Introduction

Tokyo Twins looks at two issues -

what the roots of terrorism are, and what the end of terrorism might be.
One or two new chapters, in both text and audio, will be posted each week to Pakistan Times.

mp3 audio - Tokyo Twins - Chapters 8, 9 and 10

Chapter 8 - Superstition and allowance in Hebiyama.

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Obá-chan watched Taya-san and Kaneko-san from the Japan Foreign Ministry, discuss their alternatives and tactics to find the girls; first on the list: Comb Hebiyama with agents and dogs.

“They are not in Hebiyama.” Obá-chan said. “It’s a place forbidden to them, and forbidden to you as well.”

“Pardon me?” said Taya-san.

“It’s…” Obá-chan paused, “haunted.” Obá-chan paused again, “occupied, you might say. And you do know what I mean.” she stated flatly and paused once again.

“I might be a physicist,” she continued, “an electronics engineer and a patent attorney, but I am also a grandmother. And I am sorry to say this: if you enter, even with the best of intentions, that bamboo sanctuary, you will bring great hardship upon my life and upon all the lives in this home. And I repeat: You do know what I am talking about.”

The men stared at her without a word.

“Would you care to give notice to the neighbors and get their opinions on this matter? Every body around here knows these - things - about Hebiyama, and most have felt this way for generations. And do you know why?” she paused.

“Perhaps you would like to test what affect these spirits might have upon your own lives? Your own families and futures? Surely you know what sits beside us in Hebiyama? And how many dozens of generations of my ancestors”, she paused, “and yours… are sitting-up right now across that bamboo forest taking notice as we speak.”

The men just stared.

“Fifty? Sixty? Seventy generations?”

The men were dumb founded.

“Then,” Obá-chan folded her hands in front of her, right over left. “Let’s not put a fox hunt in Hebiyama at the top of the list of ways to find the girls, okay? The girls are not in there. I can tell.”

She was walking to the door, and grabbed the door knob.

“Gentlemen?” she paused. “A thousand apologies for this inconvenience, and a thousand thank you’s for your help.”

? ? ? ? ?

“Who are you?” Katie asserted.

He let go of her arm, and took a couple steps back into the darkness.

“Who are you?” Katie repeated.

“I cannot tell you who I am at this time.”

“You’re an old man. I can run faster than you and turn you in.”

“Yes, you may.” he said.

“You’ll never get out of here.” Katie said.

“That, Katie, is another matter.”

The man moved toward his dark makeshift hut, pulled up a flap, and crawled inside.

Katie noticed the glow of a well hidden candle inside and followed.

“How do you know my name?”

“Is there anyone at the moment in Japan who doesn’t?”

“The television would never say our names.” she said.

“You’ve been blogged.”

Katie rolled her eyes.

“You can help get my mother and father back?” Katie said. “My brother?”

He was silent.

“Why are you here” she demanded.

He was silent.

“This is dumb. There are agents just beyond the opened window there… Surely you know this… I could scream no matter what your intentions are.”

“Yes you may.”

Katie took a long look at nothing into the glow inside the hut.

“Go retrieve your sister. Or not. Or go finish your homework and forget about this. Or not.” he looked in her direction, and continued. “Susan, right now, is crawling your path.”

He looked Japanese, all right, Katie thought, but he didn’t look like he had been working and drinking with the same salary men for eighteen hours a day, six days per week, every single month for the last 40 years of his life.

Then again, she wondered, what other look do I know? And on a sixty-five year old man in Tokyo Japan? This look, his look, was not the same. The muscles in his face sat differently somehow under his skin. His eye brows, hard to say, she thought. Soft. Relaxed. Accepting. But intense, she decided. No. His face is not intense. His entire presence is.

“Why the interest in us?” she said.

“ I cannot tell you at this time.”

“Are you crazy?” Katie said.

“Are you going to retrieve your sister?” he countered.

She looked hard at him.

“Or not.” he slowly added.

“Or maybe I go home like nothing happened.” she asserted.

“Aren’t you working on your math homework?

“Hmm.” she nodded. “Yes I am, if I am still alive after Obá-chan finds out.”

He smiled.

“Either way: we run, we stay,” said Katie, and she began shaking her head to measure her words. “We are big-time screwed. Susan is not going to return here with me. The moment she sees me, she’ll run home. And so will I.” Katie said, “Maybe.”

“And you’re allowed.” he smiled, “no maybe about it.”

“Yes she will,” Katie kept going, “Susan will run… What? What did you say?”

He was silent.

And she grabbed the flap and lifted and took off out the door.

She followed her way back up the hill as best she could, dodging fingers of moonlight.

“It’s better I find her and not the other way around.” she said out loud to herself. “It’ll give me a slight edge in this upcoming battle of the O’Brien twins.”

And with that precaution she fairly ran up the hill nearly reaching the ridge and the trail that headed back eastward, toward her bedroom window.

She felt movement in the bamboo stalks several meters down and east from where she stopped now,

trying to breathe, if not more lightly, then at least a bit more quietly.

“Susan!” Katie whispered loudly.

Katie watched the movement stop.

“Susan, stop it! No… I mean… Susan, don’t stop it. Get over here quick!”

Katie saw no movement, heard no sound.

“Oh, this is dumb. Susan! Get over here!”

“Here I am,” Susan whispered excitedly, loudly and from a direction that pointed a good 60 degrees north of the movement of bamboo Katie just saw.

“Susan! Stop! Katie said. “Don’t move! There is someone else here! I mean, right there, a few meters down the hill from you!”

And both girls now saw vigorous movement coming from the same area.

“Susan-Katie, Katie-Susan.”

“Ohmygod, it’s Obá-chan,” the girls said in concert. And each of them froze suddenly in her tracks.

Chapter 9 - The me, the mirror and the man.

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“Katie-Susan! Susan-Katie!” Obá-chan said, continuing to bend and bat away the bamboo thickness.

“We’re dead.” Katie mumbled to herself and Susan, not so oddly, mumbled to herself the same.

“But not yet,” each continued in her mind, their feet moving now, in unison, reversing and spinning in mirror images, the first steps of their Shintaiso duet, one they had been practicing for months, to be performed in competition next Wednesday afternoon, only six days away.

They had practiced it so often, for so long, muscle memory now took over, even on Hebiyama: “Pivot inside-step, pause-and back-spin away one, two, three, spins step, two, roll inside, tumble-up and there’s the mirror, not of glass but eyes and faces, from one me to another.

Katie and Susan O’Brien intuitively let fly in formation the motions and movements themselves: pivot and spin, arms-up and tumble, head straight and roll, and there’s the mirror, no! not the mirror!

Appearing suddenly there popped-up out of moonlight right between their noses and poses, the stranger of Hebiyama, who grabbed a forearm from each, and raised his hands in victory.

“Obá-chan, here they are!”

“Send ‘em home when you’re done!”

And Obá-chan, whose trickiness manifested more cleverly when structured in the mundane, started walking home.

“Wish you were our uncle right now… he’d set things straight, he’s the head of Fuji Television Network, you know, the largest television network in Japan!”

“I see,” said the stranger.

“I don’t think so,” said Susan.

“Nope.” said Katie. “In 30 minutes, he could have 50 live-feed cameras on trucks and helicopters crawling all over this place.”

“I quite agree with you.” the stranger said.

“Maybe you’re not getting this? Obá-chan is going to call him now!”

“Hmm. the stranger said. “I don’t think so.”

The girls just shook their heads in doubt, and gave him - the look - the look of confidence somewhere beyond human ego, and the old man smiled back – his own look – the look of knowing somewhere beyond human knowledge.

‘We have some things to discuss,” said the old man.

“Like what?” said Katie and Susan.

He paused. “Like you,” he said, “like your parents, like your brother, like your friends, your Obá-chan, and well, like I said, like you.”

“And you?” said the girls.

“And me.” the old man said.

“Who are you?” the one said.

What is your interest in us? said the other.

And how do you know Obá-chan?” said both.

“My name is Satchitananda.” said the stranger.

“Satchitananda?” Katie said. “That is not a Japanese name, and you are Japanese!”

“Yes, I am Japanese,” the old man said, now looking with intentional curiosity at the girls. “And many other things as well.”

“Like what?” said the girls.

“I’ve spent most of my life in northern India in areas around Kashmir.”

“Kashmir!” the girls said.

The man stayed quiet.

“You have come to help our parents…”

The man stayed quiet, and just looked back at Katie and Susan.

“Then, why are you here?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question. Events coming to pass today are making circles with events from many years ago.” said the old man.

“What events,” said the girls.

“I cannot say at this time.”

“What’s the secret?”

“It is no secret.” he said.

“You will come to know all the unlikely yet natural closings of these circles only when they close.” he explained.

“Sounds like you’re describing what’s it’s like to throw your ribbon in the middle of a tumbling run,” Susan said, “praying like hell . . .”

Katie was shaking her head.

“You pray you catch it?” he said.

“Hmmm. Sometimes.” Susan said.

“Does it work? he said.

“Last ditch effort?” she paused. “Rarely.”

“How come?” the old man said.

“I don’t know.” Susan said.

“Have you ever looked into it?” he said.

“What do you mean?” said Katie.

“Looking into it?” he reflected and paused. “Watching it while it’s happening.”

“You mean visualizing it? Like doing a tumble or a throw in your mind?” Katie said.

“Is that what you do?” he said.

“Of course,” said the girls.

“Hmmm,” he said. “During your tumble or throw, which one do you observe: the visualization or the action.”

Susan glanced away to think. “I don’t know,” she said.

Katie shook her head slowly in doubt.

“Perhaps this is something to look into.” he said.

“But didn’t you just say you don’t even know why you’re here?” Katie said.

“Yes.” he said. “I did.”

“Perhaps this is something for you to look into.” Susan said.

The old man looked at the girls. “Some things, when you look into them seem knowable, some things are not.” he said.

“How do you know which is which?” Katie said.

“You look into it.” he smiled.

“What’s the point, then?” she said.

“Life.” he said.

“And achievement?” she Susan.

“Yes.” He nodded.

“And learning new routines?” Katie said.

He nodded again.

“And fear?” the girls both said.

“And fear.”

“And pain?” Susan said.

“And pain.”

“And death?” Katie said.

“Yes,” he said.

“What’s this have to do with getting our parents back?” said Susan.

“Will you do me a favor, girls?” he said. “Will you return home now and get some sleep. And if it’s possible, return here tomorrow night?”

“Why?” the girls said.

“There might be more things to talk about.” he said.

“How about now?” Katie said.

“How about now, it is time for bed.” he smiled.

“What about Obá-chan? What about these government men?” the girls said.

“Try not to worry about Obá-chan. And try not to worry about these government men.”

“What about our mother and our father and our brother!”

“Let’s discuss that tomorrow night.”

He felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket.

“Yes” he said, lifting up to his ear the flip part of the phone.

“No,” he answered to the person on the other end, “the coast looks clear for tonight. Let’s everyone keep our positions… Contingencies, events… could boil-up any day, any hour. Thank you, my friends,” and he closed the flip part of the phone and smiled at the girls.

“Good night and dulci del sueño.” He said.

“Sounds like Spanish.”

“Hmmm,” he nodded.

“Hmmm,” the girls replied and found themselves stepping quickly outside the stranger’s shelter, and even more quickly up the hill, across the ridge and home.

? ? ? ? ?

Obá-chan returned to the house and the men were waiting.

“I am sorry. False alarm.” Obá-chan explained to the two men from the Japan Foreign Ministry.

The girls were just playing out back and I couldn’t see them.

“May we speak to them now?” the men said.

“Heavens no. They’ve had a very rough day, and they are deeply asleep. Would tomorrow morning be okay?”

Chapter 10 - Older sister younger brother.

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Katie and Susan O’Brien paced in an anxious trance around their bedroom soon after returning from the jungle and from the stranger, Satchitananda.

They heard the government agents talking between themselves from their car in front of the house.

The news about their missing parents in Kashmir was twenty-four hours in the past, and what felt like a nightmare yesterday was now feeling real, with a life of its own.

They felt physically and emotionally disoriented, anxious and afraid. Grief was setting in – a new experience for them – the feeling of an unbreakable loss, nourished without pause by an overwhelming loneliness it carried on its back. And new to the girls, too, a feeling of panic was knocking at their door.

Susan and Katie looked at each other and nodded slightly and stepped slowly from their bedroom and down the hall and into the living room where Obá-chan was quietly sitting on tatami flooring, and slightly rocking her body out of a similar sense of panic and despair.

She moved a cup of hot tea away from her and looked up at the girls entering the room, their faces blotched in places from crying, pale in places from fear.

“What is the news about Mom and Dad?”

“How much danger are they in?”

“When will they come home?”

And for a moment, through the stress, they failed to conceal, with conditioned cultural reticence, the lynch pin holding in place their pain:

“if indeed they ever do…” Katie murmured.

“…ever do come home.” finished Susan.

“Why is all this happening at once.” Susan said in tears. “National Trials are next week; training is not going well.” she continued.

“This man in Hebiyama – he says he is Japanese?” Katie added.

“With a foreign sounding name? from Kashmir?” Susan said.

“Perhaps he is the one responsible,” Katie said, “for our parents missing.”

“And how, Obá-chan, do you know him.” she went on.

“When did you meet him and talk with him, and how could he possibly help our Mother and Father – or our brother Jack – from a tiny bamboo national forest in Tokyo Japan!?” Katie said.

“And these government men,” followed Susan, “I’m confused. You, Obá-chan, are protecting Katie and me, and also a total stranger in the forest next door.”

“And from who, from what?” Katie said.

“The Japanese government?” said Susan. “And you, Obá-chan - our only connection to family in this house right now - Obá-chan, you must be hurting so much right now. You are not yourself.” Susan finished talking.

Obá-chan motioned with both hands and pulled the girls up close to her.

“My dear Katie and Susan, I wish I could explain this to you, and everything else that has happened the past couple days,” she was moving her head in doubt, “but Satchitananda - our new next door neighbor - may be some hope for saving your mother and father… and your brother Jack.” Obá-chan explained.

“We don’t get it.” said Katie and Susan together, half angry and half crying.

“Listen to me, girls…” Obá-chan said quietly, “Obá-chan does not understand this either, but the fact that Satchitananda is here at all, is, in itself, a miracle, and he is here with some purpose, and we will understand these things in time, and probably sooner than later.”

Obá-chan continued, “Promise me, Susan. Promise me, Katie… Three things: You will go to school, you will continue Shintaiso training daily, compete well next week, and you will study hard.

“Satchitananda wants to see us tomorrow night after training.” Katie added.

“Yes, I know.” Obá-chan said.

“You trust him? You don’t even know him!” Katie said.

No one knows him! And he is… what… a homeless person!” Susan argued.

Obá-chan pulled her hair back with her hands and looked at the girls, “I do realize that your Obá-chan should not be the one receiving these wise words of caution.” She paused, “especially from her own fourteen-year-old granddaughters,” Obá-chan said. “But I trust him.” There was a dash of reverence in her voice. “I am asking you to trust him, too.”

“Why Obá-chan?” Susan urged.

“Obá-chan, how can we.” Katie cried.

And the three sat in silence for two, three minutes staring into hopelessness.

“I don’t know.” Obá-chan said. “But I do know this: Already, out of this chaos and suffering, some kind of miracle has been let loose.”

“We’re lost.” the girls said.

Obá-chan took a deep breath, “You are not lost, Katie and Susan, this miracle, perhaps, is headed your way. Come…” she said and held their hands again. “Come… let’s offer rice and sáke to your great grandmother.” Obá-chan said.

And they moved to the Buddhist area of the living room where a photo of Obá-chan’s mother, long passed away, reminded them of her constant presence, and soothing influence, in the household.

“Give your undying strength, great grandmother, to your grand daughter, Mieko, who is in danger. To her husband Henry in danger too. To your beautiful great grand daughters, Susan and Katie, and to their older brother, Jack. And to this man who lives in the jungle… to this man… give him strength. “

She covered her face in her hands. As did the girls. All weeping. All consumed by the moment and by grief, and now all hugging tightly.

? ? ? ? ?

Earlier in the day, shortly beyond noon, Obá-chan cleaned off her desk, filed her working folders, shut off her workstation, and told her assistant she’d be gone the remainder of the day.

When she boarded the Yamanote Line at Tokyo Station two blocks from her office, she was making an unprecedented and unthinkable return home while daylight of any sort still shined.

“This is impossible, under any circumstances,” her assistant stopped to think a moment: “It has been twenty-five years, maybe thirty, since she even ate lunch anywhere else but at the table in the kitchen of her own law firm! And now she’s leaving the office?”

? ? ? ? ?

Yesterday morning, Obá-chan had caught a glimpse

of the stranger in Hebiyama from her dining room window as he cut and gathered bamboo.

This glimpse of the stranger invoked some feeling of peace and quiet inside of her. Normally, she’d have dismissed the event. Now, twenty-four hours later,

with life turned upside down, she had to check this out.

As purely as she was dedicated to her work, and the logic and discipline that drove her successes in the field of law, she acted, too, on her intuitions, not a knowledge born of study or experience, but a knowingness born of her feelings, of people, of places and things.

This knowingness was of precious personal value to Obá-chan over the years, whenever it made its unexpected appearance, and whenever it did not.

? ? ? ? ?

She arrived home from her usual walk from Fuda Station, threw on a pair of baggy pants and athletic shoes, walked out the front door and turned directly into the bamboo wall of Hebiyama.

“This is a simple program,” she thought, “I am going to meet the stranger of Hebiyama.”

And she had not walked a dozen paces when she heard the voice from somewhere calling to her, “Oné-san, Oné-san. (What one calls one’s older sister in Japan, without fail.)

She stopped and stood and she knew at once, unseeing, for no good reason, who was calling her name.

She fell to her knees sobbing deeply and felt a hand lay upon her shoulder and she turned around.

“Oné-san, I am your brother, Kenji,” the man said.

Introduction

Tokyo Twins looks at two issues -

what the roots of terrorism are, and what the end of terrorism might be.
One new chapter, in both text and audio, will be posted each week to Pakistan Times.

Tokyo Twins - Chapters 6 & 7 - mp3 audio

Chapter 6 - Full moon rising and the girls set a trap.

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Katie and Susan O’Brien left for school with quiet hugs for Obá-chan and fewer words for each other, and they continued to have little or nothing to say going to school, during school, taking the train after school to the gym.

They saw Inga Godotnova, their Shintaiso coach, stepping onto the platform from the train car behind them at Wakabayashi Station and walked quickly to her.

“We are sorry to have to tell you this…” Katie started.

“There is bad news about our parents.”

Susan filled in with what little was known, and added “the news may drift in during practice. We wanted you to know and hope it does not disrupt things too much.”

“Even under these terrible circumstances, I am not surprised you are here for practice.” Inga Godotnova hugged the girls closely. “Thank you for telling me.” she said with a smile touching and honest and sad, and this smile left a deep and centering impression on Katie and Susan O’Brien.

The three continued walking to the gym.

“I’m not sure practice will go so well today,” Katie said half muttering.

“If you want your amazing progress in this sport to change right now, in any direction whatsoever, for better or for worse - it is, right now, your choice to do so.”

And Katie and Susan paused walking and at once looked up into their coaches eyes.

? ? ? ? ?

During break the girls took towels from their gym bags.

“Look at this,” Susan said eyeing the other girls, “the news must have hit.”

Katie sat and wiped her face and rubbed the back of her neck with the towel and looked at her team mates nearly all looking at their cell phones and then nearly all the girls in quick and off-beat bobbing glanced up and around at Katie and Susan, the spreading awareness of horrifying news coming in flashes of lightening out of some uninvited presence that rolled thick and fog-like across the gymnasium floor.

“I’m not looking at my cell phone.” said Katie.

“Me neither,” said Susan, yet allowing a sideways stare at the instant messages flooding in across the cell phone screen: “I’m so sorry,” “We’re with you.” “What can I do to help?” and so on.

Katie lifted her face buried in her towel. And she and Susan looked calmly around the room, Susan standing; Katie sitting; the others doing their best not to look as they already were - suddenly frozen in self-conscience.

“Let’s get back to work!” said Inga Godotnova, a set of words not normally acted upon by her young Shintaiso athletes with such welcome as now.

Toward the end of practice the girls warmed down in slower motion than usual, then dressed, loaded their equipment, swung the straps of gym bags and gear over there shoulders and headed for Wakabayashi Station with more presence of mind than usual.

They got off at Shimotakaido Station, the terminal for the Setagaya Line, and walked toward the Keio Line tracks and approached a choice of two sets of stairs to climb - one for the local, one for the express.

They looked each other in the eyes and traded nods that no one on the planet but the other was supposed to ever understand.

And climbing the right-side set of stairs, and looking straight ahead, with monotone and purpose: “Chofu,” the one said. “Chofu,” said the other. “Hebiyama,” the one said. “Hebiyama,” said the other. “We won’t be late getting home,” the one said. “We won’t be late,” said the other.

“We’ll just walk by.”

“Just walk-on by.”

“And we’ll look,” the one said.

“And maybe find!” said the other.

Both thought about Inga Godotnova and both smiled their coach’s sad and knowing smile, catching brief glances of eye contact with each other, backing and squeezing their bodies and gear onto the express train for Chofu Station.

? ? ? ? ?

They walked along the black wall to their left of the bamboo forest of Hebiyama and watched a full moon come up over tall and distant apartment-complex buildings, the big moon orange and dim through clouds then bright then orange and dim again.

“Mom and Dad are missing . . .” said Susan with both wonder and worry.

“It’s just impossible. I can’t believe it.” said Katie.

“. . . and on the very same day. . .” continued Susan.

“…might not be anything.” said Katie.

“. . . appears a mysterious neighbor in Hebiyama?”

“Maybe we are getting a bit carried away here.” said Katie.

“. . . and a flautist! That is just too weird . . .” said Susan.

“Life is weird.” said Katie.

“. . . and apparently a composer of beautiful melody.”

Susan said.

“Who appears - well - not intending to appear at all.” said Katie.

“Yeah. Maybe you’re right. We’re almost home.”

said Susan.

“I’m seeing no candle lights or anything at all in Hebiyama.” said Katie slowly, “and hearing - wait a sec –” Katie continued… they stop for several seconds. “…just checking” she said, “…no foot steps either.”

“And no flute.” said Susan.

“And no daijoubu’s from the darkness!” Katie added.

And they giggled. Slightly. Nervously.

“Ah, it’s probably just a coincidence.” Katie said.

“He’s probably gone.” said Susan.

“Wish we were too.” said Katie, “hey, who’s car is that?”

“Yeah!” said Susan, “different from last night.”

“I hope it’s not somebody we don’t want to be nice to right now,” Katie said.

“Like who?” said Susan.

“Like you,” and Katie pushed her shoulder into her sister’s.

“I do believe you’re stuck with me for a while.” said Susan slightly joking.

And Katie nudging Susan’s shoulder again said, “Yeah. Thank heaven for that.”

They saw the front door swing open and ran the last several steps to hug Obá-chan together.

They walked with arms still around each other to the living room, and two men in dark blue suits and white shirts, Kaneko-san and Taya-san, stood up on the tatami mats in their stocking feet, and the girls politely exchanged their introductions.

At once and together, the five sat down on the floor on dark red mats scattered around the small square dining table in the room.

“These are representatives from the Japan Foreign Ministry. Obá-chan said.

“The ones from last night?”

“Different ones, Katie.” Taya-san said. “We’ll be your contact with the government as news about your parents progresses…” he added.

“What’s the latest.” said Susan in almost a whisper.

“Your brother, Jack, is also missing.” said Obá-chan.

“Huh? What? He’s in Arizona. In Sedona. Living at school.” the girls said together.

Obá-chan shook her head.

Kaneko-san began explaining, “The headmaster of the school reported him missing yesterday from class, and then missing from meals and homeroom, and bed check as well.”

“Oh come on. This is so dumb.” said Katie.

Susan just shook her head.

Obá-chan talked now, “He might not have been kidnapped… or taken. You know your brother, Jack,” she continued.

“…friends all over the world,” said Katie.

“…even in his own dorm room,” Susan said.

“Jack attends a boarding high school in Arizona.” Obá-chan explained to the government officials. “There are students from over 25 countries attending.” she continued. “He might have heard somehow… caught wind of something.”

“and split for Kashmir.” said Susan.

“Jack would do that.” said Katie.

“Jack would do that.” Susan said.

“Crazy brother. Now Jack to worry about too.” said Katie.

“Jack once ran away …” Obá-chan began explaining to the men.

“Oh?” the men said.

“To the north shore of Oahu. Good place to surf, so he claimed.” said Katie.

“How could he travel on his…” Taya-san started asking…

“Oh, he’s a rather resourceful young man, I’m afraid,” Obá-chan interrupted. “He brings letters, documents, seals, stamps, signatures. Whatever he needs.” she continued.

“Jack brings his silver-tongued self is what he does,” said Susan.

“We have his photo at every airport immigration office all over the world.” Kaneko-san explained.

“No.” said Katie. He’s probably there already.”

“Where?” the men asked.

“Kashmir. Like we said.” Katie added.

The men paused a moment. “I guess he’s had time to get there.” Kaneko-san admitted.

“But there is no record of his passport crossing . . .” Taya-san started to say.

“You don’t know Jack” said Obá-chan.

“He’s sixteen years old . . . well, seventeen at the end of the month,” Obá-chan explained.

“He’d do anything.” said Susan.

“And does.” Katie said.

“For precaution we’ll have a car outside to keep an eye on things.”

“And who’s going to be in it?” asked Katie.

“We are.” said the men.

“Hmmm.” the girls and Obá-chan nodded their heads.

“Last night we saw a . . .” Susan started saying and Katie interrupted, “Last night we saw your people pulling away in a car. . .”

“Well, thank you, gentlemen.” said Obá-chan, anticipating a possible end to the meeting.

“Yeah,” said Katie, thank you for caring.

Susan, just frowned and nodded her head in agreement.

The girls headed for their room.

“Are you crazy, we don’t know yet who that is in Hebiyama!” Katie said.

“Are you crazy, we could have been kidnapped already!” Susan countered.

“I don’t think so.” Katie said. “If that man wanted us, he could’ve gotten us last night.”

“We were running too fast.” said Susan.

“Don’t be naïve.” Katie said.

“Uh… how’d you suddenly get so smart.” Susan said.

“I just don’t think he is our enemy.” Katie said.

Susan threw her arms up in the air. “What are we talking about! He’s just some bum hanging out! Who’s now moved on.”

Katie and Susan dropped their bags on their bedroom floor.

“I got a little more homework to do.” said Katie.

“Me too and I don’t feel like doing it, and besides I’m hungry.” Susan said.

“I hope they stick around a while longer.” Susan continued.

“You know they’re not leaving,” Katie countered.

“I mean, you know, in the house.” Susan said.

“Why?” Katie asked.

“Katie? Let’s try something.” said Susan.

And Katie watched Susan walk over to the oil lamp and light it and turn off the fluorescent light above.

“Katie…” she whispered.

“Um, why are you whispering?”

“We have to try this.” Susan said.

“What?” asked Katie.

“Sit down at the piano… start playing Grandfather’s lullaby like I was doing. . .” Susan explained.

“That’s not going to work like last night.” Katie interrupted.

“So what if it doesn’t. We play it a lot anyway.” Susan paused. “Hey, we need to find out something about something, huh?… Let’s clear-up the curiosity, about the man in the woods.”

“And what are you going to …. ?” Katie started saying.

“Shhh,” Susan said. “Just start playing, Katie.”

“I don’t like this, Susan,” Katie said trying to stay quiet and trying to make a point. “What are you planning?”

Susan sat by the lamp glow where Katie sat last night.

And Katie began slowly, and with the sparest of chords, to play their dear lullaby.

And they both got lost in the sweet serenity, the sweet sadness of the melody that re-attached them now to their own pain and longing.

And after Katie played for a minute or two, they almost forgot they were listening for the sound of a flute.

“Oh my god.” they said at once. And the sound of the flute began playing along, the companion melody they heard last night.

“He’s there!” Katie said, her eyes huge in the glow, her throat muffling a squeal.

“Keep playing. Listen to what I have to say.” said Susan.

“I’m playing, Susan, but I’m not listening to you on this!”

“After thirteen years of living next door to this jungle,” Susan explained still whispering, “I think I know my way around a whole lot better than whoever it is hiding in there . . .” Susan went on, her own eyes growing bigger now, excitement spreading across the muscles of her mouth and forehead. “I can sneak above where the flute is coming from, maybe get an idea of who is there.”

And she paused and tugged with the fingers of both hands on the ends of her hair.

“No way.” Katie said. “You don’t do that. I don’t do that. That’s not going to happen.”

“Just keep playing,” Susan whispered again. “It’ll be a reconnaissance walk in park,” said Susan. And she began to pull a black turtle neck over her head.

“You stop right now, Susan.” Katie could hardly contain her voice.

“You keep him occupied with the lullaby,” Susan countered with a voice irritated and determined. “And I’ll check him out. Take me five, ten minutes.”

The girls continued to hear conversation in the living room.

Katie snapped her head and hair back and stared at the ceiling, her fingers still on the lullaby.

“Don’t just sit there. We have to do something, Katie. We don’t have much time!” Susan said.

Katie stopped playing.

Susan’s face grew furious at her sister.

“Give me that turtleneck!” Katie said.

“Keep playing!” said Susan.

“Give me that turtleneck, Susan. If you want to do this, Susan, fine. But I’m not playing any more. Now gimme that turtleneck!”

Susan took over at the piano still furious.

“What if you’re not back?!” Susan whispered almost aloud.

And Katie just stared at her sister, her anger flipping into fear.

Susan deliberately looked away now and Katie sneaked out the bedroom window like a ninja, without beacon and without sound.

Chapter 7 - Windows, songs, voices and hands.

________________________________________

Katie crouched and kept her head and shoulders under the spill of light. The jungle, Hebiyama was right there. Its blackness was not something you carefully approach:

Slip out the bedroom window, and you’re there.

Katie continued hearing the piano, the flute, her grandmother in polite and high octave voice still chattering away. She felt her socks and ankles grow cold and wet from dew, felt a single drop of sweat running down the ridges of her ribs, heard the drone of ten thousand bull frogs, and could smell the jungle in a new way.

If her eyes were opened any more they’d be falling right out of her head.

The chance of the flautist not being alone, with a small group maybe, produced a flash of fear: she could be snatched if he had somebody, some goon waiting just inside the wall of bamboo black.

She stayed crouched and moved along, knees bent, head up, ankles feeling strained, heart pounding and eyes focused out there, at nothing.

“Great.” she snickered, but on a lower level she hated it when she allowed this sort of sarcasm to vouch for feeling afraid.

“Right now fear is fear,” she thought. Right now there’s nothing much funny about it. You’re out here,” she thought, “Don’t screw up. Don’t get caught.”

“Yea right,” she interrupted herself..

“Dang. I gotta pee.” she thought.

“No I don’t. I just peed. Stop this nonsense.”

The moonlight scattered at random the thinnest of fingers of itself, eerie and pale blue beams, in apparition among the bamboo and never touching ground.

Heavy wings were flapping, arranging themselves seven, ten meters above, in nests: Jungle crow not accustomed to having human company, not even during daylight in these trees. “At least they can’t swoop down here in this thick mess…” she thought.

“The bullfrogs are so loud.” She tried remembering Obá-chan telling her about how the bull frogs were imported from America decades ago, Alabama bullfrogs.

Japan’s rice crop had failed and bullfrogs were food, bull frogs were protein, bullfrogs were breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Now… just a pain in the butt.

“We got them back, I guess, with kutsu.” She recalled reading about the invasion of kutsu, or kudzoo perhaps they call it there, in the southern states of America.

“Sorry, didn’t mean that,” she thought again . . . still swatting down thoughts. “What am I thinking about? Kutsu? Pay attention, Katie!”

The flute was thirty or forty meters due west of the house wall.

“I’ll crawl along the edge of black here, past the back of the house, then over the retaining wall, four feet high, piece a cake, up the hill about twenty meters, then west into the jungle. And I will go really slow. As quiet as a snake.”

She felt her heart pound now, “Oh god. Snakes! I forgot. Do snakes sleep? Snakes sleep like sheep, don’t they? like kittens?”

“Great.” said Katie again.

Katie crouched lower and slipped sideways into the jungle, holding herself up with her right hand, her right forearm sometimes.

“Oops, no room… Do right elbow, Katie!” She was silently coaching herself: “Left leg push, right arm pull, left hand grab, oh god, make sure its vegetable or mineral or anything at all but snake.”

Her body shivered at the thought.

“Right arm slide.” she continued. “Right foot drag and stop.” She shivered again - that gross feeling of yuck and fear - and moved again and shivered.

? ? ? ? ?

This government land had been sectioned off forever, as far as Katie knew, even during the Edo Period, when the Emperor lived in Kyoto, the old capital of Japan, when a handful of Daimyo – land barons – ruled the world.

“Perhaps one of the Tokugawa Shoguns made this a park,” Katie and Susan would speculate from time to time.

In this solitary seven acres of bamboo forest, in the thick of suburban Tokyo here was a habitat unique to the greater part of Tokyo, and the Kanto Plain.

There were birds and snakes and insects in Hebiyama that you would never see for a good 70 kilometers in all directions.

? ? ? ? ?

“Keep on playing that pipe,” Katie whispered to herself. “He’s gotta be down there about twenty yards, if I could only see.” She tried to imagine the depth and distance inside her mind.

The piano stopped playing. And in a single measure stopped the flute.

“What are you doing, Susan!” Katie said with her eyes.

“Katie-Susan!”

“Susan-Katie!” Obá-chan was yelling.

“Oh my god, Obá-chan is calling us.”

And again, “Katie-Susan. Susan-Katie!”

“Say something Susan!” Katie whispered harshly.

“Yes Obá-chan? Did you want something?” Susan responded.

“Would you girls come here a moment… the men from the Japan Foreign Ministry would like to ask you a few more questions.”

Katie’s jaw dropped and she suddenly exhaled.

“Just a minute Obá-chan! I’m helping Katie with her math! We almost got it.”

“Do finish … but hurry girls! We are keeping these men waiting!”

Katie’s moved her neck in a “no” and looked around, trying to remember exactly where she heard the flute.

“Not there. Not there. Not there. Oh great. Must be right down there. Not one finger of pale blue moonbeam in those five square meters just down there.”

Katie crawled in that direction. And she felt someone grab her hand.

“Don’t scream.” spoke a soft voice.

Katie made a quick motion with her arm and body to get away.

“Don’t move. Don’t worry. Your sister is on her way.”

? ? ? ? ?

Minutes passed inside while Obá-chan waited with the two men from the Japan Foreign Ministry. “I’ll go check on them.” Obá-chan said.

She returned to the living room, her hands covering her face.

“They’re both gone.” she shook her head.

As a starter, Hammad shares some pages of his diary in the introduction to this book with his readers. He says that on a visit to Karachi he found dust on Quaid’s Tomb with vultures’ hovering around the tomb. In the city of Karachi he found sea on one side and wilderness on the other. He thought that it was a city cut from the mainstream reality. As a poet he must have felt lonely. This reviewer remembers poet Syed Younis Ijaz’s line here that ‘Sheher Ho Jitna Bara Utni Bari Tanhaiyan’. The larger is the city the enormous is the loneliness, it offers. Hammad must have said a small poem ‘Terey Dard Sey’ is such a mood. He says ‘Mera Seena/ Agar Aatish Fashan Hota/ To Ab Tak Phat Gaya Hota’ (page 128). Brevity and saying a lot in it is Hammad’s forte who says poetry both in Nazm and Ghazal format in easy diction. He avoids metaphors, is direct in expression and uses the terminology of everyday life of this modern age. On page 47, Hammad says that his dreams are like the pots of a pot maker that get shattered easily. He says ‘Merey Sapney/ Kisi Nau-Umr Koozagar Key Koozey Hain/ Jo Aksar Toot Jaatey Hein’.

Love, like many other poets is theme of some of Hammad’s poetry as well. In his poem titled ‘Muhabbat Ki Afaaqi Nazm’, he says that everything is mortal except love that is immortal. It turns black nights into days. It repulses all the evils. It melts the hearts of stones. Sometimes it appears in the form of butterflies and sometimes in the form of fireflies. Sometimes it appears in the shape of grown hair of the old and sometimes in the hands of a mother. The concluding Para of this poem is very catchy. It says ‘Koi Gehrey Dukhon Ki Khaai Mein Girney Hi Wala Ho/ Muhabbat Aagey Barh Kar Apni Jaanib Khainch Lati Hei…’. Traditionally love is the story of meeting and departing. It is the basis of life. Love therefore is immortal. In another poem titled ‘Mujhey Tum Sey Muhabbat Hei’ (page 69), Hammad expresses his love without restraint. Initially he could not express his love freely but then girdles up all his courage and pours out his heart to his beloved. The format that he uses to do so is poetry. He says ‘So Ab Raqs Kartey, Jheenptey Misron Mein/ Haal-e-Dil Samota Hun/ Koi Jaisey Wuzoo Kar Key, Muqadas Baat Karta Ho/ Yeh Kehta Ho/ Mujhey Tum Sey Muhabbat Hei’. Hammad is also proud of the contributions of writers. He says in his Ghazal on page 72 that the custodians of pen must not be treated lightly as they seldom appear in this world but when they do they change the destinies of nations. He says ‘Samey Key Dard Ka Daaroo Hein Hum Qalam Waley/ Zameen Key Zakhmon Peh Hum Aisey Log Marham Hein’. He is also aware of the loneliness of a poet when he says that somebody had termed him mentally unstable. He says ‘Kisi Majzoob Ney Mujh Sey Kaha Tha/ Keh Too Diwana Hei, Tanha Rahey Ga’.

Music appears in his poetry too. In a Ghazal on page 79 he used musical vocabulary to express his sentiments. He says ‘Koi Tujh Jaisa Lagey Daikheney Mein Laakh Magar/Terey Malhaar Sey Lehjey Mein Kahan Bolta Hei!’. Hammad like any conscious youngster of this country is aware of the burning problems of the society. On the business of selling of one’s kidneys for money out of poverty and the clients making best of the helpless of the sellers, he has said a wonderful poem titled ‘Organ Transplantation’. He proposes lending his eyes instead of his kidneys such that one could dream of a better world instead. He concludes ‘Khwab Khushboo Hei To Tabeer Hawa Ki Soorat/ Khwab Insaan Hei To Tabeer Khuda Ki Soorat’.

Hammad says a lot about the present state of affairs in the globe at large and of his country in particular. If the stress put by the State on the masses regarding inflation, ever rising prices of eatables, petrol, gas and electricity raises with no respite in the offing, with no hope for producing cheap energy from water reservoirs etc, he feels that asking for a respite for the masses from the leaders is like asking for moon. The concluding lines of his poem ‘Kab Aaeye Ga Sultani Jamhoor Ka Mausam’ (page 97) are indicators of a horrifying time to come. He says ‘ Kaf-e-Takhreeb Sey Umeed Karta Hoon/ Main Goya Yaum-e-Aashura Ko Yaum-e-Eid Karta Hoon’. So, he prays to God to give him enough courage to protest and he says so in the small poem titled ‘Sakoot-e-Marg Taari Hei’ (page 99). He asks the Almighty to give him strength to speak as consistent control on his emotions might blast of his chest. He says ‘Kahin Seena Na Phat Jaey/ Kisi Talwar Si Berabt Saanson Sey/ Kahin Meri Reg-e-Jaan Hi Na Kat Jaey’. Sustaining the pressures too have a limit no matter whether G8 sit in seven star hotels and try to resolve the food riots situations in Africa and on such emerging situation as we are witnessing in Asia or speculators raising the oil prices. Where are we leading our world to?

Farideh Mahdavi Damghani will translate the book into French and Iran’s cultural attaché in Canada will sponsor the English version. The head of the Centre of Persian and Central Asian Studies of the New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, Akhtar Mehdi is translating the book into Urdu and, once completed, the Urdu version will be distributed in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

Iran’s cultural attaché in Tashkent will publish the Urdu version of the book that is now being translated by Shakirjan Alamov. Published by Madreseh Publications, the theme of the book is the life of Prophet Muhammad (S). Hassanbeigi’s book for elementary school children entitled “Golden Fish and Silver Fish” was translated into Turkmen by Maral Batirova and published in Turkmenistan recently.

Introduction

Tokyo Twins looks at two issues -

what the roots of terrorism are, and what the end of terrorism might be.
One new chapter, in both text and audio, will be posted each week to Pakistan Times.

Tokyo Twins - Chapters 4 & 5 - mp3 audio

The girls did lightning fast rounds of rock-scissors-paper to divvy-up their chores, and Obá-chan went into her bedroom and sat upon the tatami mat with her back against the wall to let drain “oh please let drain” the ghost of fear and panic now seizing her body and soul.

The disappearance of Henry and Mieko O’Brien in Kashmir would hit the news in 24 hours, so say the two gentlemen from the Foreign Ministry of Japan.

It didn’t matter to Obá-chan that it would hit all at once and all around the world.

The problem she simply could not face right now was telling Katie and Susan.

She knew in her own life what sudden losses were. Loved ones. Family. Here today. Then here no more.

She was in her early teenage years living in Tokyo during the Second World War.

She pondered through the years her memories of fear and loss and hopelessness. Were they now all the more hidden inside her, or were they wearing themselves away?

Tonight, the answer came.

For Obá-chan and every surviving Japanese these were the utmost of private matters. Not even with your older sister, would you bring the topic up. There was too much work to do. And way too much to sort through.

And now this sudden devastation: Mieko and Henry were missing in Kashmir.

Her state of shock was digging up fresh her ancient despair and suffering and loneliness.

She had escaped inside her bedroom to gather strength and just the opposite was happening now.

How could she find and form the words to explain to Katie and Susan?

Without invitation, without intention, her past was roaring itself to life, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She cracked open a bottle of shochu - rice whiskey and poured a half a glass. And slipped her hand inside her bottom chest of drawers pulling out a cigarette from her secret place.

How could she find and form the words to tell Susan and Katie, she thought again.

Then her mind got captured by the past.

Obá-chan had three younger brothers and an older sister – five children in the household during the war.

The first two brothers, it seemed, survived unscarred the misery of those four years.

At the end of 1945 they were ten and twelve years old–and now both leaders in television broadcasting, an industry then unimagined, but made real over night by physics as physics made real—yet faster—The Bomb.

But it was a gradual and growing wreckage that invaded the life of Kenji, the family’s baby boy.

Kenji was five years old at the end of the war. Unable to talk… well he stuttered, stuttered himself speechless. Unable to play with others. Unable to demonstrate or even show signs of how or what he was feeling.

Not after the war.

Kenji was fine at birth, fine at three years old, a perfectly normal Japanese toddler. Happy, expressive and aware. Always smiling. Sensitive for a young child to the needs and well being of everyone – family, friends, even those in the neighborhood we didn’t care for much.

Kenji got lost one night. It was summer 1944.

For safety, we were changing locations – walking, the whole family – to a cousin’s house miles away, to avoid what most of us long feared: that our own neighborhood was the likely and imminent bull’s-eye for new bombs.

Just so happened we were right.

Little Kenji, four years old, got lost along the way, and somehow followed the tracks we had hiked for miles and made his way back home.

Kenji was found the next day buried in the rubble of the bombing of our home, alone, severely hurt, severely awake, aware of all that transpired from moment to moment – the violence and destruction, the flames and heat all around him, the unceasing explosions, the deadly loud noise of neighbors in pain–put viscously upon the only world he knew.

The events hit Kenji like a meteor leaving its footprint for godknows how long.

Kenji shut down badly, more and more so with the passing days and months and years.

Nobody said anything, but everybody knew.

Some of us could still see the old Kenji-light somewhere in his eyes, the old Kenji-wit and humor and love. But these beautiful ways he had of being himself, a joyful little boy, stayed hidden deep inside.

At 16, without saying good-bye – it was 1956 – Kenji hopped an ocean freighter in Tokyo Bay, and left Japan, (could it be 50 years ago already?) and we never heard from him again.

“Obá-chan, daijoubu?” Susan stuck her head half-way inside the bedroom door.

“Come in, Susan. Come in and sit here on my lap like you use to do… You too, Katie. Come in girls, let’s get close.”

“Obá-chan, we know you’re not feeling well, so we made your dinner. It’s there at the dining room table.” said Susan.

And tears welled-up in Obá-chan’s eyes, and rolled in slow motion down her cheeks, then over a delicate and feeling smile somehow finding form.

“You kids eat?” Obá-chan slowly asked.

“Hmm.” Katie and Susan nodded their heads.

A long pause came down upon them, and the three sat quietly in the dark.

“Katie and Susan?”

“Yes?” the girls responded.

“Obá-chan needs to tell you something.”

Chapter 5 - Mourning and mystery on Hebiyama.

__________________________________________

Katie and Susan and Obá-chan huddled and cuddled around one other to absorb, to grieve, to reject as impossible the news of their loved ones missing in Kashmir.

Obá-chan suggested the girls stay home tomorrow away from the uncertainty and chaos surely to hound them from well meaning friends, from media from within their own minds.

They had never missed a day of school before, not a single one, nor a day of Shintaiso practice, and “tomorrow”, Katie and Susan said, “would not be the first.”

The girls retired to their room. And Katie did some homework by the light of an oil lamp lit for comfort and for quiet, while Susan sat at the piano and began to slowly and quietly play the very first song her father Henry O’Brien had taught her at the age of six, and her own tears broke new ground in her feelings of loss compelling more tears from Katie.

The melody Susan played, became the words spoken between sisters and these were words enough – this lullaby passed down to her through her father, passed down to her father by his own, who wrote the melody in Des Moines, Iowa, 70 years ago.

Some minutes passed by when softly appeared another melody. Maybe from the radio in Obá-chan’s room?

The girls looked around and at each other.

No.

This melody, harmonizing and weaving measure for measure over the lullaby Susan played, a soft solo sound from some kind of flute, floated quietly and on key out of the black of Hebiyama through their opened bedroom window into the golden glow of their room.

These melodies, unlikely companions, induced the girls to peace of mind, to feelings of exhaustion to futons on the floor, and sweetly and subtly to sleep.

? ? ? ? ?

Where the national forest begins at the O’Brien household property line, a mere one meter from its west brick wall, the stranger in Snake Mountain (Hebiyama) whose voice the girls had heard that same evening on their way home had spent the earlier part of the day making a nest about 40 meters away in a thick and impenetrable thatch of bamboo.

He cut out a small clearing with a machete knife, dividing out in stacks the solid bamboo stalks for vectoring from those a bit more flexible for shaping from those a lot more flexible for lashing from those brand new for food.

The solid bamboo stalks for vectoring became foundation and floor and walls laid out in pentagon, in diameter the length of his body and half again.

He then trimmed and cut and lined up in ratio, like making angels in the snow, a pattern of chords from the flexible stalks for a geodesic dome. Weaving for a few hours more in the afternoon a bamboo roof of some organic half moon, he lashed this unlikely sturdy top to the foundation and walls and floor.

Then sitting back with a smile and a sigh he welcomed himself in silence to home-sweet home.

He took from his sack a bottle of water, and also a bottle of mayonnaise labeled “Kyupi”, and sat down and enjoyed a banquet of H2O and bamboo shoots dipped in the local mayo.

After his evening meal the man took a walk in the woods in darkness and spotted Katie and Susan O’Brien returning home, and he naturally offered a “daijoubu”, inquiring about the well-being of his two special young neighbors who passed by nearly unnoticed, and upon hearing his voice suddenly ran away.

And later in the evening he began to hear an exquisite and simple melody plucked gently on a piano nearby, so he took from his pack his well worn flute and with improvisation played along for a while.

And with his final chore of the day, nearly forgotten by these transporting and companion melodies on piano and flute, the man retrieved a cell phone from his bag, and to his team on the other end reported, “I’m all set-up. Let’s spread the party out.”

? ? ? ? ?

The next morning the girls awoke to a quandary of determination and unbearable loss.

A determination to make it through the long day ahead, then seek out before bedtime, to meet face-to face the mysterious flautist of Snake Mountain.

Yet sadness hung dragging from their will power like anchors dropped many and deep into a harbor of anxiety and too heavy for the bottom of that sea.

Introduction

Tokyo Twins looks at two issues -

what the roots of terrorism are, and what the end of terrorism might be.
One new chapter, in both text and audio, will be posted each week to Pakistan Times.

Tokyo Twins-Chapter 3-mp3 audio
Chapter 3 - Unseeing a gathering storm.

Katie and Susan O’Brien negotiated their bodies and school backpacks and Shintaiso gear through the maze of commuters on the train at Chofu Station and stepped onto the station platform and into a lesser maze and put their footsteps on autopilot for the twenty-minute walk home.

“Mom and Dad will be …” said Susan, half wondering…

“…back tomorrow night,” Katie said.

“Been a long three weeks without them.” said Susan.

“Yeah… hope they weren’t kidding when they promised this would be their last long trip together.” said Katie.

“Better be.” Susan said.

“What is it in Kashmir anyway?”

“Sweaters.” Susan chuckled.

“Yeah, it’s like: ‘my Mom and Dad spent three weeks in Kashmir and all I got was this cashmere t-shirt’,” Katie joked and gave a twin’s nudge with her shoulder into the shoulder of her sister.

“Hey, don’t start.” said Susan.

“I thought we were doing the local train tonight,” said Katie, “ya know, get off at Fuda Station so we wouldn’t have to walk past Hebiyama…”

“I know. I forgot.” said Susan.

“Me too… ‘til now.” Katie said.

“Well, we’ll walk fast, and hey, the full moon’s out tonight. I love seeing how the moon reflects off the water in the rice paddies.” said Susan.

“Me too. Not something we get to see very often…” Katie said.

“Yep, only now… late spring…” said Susan.

“Just when the bull frogs are mating.” Katie said.

“Guess they like this time of year as much as we do.” said Susan.

“I’m hearing them already.” Katie said.

“Yeah me too - half mile away.” Susan said. “Noisy little things.”

“Just one singing bullfrog close to your bedroom window…” Katie said.

“They have us outnumbered a million to one, Katie chan.” Susan interrupted. “Don’t encourage ‘em.”

“We should ‘a got off at Fuda Station.” Katie said.

“Let’s not think about it.” Said Susan.

“Think about what?” Katie said pushing her shoulder into her sister’s again.

“I can’t remember.” said Susan.

“Then why are you walking so fast.” Katie said. “Hey, whatever the rumors are about Hebiyama… who cares?”

Susan was silent for a bit. “Me. I care.”

Katie released a quick sigh. “Yeah me too. Well, there it is… coming up… a hundred meters ahead… our wonderful and mysterious bamboo forest, Hebiyama.”

“Oh stop it. You’re scaring both of us.” Susan said.

The girls became quiet now, vigilant, absorbing the blackness of the bamboo forest of Hebiyama now spreading out beside them for hundreds of meters to the left and to the very edge of the road they walked.

Whatever or whoever was in there would only have to reach a single length of an arm to snatch them into the dark.