The Bamboo Cutter

Taketori looked up at the full moon. Its glow illuminated his wrinkled face. A solitary teardrop rolled down his cheek. Using an oak walking stick, he shuffled to his golden throne. His saffron robes landed gracefully at his feet as he took his seat in the palace. Around his neck was a piece of string tied around a small talisman of bamboo. Taketori gripped onto the talisman tightly and wiped away the tears from his cheeks with his coarse, calloused hands. Through exceptional foresight, he had wisely instructed his wife and retainers to leave many days ago. He hadn't expected the shogunate's arrival at the palace so soon. The door to the throne room shook with a rhythmic banging. With each beat, the door opened further and eventually, it fell, filling the air with a metallic, dusty mist. Taketori grimaced and waited for the dust to settle. A group of armoured spearmen entered. “I know why you have come. Thankfully, it is a full moon tonight,” said Taketori, glancing at the full moon once more.

A heavily armoured man stepped forward, “We appreciate your compliance emperor, please await the shogun’s arrival.” 

“Of course, even I get lost in the palace grounds,” Taketori chuckled. The ancestors had blessed him. It seemed the grains of sand in his hourglass may fall slower than he expected. “Please, come closer.” he raised his arms and let his robes hang loose. “I can no longer lift a sword or spear.” The spearmen glanced at each other, then at their leader. He gave a curt nod, and they edged closer to the throne. 

“Emperor, it is unlikely that any tricks will serve you well,” said the lead spearman. 

The emperor frowned, “Tricks? Young man, I have lived long enough to know when to embrace my destiny.” he stroked his grey braided beard, it stretched to his belly button. 

Talk of destiny caused several spearmen to avert their gaze, and a shuffling rippled through the group. Many of these young spearmen had held Taketori in high esteem before recent events. For some, it was an incredible honour to be in his presence. 

“Minamoto… Yoritomo? I believe?” said Taketori, looking toward the lead spearman. 

Yoritomo stood tall, his sharp eyes piercing through the emperor. 

“Ah yes… My, how you have grown, the ancestors have truly blessed you,” Taketori smiled and nodded. With an outstretched arm, he grabbed hold of a teapot placed to his side and poured. “Your father was just a boy when I became the emperor… Yoritomo, would you kindly join me for a cup of tea?”

Yoritomo bowed deeply. “Thank you for the offer, Emperor. I will have to decline.” 

“Your manners and self-discipline are exemplary. Very well.” Taketori took a sip of his tea, savouring the warm floral liquid before finally swallowing it. “Would you gentlemen allow me to tell you a tale?” 

“Emperor, you are free to speak as you wish,” said Yoritomo.

Taketori looked at Yoritomo with a pensive gaze. A welcome sincerity flowed through his voice. “It may be a pitiful request, but I do not want the final ramblings of my aged mind to fall on deaf ears.” 

Yoritomo stomped his feet together and held his spear by his side. The rest of his unit did the same. “There are no deaf ears in this room, Emperor.”

“As strong as your father, yet as kind as your mother,” the old emperor raised an eyebrow. “Regardless, you will make the Minamoto clan proud.” Taketori caressed the detailed ceramic of his teacup. Does a thief deserve an audience? It is perhaps a question of great moral significance. A question for philosophers to deliberate. To Taketori, the question did not matter. He had to tell his story, to confess before he finally faced the ancestors.

“What do you know of me before I came to rule this land? I was not someone of renown. I farmed bamboo for the daimyo.” He could smell the earthy soil and feel the cold scythe in his hand. The repetitive sound of metal hitting bamboo played in his mind. He felt the beads of sweat drip off his face after a hard day’s labour in the fields. 

“The mundanity of my existence did not concern me. But everything changed...” He recalled that a thick piece of bamboo proved to be a challenge for him. After a painstaking hour, he cut through. 

“We had always wanted a child. One day, the ancestors sent me a girl. A daughter.” Inside the trunk of the bamboo tree, there was a child with beautiful silver hair, curled up into a ball. Taketori’s breathing grew deeper. He could see her playing in the fields. With a shaky hand, he reached toward the apparition. He lingered in his own memories for a while longer, and the spearmen watched on in silence. 

Taketori reached into his robes and produced a beautifully crafted ivory pipe. He packed the pipe with tobacco. "Would one of your kind spearmen assist me with lighting my pipe?" Yoritomo nodded to a young-looking spearman who broke rank and lit a thin twig using a lantern. Taketori exhaled a plume of smoke and the spearman returned to his position. 

"My family was complete. She was a little princess, asking for the stars and I was just a farmer,” There was one day that Taketori remembered well, he could feel the heat of the sun sizzling his forehead as bamboo tree after bamboo tree fell to the ground. His eye caught a dazzling glint coming from inside the trunk of a bamboo tree. He reached into the trunk. “Kaguya was a blessing. The kami filled each bamboo trunk I cut down with a nugget of gold. Over one year, I amassed incredible wealth.” 

“Many daimyos, shogun and samurai reach positions of power through wealth,” said Yoritomo. 

Taketori smiled “Yes. Powerful clans. Resources. But very few have such an abundance of gold.” 

Kaguya grew into a woman much faster than other girls. As an adult, every night she would look up into the sky with wistful eyes. Taketori inhaled deeply through his pipe. “Eventually, my daughter came to me one day. She told me a tale of her own. She was a child of the moon.” He laughed and smoke escaped from his nostrils. Taketori aimed the tip of his pipe skywards, then used it to follow the moon’s outline. Taketori looked at the ivory pipe, the saffron robes, and the golden throne. He shook his head and felt a nauseating ache building within him. “She said it was time for her to return home. However, once you have a taste for luxury, it is not a simple task to let it go,” he said, bowing his head. A ray of moonlight projected through the roof and onto the throne where Taketori was sitting. “And so, I imprisoned my daughter in the palace dungeon.”

There was silence in the room. 

Yoritomo broke the silence, “Forgive my interruption, emperor. If Kaguya remains with you then, where is your army? Where is your wealth?” 

“We all have beasts within, Yoritomo, beasts that are waiting for the right opening, the right flaw.” He smiled with the kind, painful eyes of a broken man. “However, I am a father, before I am a beast.” Taketori lifted the ivory pipe once more, closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, “I let her go." Despite his blurred vision, he could still make out the warm, gentle yellow of the moon. He held the bamboo talisman around his neck tightly as he slumped onto his throne. The pipe fell from his hand, blackened ash and smoky vapours fizzled into the air. Yoritomo dropped his spear and leapt into action, his armoured boots clanging against the golden palace floor. He stood beside the emperor and placed his hand on the emperor’s pale, lifeless neck. A faint smell of almonds wafted over from the ivory pipe.  Inside the pipe, where Yoritomo expected there to be tobacco, there was an unusual amber resin. Moonlight filled the palace room as the spearmen kneeled and bowed low toward the throne. A solitary teardrop rolled down the emperor's cheek, as his motionless melancholy eyes looked up, fixed on the full moon.