His hands were working, arranging, delicately slicing and building creations behind the bar. “You have been chosen for your strength of mind and of character, a mission unknown, an evil unseen. You are to leave at first light, but first, with this next Hassun course you are filled with the magic of this place around you and charged with something to fight for.”
Then he produced something my little brain couldn’t have concocted on its own and will likely never again. On one side of an uneven grassy-green platter was a series of red-bulbed firefly traps, they trembled slightly before me and after a moment, opened up to reveal small bites of various sea-born delights. The other side of the dish held a curving mound of cracked ice planted with tiny crystal cups that held bits of simmered and cooled field vegetables. A hit of sweet rice vinegar tickled my nose while tiny candles and shaved gold leaves sprinkled around the platter completed an otherworldly scene.
“You lay in the fields of warm tall grass and it sways and dances around you with a light wind.” Arai’s arms folding back around his kimono. “As the sun falls deeper into slumber, fireflies awaken and explore the bits of space in the field around you.”
The candles flickered from behind the red bulbs, re-enacting the capture of those tiny sprites. Gold leaves shimmered and sparkled within the embankment of ice and off of the buffed jade platter. I watched in awe as each of these components activated on different planes, at different times as if completely erratic like the flight of a firefly.
“They are as curious as you are, watching themselves conduct their orchestra in the reflection of your eyes. Their playfulness reminds you of the safety of your village, the innocence of childhood, the armor of youth.”
He invited me to explore and taste from the red flower bulbs and crystal cups, and as I did an extraordinary thing happened. I was transported in a vision, laying amongst the long grass in the backyard of my childhood home. Staring up at the clouds staring back down to me from stupid shapes like ducks eating ducks or upside-down volcanoes. I was in my old world, tracing the sky with my finger as I often did before I found something more permanent to sketch with. Then the silence was broken beyond the screen door that led into the kitchen where my Mom and dad were arguing.
“Don’t you want more?” her voice pleaded, “don’t you want to do something with your life, don’t you want to travel the world and have nice things, and be somebody?”
My dad’s voice rarely broke above barely audible, but in this vision, he was as clear as a bell. He said calmly but with weight, “I am not your father, and you are not your mother. I want our life. I like our life.”
The grass swayed in the warm winds, the screen door vanished, the clouds disappeared, the vision ended.
I blinked and there were fireflies glimmering all around.
“And so,” Aira spoke, “the armor of youth and the spontaneity of fireflies give way to the harsh realization that the journey is one to be marched alone.” With a nod he lifted his sake cup, “So you wait for the first light of dawn to push you onward.”
An excerpt from somewhere deep within The Sushi Prophecies