Hello! Chad Yang here!
I'm reposting Moments of Mr. Penn because I didn't get much C&C last 
time. This is a fanfiction, and I hold no ownership over parts of other 
anime or manga used. They belong to whoever they belong to. Mr. Penn is, 
however, mine, and if you want to use him, E-Mail me first. Please 
E-Mail me! Please!
Oh yeah, by the way, see if you can identify the anime used in each part 
(yes there's an anime hiding in every one of the parts).

Chad Yang
chadyang@hotmail.com
chadjill@ms3.hinet.net
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Palace/9886/

Moments
of Mr. Penn

by Chad Yang

Moment One: Talking to Faith in Times of Despair

There was a small child on a hill in the plains, standing in the tall 
grass. It was stormy, but there was no rain, only violent winds that 
caused the grass to ripple. It tore at the child�s long ragged shirt, 
but he didn't seem to notice.
He was talking to someone, and if one could look closely in the 
direction the child was looking, it might be possible to make out a 
faint glow, the form of a woman.
"What is your name?" the woman asked.
"My name is in the past, and I dare not think about that which has been, 
for the more I remember, the more I want to forget."
"Where are the other people?"
"Where is no one here anymore. Once there were many, but they have all 
left for a better place," said the child.
"Why are you still here?"
"It is my fate to be here, and I shall fulfill it."
"When will you leave?"
"I shall never. I love this place, and I shall protect that which I 
love, else there would be no meaning to what I do."
"Can you live on?"
"I live in the future and the future is unknown. I shall make it so."
"Can I trust you?"
"I have nothing to lie for, nothing to lose."
"Thank you," said the specter, and with a gust of wind, she 
dematerialized in front of the child's eyes.
The child looked up at the sky.
"I remember your name. I have lost you once, and I shall never lose you 
again."	



Moment Two: Through the Storm

�In our village, there is a tale of a fire demon who used his flames to 
kill the evil and save the good. In the end, however, it was not his 
flames that killed the evil and not his flames that saved the good, for 
the evil killed the evil and the good saved the good. His flames burned 
nothing, and killed no-one, and all he succeeded in doing was make 
himself sadder than he had ever been before. There is nothing we can do 
to save him now, for he has condemned himself for what he has done. All 
we can do is wait . . . wait until he sees the light."

At twilight, the sky was clear, the storm having passed. There was a 
puddle next to the wall at the edge of the village. A child squatted 
looking at it. With a stick, he made a cloud of mud, then watched it 
settle back, revealing a stone. He stopped, and looked up. In the 
distance, he heard a sort of a padding sound, and he saw that there was 
a man on the road crossing the fields. The man had stopped as well, and 
was standing next to the end of the wall. The boy studied the man, 
unable to decide whether to greet him or to run away. Certainly his 
attire was strange; the man had a soiled cloth covering the bottom half 
of his face, and equally soiled clothing plastered to his skin by the 
wind and the rain. The sleeves and the pant-legs of the man�s clothing 
were baggy, and as for the pattern, the boy couldn�t make it out. The 
man had only his right arm! The boy tried to see the eyes of the man, 
but a hood blocked the twilight from illuminating the face, and the boy 
was scared. The man started again, walking towards him this time. The 
boy closed his eyes, hoping that this was not a bandit come to rob his 
family of what money they had. He felt a tingle as a hand landed upon 
his shoulder, and now he dared not to open his eyes, for fear of their 
meeting with those of a monster. The tingle that the touch had caused 
was now replaced with a warmth, radiating through the thin cloth of his 
shirt.
�Do you know where the Chens live, boy?"
The boy opened his eyes, and now he saw that the man had eyes like any 
other person he had known.
�Y. . .Yes."
�Show me."
The boy pointed to a house down the road, and the man walked past him. 
He turned around slowly. The man walked on. The boy held back for a 
moment, and when he was sure that the man was no longer looking at him, 
he followed. The man faced the doors of the house and ripped down the 
piece of paper that sealed it. He opened them and passed through into 
the courtyard. The boy ran to the tree next to the house and climbed up 
to a spot at which almost everything done in the house could be seen. He 
looked down. The man stood alone, surveying the yard and the surrounding 
rooms. He walked forward, across the yard, and opened a pair of wooden 
doors. The boy tilted his head so that he could see what was inside. It 
was a table, a table like the one his family had in the same room of 
their house. The man walked up to the table and picked up something that 
looked like a wooden tablet. He dusted it off, and the boy saw that it 
was engraved. He couldn�t read, but he guessed that it was a name. It 
had to be, for that was the only kind of thing he had ever seen 
engraved. The man set it standing up, then walked back down into the 
courtyard and kneeled. He removed the cloth from his face and pulled 
back the hood. The boy looked in surprise, for the man�s hair was 
completely white, whiter than that of any old man he had ever seen. What 
surprised him even more was the fact that the man�s face was young, 
almost with an adolescent appearance. The man was crying.
�It is all gone . . . none is left . . . I have destroyed them."
There was a new voice, the voice of the boy�s father. 
�I knew you would come today. It is the same day you left, thirty-two 
years ago."
The man turned. The father took off his foreign hat and stood at the 
door waiting as the man studied him. 
�Shih-Lang? At the capital, they say that you retired as a scholar. 
You�ve changed . . ."
�Yes, and you haven�t changed a bit. Where have you been?"
The man looked down.
�I couldn�t find any job . . . I entered the army. . . fought . . . 
fought in the opium war. The foreign devils had these things called 
guns, and they sent a shower of metal pellets at us. I was lucky . . . I 
was only hit in the arm. Those who fought with me in the front line were 
killed, their heads . . . smashed like melons before my eyes. I escaped 
from the army, and wherever I went, I saw those who were kind to me 
killed . . . all because of me . . . they do not treat those who abandon 
well. They hunt them down. They . . . actually like doing it." The man 
was sobbing now, shaking violently.
�I�ve heard about the foreigners and their strange weapons, and I�m 
sorry," the boy�s father said feebly. �I�m very, very sorry."
And both were silent for a very long moment.
�What�s happened to my family? Where are they?"
The boy�s father was quiet for a moment.
". . . Two of your brothers have moved. Two died of diseases in their 
organs, I don�t know which ones . . ."
�What of my father? Is he with my brothers?"
�How old do you think he is?"
�Eighty."
�Yes. He�d be in bed with a lung disease."
�He�s dead? Is he dead?" Tears fell anew. The man looked shocked, as if 
his fears were proven to be true. �I have killed him . . ."
�It wasn�t you who killed him. You did right to beat the rich man�s son. 
The fool was going to spread rumors if your father didn�t give him money 
for his women and his opium. After you left, the rich man apologized to 
your father for his son�s behavior. You shouldn�t feel ashamed of 
yourself, for it hadn�t been you, the rich man might have never learned 
of what his son did when he was not around. After that event, he kicked 
his son out of the house, leaving him to die in the streets. He did it 
in shame, but he did not regret it."
On the man�s face was an expression of surprise. And slowly, he brushed 
his tears aside, and the line of his mouth curled into a slight, humble 
smile. The man kneeled again and bowed his head.
�Thank you. Thank you for telling me this. Thank you for telling me that 
he who killed my father is not I. Thank you."
�It is but the truth, and anyone who knows the truth will be willing to 
tell it."
The boy�s father left the yard, and the man still knelt. The boy came 
down from his perch in the tree and raced after his father.
�Father, who is that man?"
The father smiled and put his hat back on.
�He is one who has walked through a storm more violent than any that you 
have ever seen . . . and have survived to see the sunlight."



Moment Three: Roommate

That morning, he left. I knew he was going to, and it turned out that he 
did. I was roommates with him, and the night before, after I�d blown out 
the candles on the little counter between our beds, he�d told me of his 
plans. He really didn�t have any. He said he was going off on a journey, 
to where, he didn�t know. He said going to start out by foot and go in a 
straight line from the dormitory. He said that he was going to pay for 
his travels by writing whenever he got to a city. I don�t know if he 
could manage to do that, but, with him, anything�s possible. He�s always 
wanted to be an author; it�s his dream. Yes, he�s very talented. He�s 
won awards for his writing three years in a row, and that�s something no 
one else in this school has ever done. He�s a legend. I thought he would 
make it, so I supported him. He was tired of the boarding school, tired 
of seeing the same old faces again for four or five years. He wanted to 
go home, but of course none of us has a home to go back to, else we 
wouldn�t be here. He took the next best thing; run away. He wanted out. 
He certainly deserved it, for there was no way he could do any better in 
this school. He was not at the top; he was the top. He set the school 
standard, and he couldn�t bear the stress of doing so anymore. That was 
why he left.
Our room was one of those poor deprived rooms in the second class 
dormitories that the government lent out to orphanages and boarding 
schools as charity. It was nice enough, better than some I�ve seen. The 
floorboards were whole at least. Not to mention polished. Even so, the 
fact that the walls hadn�t been cleaned and the windows dusted took 
something from it. The fact that these things hadn�t been done for years 
took something more. The fact that we didn�t have curtains as all the 
other boys in the dorm did added the final touches. The janitors only 
bothered as far as the floor. It was quite bright that morning, on a 
account of the light reflecting off the snow. That why I knew that he 
was already up when I woke that morning, fully dressed while I was still 
in my pajamas. And not in his normal clothing either. I don�t know where 
he got it, but he had this ridiculously large trench-coat on. It 
appeared to me that he was wearing a fine suit underneath because he has 
this bad habit of never wearing a tie except when was he was wearing a 
suit to match it, and here he was wearing this fine tie that I didn�t 
even have the money to buy. I think he must have saved his allowance up 
for a long time in order to buy it, but considering the fact that we 
only get a thru-pence piece each month, he must�ve not spent anything 
for well over a year. That�s how serious he was, I thought at the time.
�I�m going," he�d said.
There was no one else up, so I didn�t bother to dress. Barefoot, I 
descended the old Victorian stairs we had down to the first floor main 
hallway, then walked down hall to the door. It was cold that morning, my 
mistake not to have changed out of my pajamas. So there we went, him 
first and me following. I remember hearing the clank, clank, clank of 
his boots against the old oak floor. They were the loudest sounds in the 
world, and I still wonder why no one else woke up. He�d carried his old 
derby on his chest door, and now he put it on. Umbrella in hand, and 
without anything else, he�d opened the door. The cold wind sent shivers 
up my spine. The coldest month of the year, and here I was in my 
pajamas, facing the north wind. 
�You really going to leave?" I asked.
�Yes."
�I wish you luck."
�Thank you."
�Goodbye."
�Good bye."
I�d known him for six years now, and I�d thought that perhaps my 
friendship with him had lightened up somewhat on the emotional level, 
but tears came to my eyes when I saw him smile that smile of his. He 
turned and left. Maybe because I was too busy concentrating on my 
sadness, I forgot how cold it was. I looked out on to the field in front 
of the boarding house. It was completely barren but for a couple of 
bushes that didn�t have any leaves even in the spring. He walked towards 
the distant fences, leaving a trail of deep prints in the snow behind 
him. 
He�d lied. He hadn�t been planning to do what he had told me he was 
going to do. He was almost at the fences before he looked back at me 
again. He smiled and took a book out of his coat, then turning away 
again, he threw it out as if expecting it to fly and flutter away like a 
bird. To my surprise, it did. And, he, he just looked up at the book and 
followed it. He kept on walking, leaving the ground, going up higher and 
higher, farther and farther, until all I could see were two black dots 
above the white horizon.
 I never saw him again. I don�t know what became of him or where he is 
now, but if I could get my hands on him now, I�d strangle him for 
leaving me behind. And you know something? Somehow, when I say that, I 
don�t feel mad at him at all. Sometimes during the winter I go out for 
long walks. I go out on the moor where nobody lives, and I just stay 
there for hours and hours until I can barely make out a faint distant 
voice.
�I�ll remember you."


Moment Four: Clockwork

In this town, there is a district of old houses; houses that have 
survived the passing of the ages, and have seen everything imaginable. 
Tonight, a man in a trench-coat walks down the cobblestone streets and 
finds himself in the silence in an abandoned city. There, he finds a 
toyshop. He takes off his derby hat and peeks in . . .

There was a time, long ago, when a person had only to worry about 
himself and his family. There was no greed in the hearts of men, and nor 
was there sorrow to wet their eyes. A golden age had come, and the 
people knew it, for all of them had memories of pain. They knew that 
they should be thankful for what they had, and they were. They also knew 
that, inevitably, the golden age would end, and it did. It was at this 
time that the owner of the toyshop first came to this city.
Now, he was no different than any other young man, and he acted no 
differently. He tried to perfect his trade, and lived, in doing so, very 
poorly. This was not due, in any way whatsoever, to the fact that he was 
inexperienced at making toys, for he showed in the making of his toys a 
spark of what one may call genius. Though the toys he made were but 
crude ones of metal and wood, they seemed to possess lives of their own. 
These toys were famous indeed, and even the rich went at lengths to 
acquire them. However, such a status given to his toys gave him nothing, 
and though his toys were wonderful, he had not much a concept of trade. 
Those who tried to get a hold of his creations only thought good of 
them. As for who made them, they didn�t care. Here was a man who could 
only be referred to as either being too kind, too foolish, or both. He 
gave most of his toys away to the poor, and made barely enough to pay 
his rent, his taxes, and money for his food and the parts of his toys. 
In short, he had nothing of spare to spend on his own whims and his 
wife�s, if indeed they had any whims but to make toys.
But they didn�t need whims, for they felt that living life as they did 
was right. They were as content as any young couple could be, happily 
going through their lives without ever caring about how they were 
treated by others and how much money they had. How was this so? How did 
they manage to do this? The answer is very simple. They were happy for 
the fact that they could bring happiness to every child they saw. They 
spent all their skill to bring back the laughter in who they thought 
deserved it. They gave the best of their toys to those poor waifs who 
would otherwise never have any happiness, and never cared how others 
thought of these actions. The monthly income of their shop could only be 
written in smiles.
He perfected his skill in making toys as the years went past, and 
slowly, the toys that had once but appeared to be alive became alive. 
Exotic creatures that could only have been seen in dreams previously now 
came to life. And he was happy, for not only could he but bring the 
laughter of children now, he could bring life back to those who were 
resolved to end it. He lived in a dream.
Even though the perfection of his skills was indeed a grand thing, he 
had another dream; to create a wonderful toy. It was to be a most 
intricate, a human child without human parent, but human in every way 
except what it was made of. It wasn�t to be just a mockery of life; it 
was to be life, a creature to live as their child. He began to work on 
it, but because he was so busy, he could only complete a little each 
night, never being able to finish.
Every day, he and his wife worked until they could work no longer. They 
visited orphanages, hospitals, and gave alms to the poor. Where there 
was death, they brought life; where there was disease, they brought 
health; where there was blindness, they brought sight. Though the gifts 
themselves were never permanent, the things that the gifts did for the 
children were. They didn�t perform miracles; they just cast misery away. 
This was deemed miraculous. 
Then his wife fell sick. When the toy-maker knew that there was no cure, 
he closed the shop and began completing the toy on a bit of saved money, 
so that he would at least be able to show it to his wife before she 
died. And then that he realized he had never really done anything for 
himself. He wouldn�t be able to go on like this forever. So he began 
working to finish his creation. He toiled on it, every day for a year, 
and at last he was completely satisfied with what he had, finding no 
reason and no way to modify it. Then he showed it to his wife.
�Marian. This is our child," he said. �Do you like her?"
She saw it. And she cried.
�Thank you. Thank you."
What had he gained in return for the years he had spent on children? 
Nothing but the perfection of his art, and the eternal happiness of 
knowing that, though he had no son or daughter, his name and faith would 
not die with him. What he believed in would go on with his child. And 
what was his child? His blood and flesh.

In a rundown tenement of this district, there is a shop, a quaint 
beautiful one, with its windows forever lit. Within the window, the man 
sees toys, all made so fine as to be alive. And the door opens and the 
bells jingle. 
�All are welcome," says the woman in the doorway.
�Thank you."
�Who might you be?"
�Just a writer."
Both smile. The snow is warm.



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