THE DOOR

( a Japanese story )

by St. Dan-Marius
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 The Door

One fresh day, after he woke up, the spirit of a tree was very surprised. To see the bluish hills and the
fall, to hear the birds and feel deep the mixture of smoke and mist was no more his election. The whole
region was more pregnant, the corners of the world were more rounded.

It was out of his tree, and he cannot show ignored vertical joy to any passer-by, its present to a
benevolent world.

On the other side, his confusion became instantly greater...the tree, his tree, this peaceful friend, had a
spontaneous autonomy, saying that it will not accept again the leading power of the spirit, if he, the
spirit, will not tell a human story...

Obviously, a tree must obey to its spirit, but the time of the legends has maybe vanished as the leaves
which fly down from stars to another deep distant stars.

A bit of respect, just a bit of respect there was between the tree and its master, so the tree is saying:
"You venerable spirit, bring to me a human story and I will permit to you to come inside me...otherwise,
it will be necessary for you to look for another tree...Sorry to say this..."

The spirit fled to the nearest village---he fled because a spirit of a tree learns a lot from the birds which
once initiated in the art of flying---but being the spirit of a forest tree, he was very shy...and therefore, he
choosed a house from the limit of the village. "I hope this house is not an abandoned one" said to
himself,

but it was the noon, it was the sunset, and nothing happened...
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In the moment he was decided to go, a light appeared behind the paper walls...

We know that a ray of light can be itself a source of a story...for example, when we walk along a dark
street using a lantern, this light makes the things to whisper a part of their story, or even, if we stop, to
show us the long history back to Amaterasu... And we know also that a story can illuminate that blind
animal

Therefore, our spirit continued to wait and to observe till the moon, that half moon of the human
feelings, disappeared in her own cosmic shadow...
 Next morning the tree discovered in one of its branches a sheet of paper on which the spirit wrote the
story...

At the very every midnight is a man who travels between two villages. His name is Akira and he
believes that his dead wife is not ashes, but she moved in other place in this world. He believes also that
this place is the village behind the mountain. He knows that. He knows that because, from time to time
he stops any movement, even any respiration, and can truthfully hear.

Every day he must work with other people papers in an office, but also every night, after a ritual bath,
he dresses himself with the old wedding kimono and makes his eternal journey. He passes through the
forest, climbing the mountain and a special odour---even in the winter--a special odour, which only the
sprouts have---leads him to the house.

Mister Akira says to himself that he is a man-- for him the specific word that means "to be like a
samurai" and therefore every shadow or a whispering stimulates him to be courageous in a superlative
mood. To think that he learned to be a man in a two weeks bushido paid sessions can be an offence in
this times when all the men anticipate their imitated manhood. Anyway his belief is stronger than a
bottle of sake; every night he makes the same journey and his march is so decided that the wheel of the
seasons has the same speed now.

And something strange happens when he arrives in front of the house-- he becomes with every step
smaller and smaller and the distance grows as distance between any two skies. Why happens that is
difficult to say, but I will think about. It is not a part of the human story.

Yes, he is now in the front of the door, but knows anyone that he was the exhausted messenger who
became the porous statue of the eternal dreamer? Maybe, there are a few, but they live on separated
peaks. No, no others know that all fulgurant and radiating love stories abandon all their weight in his
soul, an unusual law which allows an invisible feather to be heavy like a mountain .

Yes, as every night , he is staring at her slippers in front of the closed door and also he is seeing her
shadow projected on the paper wall. Maybe, maybe is a kind to have running blood in his flesh. No,
nobody stops to make longer his shadow.

Some slippers can tell you the mysterious walking of a woman; in their wood can be seen all
her hesitations, all her intentions, the stopping in front of another man to observe the man of her heart
or the rising on the tiptoes to smell the plum flowers. And, of course, the shadow of a woman can tell
you that in her history--as long as her hair, her indescriptible hair with those might-have-beens tales--
she puts always a light between she and her man...
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So, at this moment, Akira is starting his usually new story in his soul, forgetting that in the beginning
was a pair of slippers or a shadow, an island with singular songs or an empire with plural scream. Is the
morning which reminds him who is, where he is and why he is there, in front of the white paper door...

And this night is a different night...maybe, there is something over or around his head, maybe
something is entering into his soul and maybe he is feeling an irrepressible force which maybe makes
him to spread his arms laterally as if maybe the whole his being was able for the first time to say
something universal...maybe in the same mood a bird puts a cupola over the world...he is feeling that a
story is closed and ephemeral when he stops inside and every end is an opening to openness.
 Mister Akira is opening the glissand door and the image of the whole room is receiving him with the
infinite absorbent power of an ancient grave. Maybe all the ancient graves keep their breath till someone
open them.

Yes, she is there inside, inside staying on her knees, like a statue inside a statue. Her known kimono ,
in front of her- two cups of tea, a little candle, two cups of tea, a little candle ,two cups of tea…as the
known infinite way

She was always there.

"I was always here--till now—I was always here” she echoed

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© 2009 St. Dan-Marius. All rights reserved. Reproduction, redistribution, or any other form of unauthorized
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