening of Wednesday, September 27th, 2017. This is what I wrote about it when I awoke the next day.
“Last night I had a strange dream once again. Just as the night previously, I had a dream about a rather detailed near-death experience that I had suffered back when I was Shiro Amakusa Tokisada during the Edo period of Japanese history, so also last night I dreamed of another previous life I had in ancient Japan. From far, far longer ago even than that. Both dreams had various rather peculiar things in common, however due to the fact that all of my incarnations down through the ages have held a certain symmetry that remains to this day totally undiminished.
It began with me once again jumping and skipping towards a stone archway set into a larger, temple-like building. This is the second night in a row that I dreamed of that unusual place! The temple itself was horseshoe-shaped, like a large square "U". It was all made of wood and stone, and the archway was set in the left-most "leg" of the U where there were stone steps leading up and into the archway, which itself was set into a larger stone structure that was part of the greater temple. However, the archway led into a solid wall... if there was a doorway there it was hidden, and I believe that there was. I had always possessed an uncanny sense of intuition, and ever it served me in all of my life's doings. Once again, as before, the little black-haired girl who was somewhat familiar to me appeared behind me just as she had in my dreams of that archway on the previous night. I sensed her there, and I spun around, and suddenly as I did so she yelled: "Boo!" at me and suddenly I was someplace else. Whatever realm she hailed... or rather, hails... from, she had the power to cause me to relive memories of my lives long past.
I was walking through a very beautiful green bamboo forest in the middle of the day, during the early summertime. It was hot and humid, and I was more than a little weary and tired. I knelt down by some rocks next to a clear stream and I got out a flask of water that I was carrying with me. I drank a little from the flask and I chanced to look around me, making certain that there were no wild animals around. I felt more than a little bit nervous, as if I were being watched. I was a teenager at the time, and I felt filled with much angst and fear. I could not say what I was doing in that forest, and I may or may not have had a good reason for going there to begin with. I heard a woman's lovely voice calling out to me, and I saw striding towards me a woman wearing an outfit consisting of an ornate white kimono-like robe and a pair of rather baggy silver pantaloons. I saw that she had long dark brown hair and very deep-looking grayish blue eyes. She wore her hair long and parted in the middle. It was down to her back and she had two white ribbons that she wore in it... and a red choker-like ribbon that she also wore around her neck. "What is a little Oni doing in a place like this?" she (obviously) jokingly said to me, and I answered back honestly: "Running away from home for the day." She chuckled, sat down on a big rock neck to where I was kneeling, and said to me in a loving tone: "No hug for your mother?" And I said to her in a very flat tone: "Not today, mother. I am not in the mood for hugs." And she picked up a turtle she found in the stream and stared at it very intently before saying to me: "You know, I think you have too much of me in you... for your own good, my little Oni! When I was exactly your age and not a year older, I used to run away for the day too. Too often, I was told! I would just as frequently get into all manner of mischievous trouble, because I had such a profoundly mischievous streak, and when the day was done I would return home and forget about all the mischief (or was it havoc?) which I had wrought. Father would chastise me, and mother would pretend not to be amused. But I knew they both loved me and cared about me and worried after me to no end. I worry about you, my child. I worry about you very, very much." And I replied: "Mother, where did you grow up?" and she answered: "Why do you ask of my childhood? No one ever asks of my own childhood. 'Kuzunoha' they say to me, 'why should we wish to know of your upbringing when it seems as if you have been around far longer than is natural for an ordinary human?' and were I to tell them aught of it, what would there then be for any to relate to or find should they go looking? Nothing! Nothing at all. So do not trouble yourself with my rather archaic past, my silly little child... worry instead, about your own father and whether he may punish you or not when you get home from this ill-advised outing!"
And I shook my head (noticing I had long hair the same color as hers), totally disagreeing. I said to her: "My father does not approve of my clandestine outings, but you do if I take your meaning to be what it seems beneath the surface." And she giggled, saying: "It is what it is." Then she put the turtle down by my feet and said to me: "Do you think it has a Kappa spirit hidden within it?" and I replied: "It is just a turtle that wishes it was a Kappa." and Kuzunoha seemed amused by my seemingly ridiculous answer. She said: "Really? I would not have thought he would share his wishes with anyone. He just seemed stubborn to me, when I held him in my hands. Turtles are often very slow and quite stubborn creatures with very closed minds and secretive spirits. Why should he tell you what it is he wishes for?" and I jokingly said: "Perhaps it is because he knows that I have an open mind." and Kuzunoha smiled, shook her head slowly as if she were musing and thinking something over, before choosing her words carefully or so it seemed. She then said: "You see, this is why I gave you the nickname 'Little Oni' and sometimes even call you my 'Doji'... and most thankfully you are not at all like the namesake of that little nickname I have given you, but rather it is all in truth because you are so much like me, not fully of this world. Did you know there is another world that most ordinary people cannot see? It is true! Quite true, in fact. But I can see it, and I will bet that you can see it too even if you do not want to talk to anyone else about it. That is why I am thinking of apprenticing you to someone who might be able to bring out what is within you more fully. Some schooling may be good for you! I have tried to teach you all I know, and your father has done a splendid job teaching you practical things, but you have the potential for so much more... I want you to do your best. To be your best, and in the future you will not have to guess what turtles are thinking... you will know, because your intuition will divine things for you that your mind and heart cannot fathom otherwise." I smiled and relied to her, and I said: "But I am not guessing! That turtle wishes it was a Kappa because then it would not have to be picked up by strange creatures like us. After all, it is just a turtle and does not know whether we mean it harm or not." and at that the woman's mouth fell open and she closed her eyes once before opening them wide. "Well! Maybe you will be able to teach your new teacher some things. That is very wise and astute for a young child your age! I never expected that from you." and we talked at length about where I would be attending classes and what I would be learning and how soon it was all to be arranged. I asked why my father was not insisting on me becoming a warrior, since I once heard him say he wished I had the aptitude for that, and my mother replied: "It is because he understands that you are more my child than his." and I did not press to learn more beyond that. Then I was in that temple again, sitting on the stone steps, and I was all grown up by that point in my life (in whatever life this was). I was wearing some sort of white outfit, and holding in my hands a rather long-stemmed flower. I tossed it away in a bored manner when a man about a head shorter than me wearing an all black outfit showed up.
The man had a very round face and head, he had a thin mustache, and was totally bald save for in the back where he seemed to be trying to grow a ponytail hairdo of some kind. His thick eyebrows were exceedingly long and growing down a bit over the sides of his face on either side of his eyes. He looked a bit like a monkey but I did not tell him I thought this about his appearance. The black outfit he wore consisted of a black robe-like tunic over black hakama-like pants. He was carrying a conical black hat in his hands. He bowed once, put a foot up on a step below the ones I was sitting on, and then leaned in, speaking in a very low tone. He said: "I have a rather interesting little bit of a diversion for us to engage in today. What would you say to playing with me a bit of a game?" and I asked him: "What game have you devise for us to play, and by what rules?" and he replied: "Recently, I have had the good fortune to purchase a crate of rare oranges from China. They arrived just this past week, and I have been keeping them in my fruit cellar at home. How about I have my servants bring the crate here and you can tell me exactly how many oranges are to be found inside the crate? If you are at least close enough to being correct, then you win and I will pay you a bit of coin for your trouble. If you are way off, then I most obviously would win and it will prove that there are just some things a person just simply cannot easily divine, which will go a long way towards proving a theory I have on the limits of mortal mastery of the lore of the gods and such." And I smiled, thinking how silly this contest was, and answered the man. I said to him: "Very well, when would this contest be conducted?" and he said it would be in two days at the nearby walled garden. "Very well indeed, than." I agreed. "So... let us see if I can figure this out when the time comes. Remember... if I win, you pay me! Else, you will owe me, and you do not want to be in debt I am sure. Especially to me!" And he nervously agreed, as if uncertain that he could truly win against me after all... and then walked away. He was a fool.
I went for a walk to the garden to have a look about the place and to see if I could find two of my friends whom I knew frequented it. A grown man and a little girl. Both special friends indeed! On this day, only the girl was present, playing with a red ball near a lily-pad covered pond with tall reeds sticking up from it. She wore a pink and white kimono and a white hakama. She had a large, wide red ribbon-like sash belt around her waist. "Hello there Suniyoko!" I exclaimed as I approached the child. She ran up to greet me eagerly, her large brown eyes wide, and she was smiling broadly. "Hello there, Kou!" she replied. "Now, Suniyoko, I told you many times that Kou is just a nickname! I would prefer at least in public if you would use my formal name, just for appearances sake. A lady must always be mindful to address those of the nobility using their proper names... since doing so with me will get you used to this when you are a bit older." And she just frowned a bit an said: "But I like calling you Kou! It suits you very much." and I smiled, and stated: "So does my real name, silly one! But enough of this for now. I understand that you are often a welcome guest in my good colleague Saito's house... have you heard anything about a crate of oranges being brought from overseas?" and she nodded, explaining: "Yes, he has had them for at least two full weeks now and has not been keeping them in the best of conditions to be honest! That fruit cellar of his even has a serious rat problem." And I asked her to tell me more of the rat problem. "A rat problem, you say? Tell me more of it, Suniyoko!" And she told me a lot about the rat problem indeed. She said: "He hired a professional rat catcher to solve the matter for him, but the rat catcher could not find the rats anywhere. She...the rat catcher that is... said he thought they got away or must have crawled off into a corner and died someplace... about twelve rats in total Saito for sure saw but they've all gotten away." and I asked the little girl if anyone at all has actually opened the crate of oranges just yet. "No! No one." she said. "But I would think that with a rat problem going on they should have at least bothered to check it out. It would have been smart." Then I asked the child if the next time she is invited over to the Saito residence she might perhaps have a bit more thorough look at the crate for herself and see if any noises could be heard coming from inside of it. "But do not tell anyone if there are! Instead of doing so, report to me and to me only about it. I will take care of it myself at that point! Understood? If it is indeed rats, I will tell Saito about it myself since I will be seeing him for a little contest in the next couple of days or so (three total should he put if off a day in case of the weather)." and the girl exclaimed: "I will report to you directly, you can be sure!" and she gave a childish mock salute as she said this. "Good girl!" I said and hugged her, before giving her a paper flower that I had purchased earlier that day from an origami vendor in Heiankyo. All was going ideally, and if things went according to plan I would have some extra coin to spend when all was done.
The next day, I met the girl in the garden around mid-afternoon and she told me in some detail that she quite distinctly heard the sound of clawing coming from the inside of the crate and it seemed as if the bottom of the crate were wet with juice from the oranges. The servants heard nothing at all and just claimed that the juice was "saturation" due to the fact of oranges still being fresh, which I honestly laughed at given that it appeared they had all been eaten by the rats. The day of the contest arrived... one day after that second secret meeting I had with Suniyoko and I met with Saito in the garden. Now it was common knowledge that he was a servant of my infamous rival Ashiya Doman... and I had no doubt that it was in fact Doman himself who had arranged this entire contest in order to make a fool out of me if he could. Saito confirmed as much by telling me that Doman had stopped by earlier in the day and gave his own divination, stating that there were exactly fifteen oranges to be found within the crate. Precisely the number, I am certain he had himself instructed Saito to put there in the hope that this deception might bolster Doman's own reputation as a practitioner of the magical arts. He was always a theatrical sort of man, so this sort of staged display was typical for him. I rolled my eyes at the thought and sighed. Saito asked me what was the matter and I told him I was merely bored and wanted to get this over with. So he had his most trusted and able servants bring forth the crate, which despite having stains on the bottom of it appeared to have been dried off for the most part... presumably by the servants themselves. The crate was sat down in the grass, and I could distinctly hear a kind of chittering sound coming from it, which I could tell everyone else just thought was squirrels or something from the nearby pine trees. I kept silent about what I heard, naturally. I then inspected the servants closely and all of a sudden I recognized one of them as Doman himself, in disguise. I pretended not to notice, but this amused me. He wanted to be here in person to see me fail after all! It would be my honest pleasure to disappoint him once more, as I had many times in the past. I said: "Well then! Let us begin this tiny little simple contest of ours, shall we?" staring intently at Doman as I did so. Saito exclaimed the following, his arms wide: "Inside of this modest crate are a bunch of tightly-packed rare oranges from China... even I do not know how many in total. I want you to tell me how many you believe there to be! Divine this for me as accurately as possible, and I will pay you fifty coins in total which I have with me in this pouch." And he held up the pouch, grinning like a fool the whole time. "If you are wrong, it will come as no surprise to me... since no one can know something like this, at least in a natural way. And even if you are correct, all it will prove is you are a good guesser! Either way, it will prove my theory that there is no such thing as magical divination without at least a glimmer of reason behind it. Previously, the illustrious sorcerer Ashiya Doman took up the challenge and professed that there are precisely fifteen oranges within my crate here. He has never been wrong before... which makes him the best guesser I have ever seen. I will probably have to pay him the fifty coins should you lose this contest! But I do not mind, since he has always been generous to me in the past. You, however... I will prove know less than he.”
Saito was less humble than I had ever remembered him as being, and even more eager to please his master... though his master was by far a great deal younger than he. I had some measure of respect for Doman, but for Saito I had precious little. Saito was arrogant in the extreme, and known to be a very selfish sort of man. Every generosity he pretended to show in his long life, was ever done to gain something for himself at the expense of someone else. In this case, he was attempting to curry favor with Doman, a man who was definitely his better. And so, I said to him in reply to his rather contrived challenge: "I accept! But what if I were to tell you something rather shocking? Something like this... I know for a certainty that there are no oranges at all in that crate! Rather, it is my firm belief that you will find anywhere between two to twelve rats in their place! If there are any oranges left in there, they will most certainly have been reduced to pulp by now. I have divined this to be true. Now let us see if I am at least close to being right!" at which Saito looked at me very strangely. "I do not have any rat problem at my house... and I did, there is no way that you could possibly know about it. So bearing that in mind, let us have a look at my oranges shall we! I would wager myself, that there are probably at least a little less than a dozen of them. That is my own personal attempt at making a divination. Now let the lid be opened and let me personally take a look inside and see for myself!" Then the servants pried off the crate's lid using some tools (it was then that I noticed the hole in the right-most corner of the crate) and when Saito looked inside... and they (including Doman) looked as well, everyone screamed aloud in shock and fright. There were twelve fat large rats scurrying around in the smashed remains of the oranges. "Remember, my friend! You owe me fifty coins for my trouble." I chuckled, and Saito threw the pouch at me. "I do not know how you knew about this in a logical manner... even the rat catcher could not find them... but here. I will concede that there is no way using either human logic or reason that you could have divined this without magic or the gods to aid you. Now, if you will excuse me I have twelve rats to kill!" and he pulled out a sword and slashed at the animals furiously. "Filthy beasts! You cost me a lot of money... twice now." Doman was staring at me, shaking his head and looking defeated. He sighed, shrugged, and skulked off. After all that, I made my way back to the stone steps where Suniyoko was waiting for me. The girl appeared anxious to hear how things had gone, and was happy to see me.
"You did really good out there. What did you win?" the girl asked me while she was sitting upon the steps holding her ball. "A great deal of money." I stated and gave her a coin. Then I gave her two more. "This one because we are the best of friends, and that one because you are a very smart and pretty girl indeed. The third... well, that is because you just plain deserve it for finding out about the rats for me. As you can see, I already informed Saito of the problem and he is dealing with it as we speak. Never tell anyone about this though, okay? Our tiny little bit of a secret, just between best friends. Hey, you can probably buy something very, very nice with those shiny new coins, hmmm!" The girl then grinned at the thought, elated beyond reason, and skipped off towards the road leading to the marketplace down the street. "See you later, Kou! I just can't wait to show you what I buy today." And I smiled and waved back at her. Then I saw a woman standing behind me in the archway. She had blue skin and blonde hair, a color that I had never seen before on anyone in the country of my birth in that life. "It is good to have friends." she stated. "Can we become friends too, maybe someday?" and I said to her: "Perhaps... if you are not evil. Tell me something more about yourself, and we shall see." And just then a man wearing a blue kimono and matching hakama ran up towards me, his hair was tied up in a topknot and his face was clean shaven. He looked impeccable. "Talking to yourself are you? Bad habit! I heard of how you figured out about those rats... I just heard about it now, in fact. Very clever... but how did you do it?" and to him I then stated: "It was but a simple divination, and nothing more." And the man laughed before taking out a piece of wood that he began to carve with a small knife he had with him. "Simple, eh! That is what everyone says about things like that. Next thing you know, you will be telling me you can see Oni and Kappa and Yokai and Kaiden of all sorts. And you will tell me that is simple too. I know how it is, how it goes. Like warriors who brag about how many men they can kill... it is no different." I then said in response: "People are often all the same. Only what we do makes us different, and how we do it. What are you doing, speaking of which, with that stick?" and the man explained: "I am carving an offering for the shrine over at the circle near Tsubaki. I need good luck, and praying at the local shrine of Inari is only going to give me more rice." And he went on and on about quite trivial matters after that. Eventually, he said: "You know, your eyes are not typical. I only saw one person with eyes that color other than you, and it was some sailor who had gotten lost and ended up washed ashore out by a beach near the coast somewhere. This was a long time ago, so my memory is not very clear regarding specifics. But he wandered into Iwato, crazy as can be, and died of some sickness or another." And I said to the man: "So you are basically telling me that my eyes remind you of a madman's you saw once? That is not a compliment. Should I feel insulted, then?" and the man bowed his had, closed his eyes, and said: "I am so sorry it came out that way... I was trying to express how rare your eye color is, and do not mistake me it is beautiful, but I did not mean for it to come out like that. Pray, forgive me! Sometimes, my mind gets ahead of my tongue and it makes me speak without thinking of how it sounds." And I smiled and said to the man: "I will think about doing so... but fear not, I am not angry with you. Just surprised is all." And the man changed the subject back to talk about his impending pilgrimage to the shrine he wanted to visit. All the while, he kept carving that stick into a man-shaped likeness. I still saw the blue woman behind us, but the man did not see her. "We will talk later." she said. and then the dream went on to ordinary things from this present life before I woke up. It had been a pleasant enough dream, and a good memory from long ago."
Published 9th Mar 2021
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