LOOK BOTH WAYS
15
The late afternoon village market thronged with bright colours and busy people. The women who bartered and shopped for the families were all dressed in their traditional and colourful kimonos, while the men that were seen dressed traditionally as well in kimonos designed only for the male gender. Shopkeepers argued back with the shoppers in their expected determination not to be beaten down, but pleasantly so, for no one wished any ill will.
Shopping was just that way, to interact and to purchase, to reinforce the shopper’s identity and remind themselves to themselves, and of themselves. And, just like the trees and the stars, they each had a right to be there in exactly that way. They had the right to be happy, and to feel good about themselves as natural human beings, without feeling the learned unnatural shame and guilt of thinking men and women everywhere.
He mingled amongst them, knowing he stood out like a penny on a plate, because of his height and the size of his frame, but he minded not, for their friendly eyes and faces were full of good cheer for him exactly the way he appeared to them. It inspired him and his natural love for them and humankind everywhere.
A small representation of a larger floating population, he mused idly, while he bowed and greeted in return for their own, as they passed him by in their late afternoon travels.
Children followed their mothers. Some rested in back-pouches adorning their mother’s spine, while some hung like baby monkeys, suspended in a pouch from their mother’s chest. But all were happy. No babies cried, for their natural mother was close to them, very close, and not away working in the fields, as time traded for a different house, or the latest TV, or fortunes just idly building, year after year, but accomplishing nothing for their irreversible cost.
No, he concluded, all were naturally happy here. Maybe this was his home, after all? So far, he mused again, nobody had called him by his name, whatever it happened to be, but their respectful and friendly human natures certainly made him feel like he had come home.
He knew they wondered where he was from, as he, himself did, for his height was tall, his eyes round, unlike their own.
As my Father has sent me to you, he thought warmly to their questioning gaze’, so I will send you forth.
Finally, slowly, gradually, and inevitably the sun went gently to bed. Darkness fell softly over the village market place. One by one the shoppers took their babies and their purchases home. One by one the shopkeepers all closed their storefronts and lowered their blinds. He smiled. There were no steel bars and drop-down iron grates to protect their wares until the morning. None were needed here. It was that simple, and he knew it was.
One by one the lights came on in the houses that served as storefronts by day and homes by night. One by one they left, until he was alone, all alone, standing in the middle of the large dark and quiet Market Square.
He looked up at the darkening night sky and grimaced. Clouds were hiding the light of the moon. He shrugged good-naturedly, then looked both ways, and finally down to his feet.
‘Shigata ga nai,’ he heard himself say softly in a language not his own. But his ears had heard and had understood clearly that it meant no fault could be found within humankind for his luck or his life and times, whatever they might be, and to move on forward with things, until a better day came tomorrow.
He felt happy and he felt content, more so than he had done since coming out of the desert.
O, Father, hear my prayer, he heard his heart say softly, but sincerely. If it be possible, this time do not ever let this living life pass from me.
Then he heard himself sigh deeply, as his gaze once more searched the darkening clouds overhead for the inevitable. He smiled and brought his gaze back to earth where it belonged.
‘Shigata ga nai,’ he whispered softly to humankind everywhere, as the heavens began to open, and they opened, directly on him. Can’t beat bad luck.