Onogoroshima

From treasured annals of the Kojiki, to the hallowed tales of the Nihon Shoki, on an island named Onogoro far from the lands of the rising sun, where the whipping winds are overeager and the waves are high, there sits a palace of two halves. A curious fog wraps around this place. It is not a place of mortal men, nor have the likes of men ever set foot here. But today it will play home to guests who have come for a tea ceremony enormously long in the making, for the male god Izanagi-no-Mikoto to invite his sister-wife Inazami-no-Mikoto back to his living realm.

The fog breathes steady as though it is a beast. Within it the palace sits lonely and desolate; though one half is well-maintained, the other, split down the middle, is rotted and abandoned, falling apart along once beautiful palisades, their magnificence tarnished. In a circle around them are great oak columns, wider than a man, that hold up the weight of the roof. The wood of them is weathered and old and dark with rain. Once perhaps they would have been bright with color but the paint has washed away with the years. Then, at last, in the center of the open courtyard there is an enormous heavenly pillar—ama no mihashira—reaching up into the sky, its stone mass ancient and imposing, carrying what looks to be dried blood spilt on the base of its haft.

On a raised stone dais a wooden chabudai sits, upon which is set a small jade teapot and two earthenware cups. On one side, here in waiting, kneels a man, or at least what looks to be a man. Figure slim, and his features are vibrant and pretty. His eyes are closed, and at his side is the jeweled spear, Tenkei, and a slim ten-grasp sword. In the fog he seems at peace with the world, almost as though silently reciting a norito, as though nothing can phase him. Any onlooker would not be able to distinguish him from the palace surroundings.

Suddenly he turns as if he hears something.

From behind one of the columns a woman, or what looks to be, steps. She is terribly beautiful. It is a proud sort of beauty, because she knows she is beautiful indeed, and even more so now that she knows that she knows she is beautiful. It is the sort of beauty which throws all other things into relief because even the sun and moon in their ways and woes and moods could not compare one mote to this woman. And all beings of the dirt know of beauty as subjective and fleeting but all beings by exception bow and know that she alone must be most beautiful.

So it goes. Izanami-no-Mikoto wears a white silken kimono that draws down to her feet and she moves as though she were floating. And as she does, the palace surrounding warps and twists and begins to rot into wet ash. Facing this terrifying woman of effortless beauty the man at the chabudai smiles as if she were nothing but a tree and he turns towards that tree and speaks.

–Perhaps even eternal beauty does not begin to describe you.

She hears him.

–Do not try and tempt me with words, swindler. I know your black heart.

–How long has it been, dearest? The man’s voice is calm, palm-flat against the edge of his teeth.

She, the sister, is haughty, as so she should be. Her nose is high and pointed and she gives a derisive, decisive snort. –Evidently not long enough, it seems. How unfortunate it is to see you so soon, brother.

–And not once in these many years has my fiery-loined sister declined the invitation to meet here, in this place, smiles the man. –Is it really so unfortunate as you say?

–Bite your tongue, swine. The woman closes her eyes. –You should be more than grateful I deigned to accept your offering in the first place.

The man laughs, and it is clear as river-water. –You know I am always happy to invite you, sister.

He gestures, almost triumphantly.

–Shall we sit? For tea?

The woman does not speak but she allows herself to move up the dais where her brother-husband awaits and kneels facing him, on the other side of the chabudai.

The man smirks. I suppose we’ve since learned the proper order of things, haven’t we?

Suddenly Izanami seethes. –Do not remind me of such unpleasantness. I will string you up by your testicles, drag you back to my realm, and feed you to my handmaidens.

Izanagi is solemn, concerned. –You still cannot forgive me?

–Who could forgive you? The woman raises the hem of her sleeve to her mouth.

–Trust a goddess to remember so vividly the mistakes of a younger god.

–I am not so petty, fool. Bring the tea.

Suddenly before their eyes materialize the instruments for a full tea ceremony that move as though manipulated by an unseen force. Hot water in a mizusashi, or water container, is placed atop a brazier settled into the ground. A floating silk scarf swaddles the tea caddy and tea scoop, both wiped down in silence. The whisk is purified with water. The chawan, or tea bowl, is cleansed with linen, and two scoops of matcha are placed inside. Hot water from atop the brazier is poured into the chawan and the whisk is used to mix the tea.

Once cooled Izanagi offers the tea to his sister-wife. She partakes of it sparingly and elegantly and lets the taste meld into her throat.

–You bring good tea.

–Only the finest for you, my dear.

She drinks again.

–Our people. They are well?

–My, my. Does my ever stone-hearted sister care indeed for the lives of her monkey children?

–They are our descendants, heathen.

–And yet you must take them from me.

She laughs merrily. –If just to spite you.

–Must you always? He looks at her and it is a look of some pity.

–You know it is the way of things.

–My people are no longer as virile as they once were, sister, yet you take more and more each passing day.

Izanami smiles coldly. –That is not any of my concern.

–You would see your descendants die out just to spite me?

She scoffs. –I relive the shame of those days I spent with you, the shame of what you did to me, and it makes things easier.

The atmosphere is cool now, and the fog has calmed down to a lull. Izanagi and Izanami sip from their earthenware cups and sample from a selection of finely crafted wagashi sweets that have appeared in front of them by the chabudai.

–What news is there from the mortal lands?

–There was a war. Some time back.

–Oh, yes. I remember it well. They poured to my realm in droves. Izanami smiled and looked at her brother. –Suffering in fury and fire and brimstone. Two entire cities annihilated by the very power of the atom, by foreign fiends who flew across the sea.

–Enough.

Izanami spoke again, amused that she had finally obtained the upper hand.

–Do you despair, brother, when you see them die in such number by their own hand?

Izanagi sighed. –What can I do, when we are the ones who gave them such gifts?

–When we begot them did you ever think they would be capable of such cruelty?

–No. They are unlike our other children in that way.

–Hah! Even my brother, so-called champion of the living, cannot stand to see the apes blow themselves to pieces as they are wont to do.

–They do seem to have an utterly endless disregard for themselves and for the world they inhabit.

–Indeed. Give them all to me, brother, let me take of them as I please—

–I cannot.

–What?

–I cannot.

Izanami places her earthenware cup down on the chabudai.

–Why not? she asks through pursed lips.

Izanagi closes his eyes and grips tightly the Tenkei which stands proudly at his side.

–They are interesting, no?

–Who? The apes?

–Yes.

The woman takes some time to think.

–In groups, perhaps. The individuals rarely possess wherewithal to do much themselves.

–But they have a quality none other of our offspring possess.

Izanami scoffs again. –Look what they do to the world we have made for them. Oil slicks and acid rain; fetid, unpotable water. Sacred animals bred and slaughtered by the hundreds of millions. Smoke chokes the skies, ecosystems run amok. You would have them ruin the very foundations of the earth we have so painstakingly brought about just to satisfy your curiosity?

–Is it not their right?

–You old fool. Izanami gritted her teeth, truly angry. –Were it not for me, our misbegotten children would have already torn this realm asunder, if it meant a path to quicker coin.

Izanagi-no-Mikoto waves his hand and the instruments of their little tea ceremony, the mizusashi and chawan and tea scoops and whisks instantly prepare a second batch of tea. He looks at her and for once there is doubt in his eyes.

–Some fight to sustain their world, he says.

–Some.

–It may be enough.

–Who is to say? Izanami smiles and reveals her beautiful white teeth.

–Do you have not hope for them?

–Since they first spread the seeds of their expansion across the lands of our children, the kami, and the great islands we forged I have never had hope. Even with Hiruko, our firstborn, though imperfect, I felt a mother’s love and a desire that someday he could amount to something beyond his station. She paused. –And I was right, as you know. But these apes—

–Perhaps you are right. Perhaps.

Izanami looks at her brother. –Why do you hold out such hope for them?

–I do not know myself.

–I do not believe you.

Izanagi sighs.

–Listen, sister. Do you know them, as I know them? Have you watched them through the eons as I have? Each of their fragile existences is only a moment in our time and I have seen in my years all of what our people have to offer. Despite the destruction, there is good. I have seen it. They have a beauty and a goodness that is difficult to understand, difficult to replicate, and I cannot consign them all to the dust heap simply because of their more unfortunate tendencies.

Izanami is aghast. –More unfortunate tendencies? They rape the earth!

–This is true, love. I do not dispute it. They are single-minded, obsessed little creatures who cannot separate the wheat from chaff. But every so often one or two of them sacrifices their limited time to create something sublimely beautiful, art even we must recognize.

–And that is enough?

–They can change, sister. I have seen the belligerent tribe who began that nasty little war mellow to a nation of pacifists and industry. I have seen the efforts made by many to sustain their homelands and livelihoods even as they pursue commerce on a scale unseen in history. I have seen many things, sister, but none so hopeful as their capacity for change. Izanagi let his free hand fall to his hip. –If you do not believe me, believe in that.

At this Izanami paused and looked into her brother’s eyes. Even in the fog his eyes were clear as the calm sea, as the fresh-driven snow.

–And you believe they will make the right changes. You will stake your name on it? Your very existence? asks the woman.

–If I must.

–You have such faith.

–I do.

–Tell me what you see, then. Who provides you with such a notion that someday, somehow, everything will turn out all right in the end?

The man closes his eyes.

–I see a girl.

–Is she from our land? asks the woman.

–Once, the man answers. –Her father’s father was born there.

–It’s rare that you take an interest in such things, brother, she points out, taking her earthenware cup within her fingers and from it drinking of the new tea. –What is it she does that so begets your attention?

–It is nothing she does, sister, the man concedes. –It is simply the way she is. She lives.

–Many live. As well you should know. Have you already forgotten we two are whom first brought forth that right? asks the woman. Her tone is high and angered, scraping the bowl of her throat.

–And though we have, dear sister, does that give us the right to intrude upon her life because it is we who bestowed it upon her?

Izanami sighs.

–What is it about this girl, then? Why do you care?

–She writes poetry.

–Great, epic poetry? About the gods of her grandfather’s land?

–No, simple poetry. Poetry of her own, forged of her own experience. Raw and untapped and patently unread. Of a new land, far across the oceans. She is young and somewhat pretty, and so her life is weighed in words.

–That is it? She does not even know of us. She has long forgotten, in her new home accepting the ways of that land’s pagan gods and idols.

–As had her ancestors already. Let them believe what they will. Are you so petty you would not entertain that possibility?

–She will never appreciate us. What we have done for her, for them.

–What have we need for appreciation?

Izanami pauses.

–You really think this girl will change my mind?

–When you come to know all of them, she will. You will understand that the beauty she manufactures is only one of a thousand, a hundred thousand, a hundred million. That our people are all capable of these great things, that they have the capacity for love and a diminished, yet altogether powerful gift of creation. Izanagi smiles. –We are not the only ones, you know.

–So you will let them be.

–I will.

–Fine.

–You agree, then?

–I do not. But I will not push the subject further.

–That is alright with me.

–I will continue to take my thousand into Yomi every day.

–And I will try desperately to bring a thousand five hundred into the world.

Izanami laughs at this, and it is a clear, bell-like laugh that causes her features to scrunch beautifully. –Eventually you will lose this battle. I need only wait.

–That may be.

–And when they have less numbers there will be less need for you and I to care about what they do to the earth.

–Also true.

Suddenly Izanami-no-Mikoto stops and looks at her brother-husband squarely.

–In your age do you regret the course of things?

–What do you mean?

–Do you miss me, Izanagi?

Izanagi smiles and sips his tea, which has almost gone cold.

–Always.

Surprised, Izanami brings the hem of her sleeve up to her mouth again, to block Izanagi from seeing her expression.

–It is good to see you.

–Oh?

–Do not make me repeat myself.

–I will not. I just did not see my sister as so sentimental.

–Izanagi, you swine—

–It is good to see you as well.

There is much silence now throughout the palace, around the heavenly pillar and up on the stone dais where the two sit across from each other. Faraway the sounds of the sea can be heard, the breaking waves on the shore and the rushing winds through the rocks where the hardy trees grow thick and lush.

Izanagi is first to speak.

–Know that I regret everything that happened in those early heady days when I was yet a young, hot-headed god.

–I understand.

–The pain and anger I felt when you died and left me still harrows me to this day, sister. I slew our newborn son Kagatsuchi in a rage for what he had done to you and journeyed to Yomi to bring you back. You cannot fault my intent, at the very least.

–I know.

Izanagi sighs.

–I wonder day after day if I could have retrieved you from the depths of the underworld had I not been shaken at the sight of you. If we could have returned to those oh-so pretty times we spent together, before being cruelly ripped apart.

The woman considers and does not speak. Izanagi continues.

–It has been utter toil without you.

Suddenly Izanami cannot bear to hear it anymore and she stands and makes a motion to leave.

–Farewell, brother. I will see you when you care to invite me again.

Izanagi stands too, to see her off.

–You too, when you care to accept my invitation.

The fog breathes steady as though it is a beast. Izanami-no-Mikoto floats down the dais toward the half of the palace she had come from and pauses for a moment beside one of the columns. Looking back she stares back at her brother-husband with tears in her eyes. Then she moves behind the column and disappears.

Izanagi-no-Mikoto watches her go and waits for a moment before he too steps down the dais, leaving behind the wooden chabudai and the instruments of the expired tea ceremony. He walks forward through a pair of columns surrounding the courtyard and also, like the air, disappears.