Haro's Crush

I have taken some artistic license with names and other aspects of the Japanese culture. The Ryōan-ji Temple with it’s famous Zen garden does exist in Kyoto.

Eighteen-year-old Hiro Ito contemplated the perfectly raked white gravel in the karesansui or dry landscape of the famous Ryōan-ji Zen garden in his hometown of Kyoto. Wooden floor boards embued with the earthy scent of generations and smoothed down over the centuries felt soft under his socks, and comforting to his touch sitting on the veranda. An uncle who had become a Japanese monk, had told him reflecting in such settings led to experiences of the divine in nature, but Hiro felt certain his own glorious event had happened to him a little earlier in the Yahamoto Drug store. 

Clean raked lines ran firm and true as his feelings did now for Fashima Sumito, who had grown up in his neighborhood, but he had scarcely seen her during the last ten years, when he had been in boy’s school and she had been in girl’s school. Swirls of white stones, fluid as water around the two mossy rocks reminded him of the gentle curve in her hip, in the protuberance of her breast, in the teardrop slope of her eye. 

In a chance encounter at the drug store when he gone to pick up a prescription for hs mother, he’d rounded an aisle and stumbled into her like a man emerging from a dark cave, blinking at the sunlight. She’d moved her handcart to the side, almost behind her, and blushed. Such a magnificent pink red bloom across her cheeks; he felt moved in a way he couldn’t comprehend. 

Not even Sakura, cherry blossom season, where the heart and mind were awash in perpetual pink blossoms could match the blaze in his heart. Hiro Ito had come to the temple to gain inspiration to write a Haiku poem for Fashima Sumito, and now he sat cross-legged, letting his mind travel along the perfectly raked lines, desiring to communicate to Fashima Sumito how the bloom in his heart matched the flush of pink he’d witnessed on her perfect cheek. 

Cherry Blossoms pale against a white sky

and pinken in the depths of an azure blue 

My heart blooms in your presence

Penned carefully in the back of his notebook; he hoped his fledging love for Fashima Sumito had unearthed his inner sage poet.

He imagined her sitting with a Japanese paint brush, making gentle firm strokes forming Kanji characters to embody the fluttering feelings in her heart for him, that he had witnessed on her face. 

In his mind, her shiny black hair grew longer, her face took on more of a sculpted classical Japanese beauty and she wore the traditional Japanese dress, and moved marionette-like and sweetly on traditional wooden sandals, as if she were a puppet being moved by his hands in short steps along a stage, such as he was sitting on now.

Peering past the garden into the subtle orange and green hues of the baked clay wall, he doubted his uncle’s contemplations involved any subject as sublime, for he couldn’t concieve of his uncle thinking of a woman outside of the family. After he finished his education, and Fashima became his wife, his life would be like a temple courtyard, in perfect order, not one tiny stone out of order. 

***

At home, he sat down with his mother for a weekend meal of rice and pickled vegetables with chicken. They ate in silence. His father’s place empty as usual; for the past four months he’d had been working late at the insurance company. Hiro knew his mother wasn’t happy. She protested every morning since he’d devoted twenty years to the company, his managers shouldn’t compell him to work longer hours. His father never answered his mother, but in the news, there was often talk about Japan’s aging population and the lack of young workers entering the workforce. 

His mother watched the same news every evening, but the message failed to penetrated the sheen in her brown eyes. After a month of his father missing dinner, instead of green tea in her small clay cup at dinner, she poured herself a little sake, and every month she increased the amount.

“You can talk to me, if you’re not happy,” Haro said, sitting up tall. In school, a psychologist had spoken to his class about the signs of stress in the family. Decreased communication or changes in communication and increased alcohol consumption were symptoms. 

His mother snapped a smile. “I’m happy. Let’s talk about you. What did you do today?”

“When I went to the drugstore, I ran into Fashima Sumito.” He took a sip of sake from her cup, but she’d already drained it. “This sake is stronger than usual. I’m feeling flushed.”

His mother’s eyes turned upward.

“You remember her, mother? She lives here in our neighborhood.”

She shook her head. No, I don’t remember when she was a child. But at work recently, during the lunch break, my friend Mariko, who lives next door to the Sumitos told me, she couldn’t tell me anything, but there is a great shame in the family.”

Hiro gripped the table. “You women and your gossip, you’re always looking for shame in innocent families.”

His mother’s face blanched and contracted, deepening the lines around her eyes and a weariness tugged down at the corners of her mouth. “You think I am a stranger to shame. Talking to you after dinner, like you are the man of the house.” 

She poured herself another cup of sake. Hiro had hoped his father would see that his mother was drinking up the sake and realize her suffering and help her, but his father was busy.

“Father is working long hours for us. Your friends don’t know anything.”

She slopped a mouthful of sake. “You, little man don’t know anything.”

There was no point in arguing with his mother. She was too bitter over his father’s late nights to listen to him talk about Fashima. 

“I went to the Ryōan-ji temple, and I wrote a haiku.”

“If I knew you were going, I would have given you an offering on behalf of the family.” 

“I didn't know I was going.” Hiro showed his mother his haiku.

She put down his notebook and laughed bitterly. “You saw Fashima in the drugstore and went to the temple to write a haiku about her.”

He grabbed his notebook. “You didn’t see the connection we had. She blushed when she saw me.” 

His mother tapped her foot. “Let’s see, she was in the drug store. What was she buying?”

Hiro recalled Fashima swinging her basket out of sight. “What does it matter? Feminine pads perhaps.” 

A bitter laugh erupted from his mother. “More like a pregnancy test.” 

“You are bored and you’re making up these stories. No wonder Father stays out late.” He was aware as the words came out of his mouth he’d contradicted himself.

His mother gave him a knowing look. Her eyes softened and in the lantern light over the table, reflected the worn orange and brown hues of the temple wall. “I’m so sorry, Hiro, that your heart had just begun to dream about this girl Fashima, but for you, there will be others.”

***

Hiro dreamt of sakura blossoms stripped from their trees by harsh winds generated by gossiping neighbours and trampled under the muddy boots of men, including his father and uncle. He dreamt he picked up Fashima, from the ground, befouled and cleaned her up, and made her perfect. In the morning he wrote another haiku.

Sakura blossom crushed underfoot

Waved away by your branch

My heart still blooms for you

Without telling his mother, he visited the temple again, and sat on the veranda contemplating the perfectly raked lines, the perfect garden, which had never truly been perfect. If it had been, it would never have needed a master raker.