Subject: [kffdisc] Chris Davies Mystery Story 16 Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 22:52:43 PDT From: "Sariah DeGidio" Reply-To: kffdisc@onelist.com To: kffdisc@onelist.com From: "Sariah DeGidio" Hi! I'm posting this story with permission from the author. I found it on his web page (link at the bottom of the story) and just thought it was incredibly neat. It was on a page spamfics and shortfics. If you like this (and even if you don't) I recommend reading some of his other stuff (it's awesome). Also, if you've read Together Again and are interested in the family trees, they're updated with RK characters included (you'll never guess who he had Misao marry). Enough prattle.^_^ If you want to send comments, send them to the list and I'll forward them. And now, the story... ********* I've never liked museums. Actually, I've never liked anything that had a lot to do with thinking, reflection, that sort of crap. They all smell of dust and hopes that died. Give me the open sky and fresh air anyday. Was that the way that it was like for you? Before industry moved into Japan, I think it must have been like some kind of paradise. Hell, I've lived most of my life on the road, and I still can't get used to the crap people downtown are expected to breathe. The books always put it in such damn flowery language, you'd never think that anyone was actually *killing* anyone. Two men meet beneath the star-lit sky, they dash at each other, they leap to silhouette the moon, the swords flash, they land, and blood stains the grass. Never any mention of intestines, oddly enough. I learned to read on that kind of thing. I think my pop would have been just as happy if I hadn't. And now a half-remembered word in a newspaper draws me down out of the suburbs and into the heart of Tokyo to attend an exhibition of swords at a museum. Including a sakaba. Your sakaba, maybe. When I first read about that kind of thing in the books, I said to myself, "That is *so* dumb!" I mean, think about it. You take all that trouble to forge a sword *ass-backwards*. You put the cutting edge on the side of the blade that curves up, and the blunt side on the side that curves down. Dumb. If you hit someone with the blunt side of a stick of iron, you're still gonna wind up doing some heavy damage. So you won't be shedding blood. So what? What kind of idiot handicaps himself like that? I was pretty young when I thought that. Maybe I've grown up a little. Maybe I've had to. I think that now ... I understand what kind of an idiot handicaps himself like that. An idiot who's too damn good at his trade. The question isn't, "How much damage can you do?", it's "How much control do you have over the damage that you can do?" How much more skillful do you have to be to strike someone with the blunt side of a sword and leave them out like a light but alive ... than to strike them with the sharp side of the same sword, and cut all the way through them. How much more skill does it take to not kill, than it does to kill? I think I've learned that. And that is why I've come here to this museum that stinks of the past like every classroom where I've ever killed time. To pay homage. I don't have practically anything to tie me to you, y'know? All I really have is Mom's one photo of you. It's monochrome, fading ... you, with your sword held in the folds of your crossed arms, leaning against the side of a building, looking off and away from the camera, just enough to give a bit of profile. We're supposed to think it's a candid shot. But come on ... nobody sneaks up on one of us unless we let them. I don't have anything to tie me to you ... but all I have to do is look at that picture and then look in the mirror. And I know. I'm not you. According to the stories I don't wanna *be* you. To me a sword is always gonna be something that the other guy can take away from me and use against me. But I know just how hard it is to not kill with these fists, too. I learn it again every day that I have to beat the crap out of some guy who's after her. And I think it must have been just a little bit harder for you than it is for me. And I honor you for that, revered ancestor. I slowly reach out to touch the sword ... And my fingers smuck into glass. Not hard enough to break the stuff, but hard enough to set off some kind of alarm. Time to go ... Author's Notes Connections. I'm obsessed with them, frankly. I actually *like* the fact that a certain character in a rather controversial story is the child of two remarkably popular non-anime characters. Blame too many "Separated at birth" cartoons, blame too much Phillip Jose Farmer. Blame my parents for never giving me an adequate answer when I asked if I was related to author Robertson Davies or not. And so on. "Ranma 1/2" was created by Rumiko Takahashi and brought to North America by Viz Communications. "Rurouni Kenshin" was created by Watsuki Nobuhiro and not yet brought to North America commercially, dammit. This story, while incorporating characters held under copyright by others, is copyright 1998 by Chris Davies. Nobody Sue Me Okay? Chris Davies http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/banks/277/index.html masefield_k@hotmail.com _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ shop.theglobe.com * One Stop Shopping * Free Shipping in the U.S.! Live Personal Shopper * Satisfaction Guaranteed * No Hassle Returns! Accessories, Apparel, Gourmet, Jewelry, Kids, Outdoors, Sports, More! http://www.onelist.com/ad/shoptheglobe0