1000 Strands of Wishes

Kagoatweed’s Rant: R&R, and be inspired, but please don’t steal ideas.

Prologue

"I'm just so sick and tired of this," she adjusted the strap of her backpack on her shoulder, "I get teased all day at school, get loaded with homework and have to go home to that family of mine."

On the side of the path in front of her, was a bench, shaded by a blossoming dogwood tree. She walked to the bench, threw her star and moon embroidered shoulder bag on the bench and punched it. Tossing her head back in frustration, she stared at the petals of the dogwood. "Lucky little sprites. All the sprites and fairies in this tree have no worries, save for making sure that they don't fly away with the petals. I wish I could be as carefree as that.”

Shannon was a very believing girl when it came to the lore and the stories of the fairies, dragons and trolls. She would often wish that she could be one, a carefree creature such as those, as to get away from the life she lived and hated.

Her mother had died about a year ago while on a trip to Canada with her job. Now she lived with her father and brother in a house by a muddy pond. Her father tried his best to be both a mother and a father to his children, but being a mother wasn’t exactly his forte. And so, Shannon often wished she could move to the place of her dreams, Japan.

She fumbled with the clip of her backpack, finding that today her fingers were very numb to what they were supposed to be doing. Flipping through a few notes and math assignments she found what she was looking for. It was an envelope containing a letter from her only close friend. She inspected it, checking for tampers and tears. She was very protective of this letter, the most recent of her letters from her pen pal. With a longing touch, she took the letter out of the envelope. She unfolded it and read it for the hundredth time.

Hello Shannon!

How is everything in America? Things in Japan are great, but I still haven’t quite gotten used to the idea of a sweatshirt and bikini bottoms as a gym outfit.

You had a question in your last letter, and I think I’ll answer it. You asked how I got here. By plane, silly! Yea, yea, I know what you want to know. I got here through my uncle. Both my parents died about a year and a half ago, so I came to Japan to live with my uncle who owns a hilltop shrine. These places have much too much room for anyone to live here alone, so my uncle was happy to get some company, other than his hired help. I’ve lived here ever since.

And speaking of Hired Help, WOO! He’s cute! The hired help is… oh… maybe two years older than me, he being 18. He has a VERY nice body and he has a really nice personality too. He is helping me learn Kanji. He is a very good listener, and talks to me like I am an equal, instead of a girl two years younger than him. He has long hair with bleached tips and he normally wears it in a ponytail, for respect reasons, but…

At our shrine we have a hot spring in the back. There are three separate sections. One reserved for guys, one for girls, and one for anyone, usually used by visitors with children or lovers who want to bathe together. The girl’s bath is in the middle and high wood planks separate all of the baths. There is no way you could look over them, and they are buried about an inch into the ground, so you can’t look under them either. Here’s the great part. One of the planks has a knot in it, you know, the part of the wood that another branch tried to grow out of and it gave the wood a circle pattern? Well, the knot is loose. You can pull it right out and have viewing access to the guy’s bath! That is how I know his body is nice. He wears a towel until he’s in the water, so I can’t see that, but I can see his chest and… wow. That is it. Wow. His name is Taka. It means Hawk. sigh

Well, I have to go- I just saw Taka leave for the baths… Bye!

Michelle—Kokoro

(P.S. I heard a story that says if you blow the fluffies off of a dandelion and make a wish, your wish will come true!)

Shannon carefully refolded the note and slipped it back into the envelope. She put it back in her bag. She stood and looked around for a moment. The yard behind her had a lot of dandelions. She found one right by the sidewalk and plucked it. She brought it in front of her lips and took a deep breath.

A gust of wind took its turn before Shannon could take hers. It blew the seeds into her face. “Yaaa!” Shannon closed her eyes against the barrage of flower remnants. When she opened her eyes, she was holding a stem with a brown cap on, but his cap no longer had feathers in it. “My wish,” Shannon whispered sadly.

She dropped the featherless flower to the ground and bowed her head. A bit of hair fell into her peripheral vision. It was embedded with fluffy white seeds. She shook her head and watched as ten or so bits of goose-down like seeds floated to the cement. “I wish I could have had my wishes come true,” She said softly. She picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and continued walking home.