[FFML] [SHnY] Later -- Prologue

[Brian Randall]

This story is actually complete at prologue, seven chapters, and
epilogue.  If you've read it before, this is the rewrite (which should
fix tenses, grammatical issues, etc. -- though, I'm sure I will miss
more than a few).  Don't expect hugely revised/new scenes until
probably around chapter four.  Umph.  I'm sure I'm forgetting
something.  Well, enjoy!


     Later -- Prologue

     A Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi fanfiction

     By Brian Randall

     Disclaimer: The series begun with the light novel 'The Melancholy
of Suzumiya Haruhi'/'Suzumiya Haruhi no Yutsuu' is the creation of
Nagaru Tanigawa.  No disrespect is intended with the creation of this
work.

     Note: May contain spoilers up through book nine.

     -------------------------------------------

     The Tsuruya estate is fairly large, even for the neighborhood
it's situated in.  Within the confines of the walls, there's the
actual compound -- which consists of no less than eight separate
buildings -- and the gardens.  There are three of those.  One is the
sand garden, which is set in the lee of the main building and a
smaller connected guest house.  Another face of the house, the side
with the long porch, faces a larger garden of the more  traditional
sort, including a koi pond.  The third garden completely encloses a
separate building, which contains the Tsuruya family shrine.

     Near the driveway is a lawn -- which is not really a garden.  It
shares space with the wild cherry trees, and just inside the walls of
the compound are well trained hedges.  A small team of people could
properly maintain it working a few hours, one day a week.

     Due to the relatively private nature of the Tsuruya family, they
instead employ a single gardener, who works year round.

     That gardener is me.

     I can honestly say that when I was a younger man, I would not
have seen myself in the place I am.  It's the nature of life to change
that way, I suppose....  Or to at least be unpredictable.

     Then again, very little of what you know in childhood tends to
follow you until adulthood.  In my experience, a very small handful of
the friends you make in school will be true enough to still be at your
side when you are older.  It's not that things come up, and friends
stop being friends ... but distance develops ... grows between people.
 A once-dear friend is seen again, and then there's the dull
realization that after all that time, they really, aren't friends ...
not like they used to be.  Acquaintances, but the spark of friendship
doesn't quite rekindle; common interests just don't connect.

     And then, for various reasons, I don't actively seek out many
people from my past anyway.

     It happens.  People change.

     You long for the past, but the past is gone; a seed sprouted
doesn't send its leaves burowing back into the earth.  And if it does
... it dies.

     At some point, I just got used to the cycle of the years ... time
passed.  That kind of thing happens.  One day, you're surviving.  A
few days later, you're living.  A few years after that, you realize
where you are, and then ... that's what's familiar.  That's what's
comfortable.

     It's not to say that I'm stuck in a rut, but once you've set down roots....

     Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.  And then again, maybe not.

     It's winter, which means that in the Tsuruya estate, most of the
plant life doesn't need much attention.  The fish are slow when it's
cold, but it's good to check on them every other day, at least.
Tsuruya is not a demanding employer, and this time of year, I don't
come by until later in the afternoon.

     That may be a bit of an excuse....

     My key unlocks the small door within the estate's larger gate,
and once inside I survey the lawn.  No branches fallen from the winds
last night, which is good; some of these trees are quite old.  After
that, I circle around the outer edge of the shrine garden, checking
the hedges.  This also lets me listen for any sign of the family
within.

     Maintaining that garden is also my responsibility, but given the
nature of it, I always do my best to make sure that the family is
undisturbed there.

     There's no sounds of anyone within, and more tellingly, no scent
of incense.  I round the shrine garden's outer wall of dense bamboo,
and walk beneath the tori that defines the entrance, pausing to bow in
ritual recognition.  Inside, everything is as it was left the day
before.  Most of the plants are covered, and those that aren't haven't
changed.

     The shrine door is open, so I step inside.  I don't make eye
contact with any of the portraits, but I check the small box of
incense near the burner.  Plenty left -- but I light one and ring the
bell, spending a minute of contemplation there before I leave.

     After that, around the back of the house to the traditional
garden. It's still in order, and the koi are fine -- no need to feed
them today.

     The sand garden is a relatively private area, really, like much
of the estate.  Acoustically, it doesn't let a lot of sound out, but
there are still points where one, a gardener, perhaps, can listen
discreetly.  I do, and I catch two familiar voices -- Tsuruya, and her
son, Kintaro.

     At this time of day, he's just arrived home from school, and is
eagerly telling his mother, "...and tomorrow, we're going to start
reading up on Basho!"

     Tsuruya chuckles in response, then says, "Basho is your uncle's
favorite, you know.  Can you guess which verse he had in mind when he
made this garden?"

     "Um...."  Kintaro thinks about this for a while.

     It doesn't feel like I'm interrupting, so I step around the
corner on the lower walkway that surrounds the sand garden, just below
the porch lining the house's exterior.

     Kintaro is eleven years old, which makes him shorter than me a
bit -- but given the height difference of the walkways, he's almost
half a meter taller at the moment.  His hair is like his mother's, but
more subdued in tone, more of a duller gray than her own vibrant
green, but he has her grin.

     He does not get his eyes from his mother, though most of his
temperament comes from her.  Right now, his gaze is fixed on the sand
garden behind me, furiously contemplating -- trying to extract some
meaning from the arrangement of rocks and the lines that have been
carefully combed into the surface.  Taking a look at it myself, I know
what symbols I was trying to make.

     The garden has a quintet of carefully maintained bonsai trees.
They're each surrounded by a low ring of painstakingly placed stones,
lining a bowl shape to limit their root growth, but still set them
within the confines of the garden.  Being relatively permanent plants,
I very rarely move them; currently, they are arrayed in a half-circle
around the garden's central boulder.  The other two prominent boulders
are at points on the other side of the central stone.

     The pattern was very simple -- I combed across the entire garden
with a sand-rake, perfectly straight lines, right-to-left, only
breaking around the permanent interruptions in the area.  Those lines
I smoothed as much as possible, trying to make it look natural.  After
that, painstaking hours were spent giving every object its own
circular ring of groomed sand -- proportional to the size of the
interruption.  It wasn't done after that, of course, and then I needed
to repair the base underlying lines around the new patterns to cover
my own footprints.

     Now, the central boulder is ringed with great concentric circles
in the sand -- circles, not a spiral (I can do that, too, but it's
more difficult than you think).  It stands in the middle of the
garden, given more prominence by those symbols.  The bonsai are far
enough away that their own auras are free of the boulder -- though,
the very outermost ring swirls around the bonsai in a complex braided
spiral, weaving the five of them together with whorls that make them
look connected, almost a single object, despite the significant area
they cover.

     The other two stones I decided to treat differently, combing
lines to connect the two of them, and then giving those lines (and the
stones at their endpoints, naturally), another, intentionally
irregular form.

     Kintaro's eyes don't go to me, studying the shapes for a long
minute.  "I see the sun," he says after a moment, his grin widening as
he studies the central boulder.  "The trees are the heavens -- clouds,
and a roof for the sun.  These boulders are the earth, beneath the
sky!"

     Tsuruya nods at that, though I can barely see her from where I
stand at the moment.  "But do you know the poem?" she pressed gently,
the smile carrying in her voice.

     Kintaro hesitates a moment, then shakes his head guiltily,
turning to give his mother an apologetic smile.  "I don't think it's
Basho," he determines.

     "He's right," I say gently, smiling myself.  I step into the
garden on the walkway.  It takes almost an entire day to properly
groom the garden, though thanks to the house's structure, it will
usually last over a week before needing to be repaired.  "I do adore
Basho, but this garden's poem -- to me -- is a renga."

     "Ah!" he says, grinning, shaking his head.  "I thought so!  This
is too modern for Basho!"

     I laugh when Tsuruya gives a tiny, scandalized gasp at that.
"Kintaro!" she says with a chastising giggle.  "Such words!"

     "It's true," I assure her, grinning at Kintaro and reaching up
from the walkway to tousle his hair in a familiar way.  "Now...."  I
get a glimpse of movement from within the house but turn back to the
garden before I process it.  I clear my throat and recite:

     "Sun, cloud, earth and sea:
     "Circles within and without;
     "All are connected.

     "Sunlight fades as clouds ascend,
     "Seas stir while the earth slumbers."

     This form of poetry is not properly renga.  That is to say, a
standard haiku, followed by two seven syllable lines.  These are
formed in groups, usually collaboratively working together to make a
single poem.  Traditionally, there are at least five people involved
in creating one, because three is not quite enough, and four is
unlucky.  The theme was popular in Basho's time, especially among his
students.

     And it should be obvious that he is one of my favorite
influences.  Tsuruya, Kintaro, and I therefore don't truly fit the
classic theme.  Our verse exchanges tend to be shorter, too.

     But then, what I admire most about Basho isn't his adherence to
form -- it's the spontaneity of the expression.  You see something,
there's a shape that's difficult to put into words ... and then you
shape a very strict form that tries anyway.  Can that thing that you
saw really be captured entirely in so few words?

     Kintaro has been familiar with the style for some time, and mulls
it over, not recognizing this particular poem yet.  Tsuruya remembers,
though.  In retrospect, Kintaro would only have been eight when we
made it.  What I quoted were the verses that I originally scribed, so
Tsuruya, naturally, echoes with her own lines from that more distant
winter:

     "So sleeping, we dream.
     "Do you share your dreams with me?
     "Or do they wander?

     "Through the starry skies above,
     "Knit together in a quilt."

     Ah ... yes.  I hadn't seen her perspective when I made my verses.
 But that's the wonder of a collaborative poem -- those fascinating
bits of insight that you share and receive with others.  Kintaro
brightens, remembering it as well.

     Standing perfectly straight, as though for a formal recital, Kintaro says:

     "We are together,
     "Different words or the same...."

     He falters, hesitant....  Not that I can blame him; it was a poem
from a long time ago, and he's still young yet.  He's got better
things to do than fill his head with all of the poetry he can
memorize.  Even if that does seem to be his goal, most days.

     But then another voice picks up from within the house -- and I freeze.

     "All in harmony," she concludes the original haiku, pausing
briefly.  I can see her, now, somehow missed behind Tsuruya.  She's
aged well -- that's a given at a glance.  Her hair is longer than when
I saw her last, and her signature ribbon is gone.  Now it's bound up
in a no-nonsense ponytail, hanging low behind her.

     Her eyes aren't looking at me, yet, so my heart still works.  Her
lips purse slightly, and the faintest hint of concentration appears
between her eyebrows, as though she's deep in contemplation.  With a
tiny, shimmying shake of her head, she recites the final lines of the
renga (my words, when Kintaro couldn't come up with a conclusion):

     "Self, family, city, world,
     "One circle contains many."

     Then her gaze sweeps to me, from her study of the garden that I'd
groomed, and she gives me a look I can't entirely read....  She's
slightly quizzical, I can tell that much.  Surprised, a little bit.
And ... I don't know ... I used to be much better at this.  Wistful?
Melancholy?  I can't say, because she's smiling anyway.

     "Aw," Kintaro pouts.  "Uncle had to help me with the last bit,
anyway...."  Then he seems to remember his manners.  "Oh!  Uncle!
This is Mother's friend, Suzumiya Haruhi-san!"

     "'Uncle'?" Haruhi asks with a laugh, her gaze swinging away,
letting me breathe once more, and my heart start to work again.  She
shakes her head, seeming for some reason faintly relieved, and at the
same time, vaguely disappointed.  "Ah, you know, Kintaro-kun, I know
Kyon--  That is, your uncle, from way back when!"

     "Really?" Kintaro asks, surprised.

     "That's a story for another time," Tsuruya says with a chuckle,
shaking her head at Kintaro.  "Now, you change out of your
school-clothes, alright?"

     He pads off with a cheerful acknowledgement, and Tsuruya shakes
her head again, watching him leave.  She gives me a sympathetic,
apologetic look.  "Um ... so, Haru-nyan, ah ... as I see you remember,
this is ... well, Kyon-kun," she offers uncertainly, indicating me.

     That expression I can't quite place returns, and she looks back
at me, from where her gaze had been following Kintaro....  "I know,"
she says softly.  "So.  What's it been ... fifteen years, huh?"

     Not to the day ... but not that far off, really.  "Yeah," I manage.
     -------------------------------------------
-- 
Brian Randall
--
I write fanfiction. Too much of it. You can read it here, thanks to a
kind grant from the Larry F foundation:
http://www.florestica.com/brandall/
--
Together. Allegiance or death. BIGFIRE!
--
Haiku of my lament:

Forgive my spelling,
my U.S. education,
is the source of blame.