#mehcy's excerpts of 2021

[lookotherway]

2021 writing summary !!

note#1: not really, just want to recount if i have been writing anything good this year since i’m just back in august.

note#2: i have never made public any of these, though maybe in the next year i will. most of them are from different fics.

note#3: order from newest to oldest. not the whole fic, but excerpts━ the parts that i can accept, as a method to cope with my past self and in order to move on to another year, better year.

no.1  ━━ in leaden cage

His caretakers were sage, perspicacious. They shaped him. They taught him how to face the dead in their own different ways. Live past the knives, bullets and shadows and he did, he lived. Enough that he wouldn’t be down on his knees with demented tears while rocking his breathless lungs. Just one thing they forgot was to teach him how to deal with the part of him that was gouged out together with the dead on his hands; if otherwise, he would have known this hollowness is shapeless yet demanding with mangled teeth, he would have known the fear of silence and imbalance when the world tilted at the less of ten-men weight on a Monday night, 1:07 AM and he would have known you beforehand, you and this strange, unknown, asphyxiated rattling throb behind his rib cage. If otherwise, he should have known that he would be a killer sitting next to another killer, you, in this closed black box running on a slowly-revolving world, parading in adult suits—eighteen was him and you, he pieced back the bluish picture of your blue plastic license and— nineteen was you. No alcohol.

no.2  ━━ sing it, the manifesto

She brought the package indoors, tore it open, same things, same name, same address, and for the next few days the only things she took out were the red-covered book and the card the shipper had told her. No, she didn’t read it. It began with ‘Sonada-san…’ and that’s all enough. She didn’t read it. She wouldn’t. Instead, she flipped the pages of the book. She retired into bedroom. She went to work. She pretended that the package and the rest of the things inside didn’t exist upon a part floor of her small living room.

Three weeks later, a call came in the middle of her baking. She didn’t know the number, she didn’t know who was on the other side. She didn’t know she would entertain the call that long. She, too, didn’t understand what kind of intriguing conversation held her grounded on her spot for two hours. Her skin must be green and blue, from the jarring weather or the content of the call, she didn’t know. But the other baker came out to call her only to frown at her. Concern laced in his voice when he leaned over, asking if she’s okay. She didn’t, logically. But she also didn’t think she had ever been okay for the last three years. Her colleague gave her the rest of the day, said he would call the manager for her. “Go home,” he said, nothing of a command. She rooted on spot.

no.3  ━━ your voices in unison

With fourteen heavy strokes, the name Shimura is never made for a place such as an orphanage. It’s gravely indicated in the first letter: 志 as ‘the mind of a soldier' and ‘the position where one sets one’s soul’, bearing two-thirds of the name’s meaning despite sharing equally seven strokes with the second letter. It contains ‘the heart’ and ‘the scholar’ in one pronoun and all it takes is one enunciation to demonstrate the greatness of one’s will yet also no little of undue egotism — ‘Shi’. A syllable that needs to be pronounced carefully or ‘Shi’ of Shimura will become the sneer of a clansman at any imbecile who reads the name as ‘the will of a village’ because it is not. It is hideously wrong. It’s said amongst clansmen that the pride their surname conveys mayhaps is not above the true concept of a village but it will always be above the profit of one’s self and never, never below any individual, any congregation. Every Shimura is an individual. ‘Shi’ of them is the will of one solely man bestowed upon his village and Shimura is spoken like an oath spoken by a solemn voice into the dignified silence: “Everything I have done is for the village, and for the village, I offer up everything.”

no.4  ━━ your voices in unison

Without doubt, this is— “The connection between us will transcend even time and space. I am sure of it. Even if the ocean completely boils away and the atmosphere vanishes, even if all the moons in the sky are pulled into the vortex of our planet's gravity, and even if the sun continues to mercilessly expand, eventually swallowing up all its children until none can be heard… I am sure we will meet again. At the far end of our civilization, once adorned by darkness and the brilliance of the stars up above, we will meet once again. I will wait until that day comes. I promise you I will.” How things start and how it comes to an end. The omen. How they were not supposed to be born. How, in order to move forward and pursue the art of living, something has to be sacrificed in their place.

no.5  ━━ today this sleeve of mine shall be your shelter

His childhood house stood lonely in the middle of vast green, under the brightest sky and welcomed by the most bracing winds brought along pieces of lazufetti breeze. In truth, he had never noticed it but mother seemed to as she pointed at the east, where the wind blew, where the hills rolling, and told him, “Over there bloom a garden of lazufetties.” But all he could see was verdant fields and the blue of the sky that perhaps could be even bluer than the lazufetti in mother’s description. How do you know, he asked out loud. Mother pushed the billowing hair away from his eyes and patted his head softly, the smile adorning her lips had become something tied to this land and the everlasting winds—timeless, changeless, unshakable. The winds had always adored their long hair and wide garments here.

Their life was simple. Windows plunged wide open, white lace laundry billowing on the clothesline, the everspring simmering with heat-haze. Dusk chased dawn, sunset then sunrise, wind graced book pages. When the Silver Sun enfolded the world in a veil of cerulean light, mother spent most of her time working outdoors to ensure the near village, and everything, were well-prepared for the upcoming cold that came along with the moonless nights. Silver Sun engulfed the moon in His wake, and the night without the moon was submerged in piercing darkness. Mother once said it’s very unlikely that nature would change into human’s profit, not since thousand years ago, not now, perhaps not even in the near future; He, in and of Himself, was a part of nature. Human adapted, that’s it.

so, five out of twelve excerpts... you’ve done your best, ci. keep this, and do better next year, and hopefully in both art and writing. i’m rooting for you, myself!

farewell 2021! farewell!