Nice. Very nice.
A chilling wind blows.across Jusenkyo.
You have some kind of problem with a few spurious periods.
In a few other places, periods appear where there should be
commas.
Bamboo poles vibrate back and forth like the tines of a
tuning fork. The waters of the Jusenkyo pool in front of me
swirl, casting ripples outward from the poles.
Nice imagery.
The glassteel barriers around the springs
<clip>
I try to remember how long it's been since the
walls went up. Twenty years already? Thirty?
Very effective way of giving us timeframe, without dropping
your pace for exposition.
years, especially in the
early days when we met each other for the second time. About
what you meant to me, and what I wanted you to mean to me.
Here's where we suspect Ukyou is the narrator...
worn a sweater. Summer is gone, no matter how much I want to
pretend it isn't.
Cute irony, perhaps a little unsubtle. But then, so is Ukyou.
I know you can't hear me anymore, but do you understand,
Ran-chan? Understand why I killed you?
Ukyou as narrator confirmed, and the hook is firmly implanted
in your reader. It would take much more willpower than I
have not to continue reading at this point.
;) and I bet you've always wanted to write Ukyou saying that...
Youth, as they say. is wasted on the young.
Period where you want comma. And nice comment, too true.
Shan Pu... 'd gone to sleep on my floor the night before.
Sadly, I remembered why
she'd come to town -- for your funeral, Ran-chan.
Appropriately confuses your readers as to what has happened.
Nice to see the friendship, though.
long life, eh, Ran-chan? Your death was natural causes, by
the way. Heart failure. Oh, I know I said that I killed you.
But that was later.
Not this time.
Ooo! Twist that hook!
can't get out.* What did it mean?
Interesting how she assumes it _must_ have a meaning.
nothing will stop it. I've heard people talk about the
'stream of time,' but that's not what it is at all. It's a
raging river with huge
waterfalls and rapids. We hang on to anything that floats as
the current pulls us downstream, trying desperately to avoid
drowning or being smashed against a rock, all the while
trying to enjoy the
scenery because we know we'll never see it again.
Again, nice imagery. Rings true as the sort of philosophizing
a very old Ukyou might indulge in.
front gate. Billboard signs overhead listed prices, starting
with ten thousand yuan
for a single day's admission.
10,000 yuan ? At the moment, yuan are trading at 8.2 to the
U.S. dollar. That's a lot of inflation.
monitors showed clips from old cartoons, liberally interspersed with
advertisements for other Warner-Disney attractions around the
world.
Reminds me of one of William Gibson's future verisimilitude
techniques: imply a merger between present-day rivals.
Pu Langmu had dug holes, coated the bottoms with polyshield to
prevent any seepage from below, and filled them with the
single-use instant waters.
When I got to this point, I had no clue who "Pu Langmu" was.
I figured it out later, but you may want to give a bit more
of a hint to those readers who only know her as Plum.
Interesting idea for how to turn Jusenkyo into a tourist
attraction.
But still it bothered me somehow, to see people let themselves
be herded around like sheep, going where they're allowed and
never even wondering what they might find at the other places.
Safety, all in all, is a good thing, but too much of it and a
person might as well be dead.
This suggests some specific episode(s) in Ukyou's past which
has led her to this particular philosophizing, but we get no
other clue. The idea that, at sixteen, she never even wondered
about other boys is clear, but the thought about safety isn't.
here that was created when I was young? The Akaneniquan?"
Presumably this conversation is in Japanese, or Ukyou couldn't
be taking part in it. So why "Akaneniquan"? Why not "Spring
of Drowned Akane", as you do above? I can see why you might
want something short, for later in your story, but it seems
a bit inconsistent at this point.
And I assume you're using "quan" instead of "chuan" because
the former is pinyin, the current correct romanization?
Akane's spirit is
anchored to Jusenkyo by that spring. She can't get out. And
his own refuses to go on to where it's supposed to without her."
Rather nasty thought...
"I'm afraid there's even worse news," she continued. "His
spirit can't endure in its current state, without a physical
body to anchor it. If he doesn't give up and go where he's
supposed to go, he can't survive indefinitely."
Begging the question of what _does_ happen to a nonsurviving
spirit...
Inside me, a memory bubbled to the surface. I'd wanted to
keep you and Akane apart.
Life's never more cruel than when it gives a person what she asks for.
Nice. Irony, and it rings true as something the old Ukyou
would think.
"That wasn't exactly what she said."
Ooo. Twist the hook even more. The astute reader ties this
together with Plum's words and Ukyou's opening, and gets
the picture, partially.
Even though she was my oldest friend -- both figuratively and
literally -- I wasn't completely sure that I should trust her
on this. I like Shan Pu, really I do, but I know as well as anyone how
vindictive she can be when she doesn't get her own way. I
hate to admit it, but that's something she and I had in
common. Was she planning to make things worse for you,
Ran-chan, just out of spite
because you decided that you loved Akane better than her?
Yes, I know that that was a long time ago, and like me, she'd
already loved and married someone else. But you're the kind
of guy a girl never really gets over.
_Very_ good, in several ways: Ukyou acknowledging that:
1. Shampoo is a very good friend
2. Shampoo can be vindictive
3. She herself can be vindictive, and
4. Both still carry a bit of a torch for Ranma
Sadly, the Council aren't much more than figureheads anymore,
not since the overseas companies came in and set up their
factories. The Elders are still in charge, but it's pretty much
understood that that's only as long
as they follow the dictates of the companies.
??? _Very_ unexpected political arrangements; in fact, given
that this is China, I'm not entirely sure I can swallow this,
at least without more detail. Say this is ~2050; I'd expect
Chinese companies to own a good bit of the U.S.
But not even Amazons can fight against
world-wide disease epidemics, not without medicines that they
lacked the know-how and equipment to make themselves.
Well, this is a start. A rather apocalyptic one, but okay.
If early enough in the next century, yes, I can see where
this could take the wind out of China's sails. You could have
the epidemics exascerbated by the air quality and other
environmental problems China's reportedly having.
Then it came back to me. It was the exact phrase her daughter
had used the last time anyone saw her; an Amazon's last
resort -- withdrawing from the sisterhood and severing all
relations with it.
Ooo. LOTS of untold stories here. I like it.
It struck me, the severity of the risk she was taking for your
sake. But that inner voice still nagged at me that it might
not be to help him.
Keep the reader in suspense...
I stepped forward into the cemetery. A half-empty moon hung
low in the darkened sky, draping gravestones in deep shadows
like the wings of gargoyles.
More nice imagery.
Something howled in the distance;
<clip>
Just some animal in the distance, I supposed.
I like it. Could be Ranma, howling at betrayal. Nice
ambiguity, which you deepen further on.
but one of your children would be a different story, Ran-chan.
More untold stories. And I can just see Ukyou and Shampoo
trying to explain this to a child of Akane's:
"Ranko, would you LISTEN TO ME!" I pleaded, dodging
desperately.
"Auntie Ukyou NO BAKA! Auntie Shampoo NO BAKA! HOW COULD
YOU!" Ranko screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. They
didn't prevent her from tearing my spatula from my hands as
easily as taking candy from a baby, though. I could see the
murderous glint in her eyes as she approached...
So we opted for the only remaining choice. And I'm sure it
was what you'd have wanted, if you'd known. But you didn't,
at least not consciously. Neither did you know that your
heart condition would've
killed you again in a matter of minutes. All you had time to
think about was the water surrounding you, rushing into your
lungs as your last breath of air deserted you. And you looked
back at me with
eyes that I'll remember for the rest of my days; eyes full of
betrayal and helplessness and most of all, puzzlement. Eyes
that made no sound, but whose words were nevertheless clear.
Impeccable logic. Reminds me a bit of "The Cold Equations",
the stark necessity of doing something so ugly, so (in other
circumstances) criminal. Nice tie-up.
Stepping back, I take a last look at the two pools. I thought
that telling my story would make me feel better. It hasn't. I
still feel sickened, as if something were eating my stomach
from inside.
Why? Ran-chan got what he wanted. He wouldn't leave Akane
imprisoned here on her own, so he's locked up with her.
Or is he? Maybe she and he are in adjacent jail cells. Close
enough to be aware of each other, but never able to touch.
Maybe Shan Pu knew that that would happen.
<clip>
I start to move toward the exit, and then turn, breaking into
a sprint. In an instant, I stand on the narrow strip of dirt
between the Akaneniquan and the Ranmaniquan.
"Stop!" Pu Langmu shouted. "What are you doing?!" I now know
what her father must've been like.
<clip>
I reach behind my back. The spatula swings down and digs into
the ground, scooping aside the soil, carving out a channel
between the two pools. Tongues of water stick out at one
another, enlarging,
finally touching. Waters mix and swirl, running back and
forth across the channel, pushing aside even more dirt, until
there aren't two springs any longer, only one.
Pu Langmu stands gawking, her eyes nearly popping out of her
head. "What-- what have you done?"
I just shrug, and smile at her. Truth is, I have no real
idea. I don't know how this will affect Jusenkyo's destiny.
Tomorrow is another day, as they say. I know it won't last,
but for a few precious moments, I feel young again.
The ending is very interesting, also. Ukyou doesn't ask Plum
before taking this action; it may very well have made things
much worse for both Akane and Ranma, for all she knows. She
acts on impulse, to make herself feel better for what she had
to do. She has no reason at all, other than fleeting whimsy,
to think that this is any improvement for Ranma and Akane.
And of course, if Ukyou _did_ make things worse, there's no
reason for Plum to say so now; the damage is done.
All in all, very nice work.