Sun and Moon: A love story.
Jun. 14th, 2009 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joegodaA warm summer wind swept up the moon and placed it high in the night air. The world below spun softly in a pirouette, humming the key change from day to night. The skies that framed that hanging moon pushed white woolen clouds from horizon to horizon to hide them in the corners of mountains and valleys.
Night birds and night bats flitted among the darkened leaves of maple trees and pin oaks standing tall and standing guard around a small acreage of land. There was a fence around the square patch on the Earth, made from old and sun bleached timbers that had been gathered from the fallen branches of the surrounding forest.
Most of that patch of land was hoed and rowed and tilled and planted. Tall wands of near ripe corn and short runners of snap beans grew and thrived there. Golden waving oats and wheat bowed their heads in reverence to the summer wind. A small square held green and rounded watermelons, another held beige and rough skinned muskmelons. Cucumbers, dreaming of being salads or pickles, slumbered in their beds.
There was a building, a house, a farm house specifically, sitting at a point where there was a break in the rickety old fence. The house was not very large, but it was painted bright white so the moon could see it's reflection on the walls. The roof was red tar roofing tile, old and patched, a plaid cap covering the house's one and a half stories. The bottom half of the house, the ground floor, had four rooms. Kitchen, dining room, bedroom and living area were all that lived on that floor, and though they were as old as the fence, the rooms were clean and well kept. Each room had two windows in them, and each window had a lace curtain tied back and away to the side, so that the outside could come looking in and the inside could go looking out.
The solitary half story, rising from the bedroom below, was not much larger than a church steeple. Square and majestic, it rose wearing the same patchwork cap as the lower floors. It was a humble room, holding only a highbacked wicker chair, a rickety folding table with a paint spattered top, and a telescope. The telescope was black and brass, and when the sun or the moon passed across the lens, the telescope would wink twinkling. If the wink was ever returned, it was never discussed.
Sun Yin lived there with her grandfather, Chow Yin. She was a pretty young woman, barely reaching the height of her seventeenth year. Standing in stocking feet, she was not quite tall enough to reach the tallest of shelves. It was this denial of her need and recognition of her lack that frustrated her more than anything else in her young life did. Her grandfather, who had once been a tall man, but now bore his years in stooped back and white hair, could look her in the eyes and when she would cry out in frustration, he would just chuckle at her.
"You reach for things that you may yet grasp, granddaughter," he would say in his wise and crackled voice, staccato between his chuckles. "Whereas I cannot grasp things that I once could reach. Go fetch a ladder and quit complaining."
There was country road that passed before the house. When a traveler, more likely lost than not, would come, rumbling and rambling down the road, dust would plume out behind him. The dust would drift in large clouds up the small drive and cover the front porch with a thin coating of silt.
The road also gave the same response when Chow would drive his old and rusty truck from their small farm to the village market, some ten miles away. The crops were held onto the flat bed of the truck by a fence made of the same timbers as the fence that surrounded the farm. It was not very elegant, perhaps, and certainly not as fancy or as pretty as any of the new trucks seen in the village, but it ran quietly and happily.
The truck, as old as it was, never squeaked and never gave out with a cough or belch of smoke or noxious and poisonous fumes. It was fueled by grandfather himself, from a barrel next to the garage. The fuel was made by grandfather, from the grain he harvested and a bit of cane sugar. Sometimes the fuel fueled grandfather as well, on those nights when he found it difficult to drift off to sleep.
Part of Sun Yin's duties included sweeping all the road silt away from what it had blanketed. It wasn't hard work, as the dust usually settled on of the two old and yellowing rocking chairs on the cracked concrete of the porch or on Shep, the equally old and fairly useless dog that adopted the farm even before Sun Yin was born. A quick wipe with a brush, a damp rag and the chairs were clean again. Quick dance of the broom and the tiny porch was clear of dust. Shep, though, was a different matter. He had to be bathed in a tub of hot soapy water, an event that was something that neither Sun Yin nor Shep appreciated.
"Shep, granddaughter," Chow would say in his older than old voice, "is one of the last dragons on earth. He chose this form, as he knew his end was coming and wished to live his life out peacefully. Show him some respect!"
Sometimes his chastising would come with a soft whack of a rolled racing form, which grandfather read faithfully every day, though he never placed a wager. Sometimes his grumbles would be accompanied by a sever finger wagging and crossed eyebrows.
Sun Yin would, in truth and had she the choice, rather have had the whack of the racing form, because when grandfather crossed his eyebrows he looked very scary to her. As scary as any demon she had seen in any book. When grandfather was very angry, his turned as bright red as a holly berry AND he crossed his eyebrows, and that was a very scary look indeed. It wouldn't surprise Sun Yin if grandfather could blow flames out of his nose and smoke out of his ears when he was that angry. And so, she tried very hard to be as good as possible and not raise her grandfather's ire.
And so, Sun Yin and Chow and even old Shep lived a quiet life of farming and season change. Winter became spring, spring moved to summer, and summer gave way to autumn. Once autumn gave way, then it all started over again, and it had, for seventeen of Sun Yin's years.
And of course, there was school. Part of Sun Yin's schooling took place in the village at a tiny one room school house where all the children, from the age of walking to the age of leaving, were taught reading and numbers and some sense that the world outside the village was much larger.
The other part of Sun Yin's schooling came from grandfather, who taught her about farming and the seasons and other things when he thought about it. He taught her how to read the stars in the sky and the names of the constellations and how there were more things in the universe than even he could tell her about. That is how the telescope happened to be in the tiny room at the top of the house. It was a gift that Chow had given her on her eleventh birthday, and she used it almost every night to gaze up at the stars, far, far above her, and she used it to wonder what was out there that even grandfather didn't know about.
This is not to say there were not exciting times. There were many celebrations in the Village and Chow and Sun Yin would rumble into the village and take part. There were celebrations for every season, and sometimes there were celebrations just because there was needed a celebration. Grandfather always seemed to know when they would occur and he would hurry Sun Yin into a pretty dress or freshly washed jeans and shirt and off they would go; throwing dust into the air that Sun would have to clean off of the porch with the coming of the next day.
Once inside the village, Chow would park his old truck at the edge of town and Sun would walk with her grandfather down the short stretch of main street until they reached a small thatched hut of the combined post office and barber shop, which sat near the center of the village.
Here, Sun would leave Chow to play long and noisy sessions of Go or Mahjong with his friends. Chow would give Sun a little spending money and send her on her way. He cautioned her not to speak to anyone she didn't know, and to stay close to her friends.
Sun had three friends that she had made in school. This wasn't because Sun was standoffish or snobbish. She was, in all honesty, a wonderful girl, kind and gentle and helpful. She would often be the one to work with the younger children, when they were having difficulties with their spelling or the arithmetic. She actually had many friends at school because of her own gentle nature, but she had only three deeply close friends that were her own age.
There was the funny one, Sami, he of the dark hair and flashing eyes, who was taller than Sun even though he was younger. There was the serious one, Lai, with her perfect skin and large brown eyes and who was already showing signs of the beauty she would be, as she grew older.
Her best friend of all was a young man named Moon How. He was the same height as Sun and of the same temperament, which is to say he was good and gentle to all he met, curious when it came to the hidden and unknown mysteries of the Universe, and not easily angered by the stones that tripped him up on the path of his life. He also grew frustrated with those things that were just out of his grasp.
"That's what they made tall people for," he would grumble to Sun. Even in his grumbling, Moon would have a smile on his slender and sharp boned face. Even in his grumbling, his eyes would still twinkle blue sky and bubbling, babbling brook. Even in his grumbling, he would still melt her heart.
And then Moon would pull Sami away from Lai and make him reach to the taller shelf, the higher branch, the just out of reach prize. Lai would do so, laughing, and retrieve the whatever it was with a wink. After passing the item down to Moon or Sun, Sami would often bow deeply and say, "For you, my honored friends, it is always an honor to be your stepladder." Then, with a chuckle, he would resume whatever he had been talking about with Lai.
It was considered by most families in the village that Moon and Sun would naturally be a couple, simply because of their names and nature. Grandfather himself had made mention of the relationship, and had told Sun that if her parents had been alive, they would more than likely have approved of the boy.
This made Sun both happy and sad, as she knew it to be the truth. Her parents, what she could remember of them, were happy people and left her a legacy of a joyful spirit. She was three when they left her, and her last memory of them was being held by Chow as she waved goodbye to her parents as they were lowered into the ground. At three, she had never heard of an automobile accident, and at seventeen, it was something that still troubled her dreams.
Still, on a night of village celebration, with her arms tightly wound around her friends, sad memories get left far behind on the dusty road of things long passed, as they should be. There are many more exciting things in the here and now to captivate and entertain the mind of a young person alive in the world.
All along the dusty main street, for the ten blocks it ran, there were stalls set up that sold trinkets and foodstuffs, and games that could be played, if one was more willing to part with hard won coins rather than strolling away with a small stuffed animal. There were singing contests as well, and a cake walk, where a cake could be won, simply by standing on the correct spot at the correct time.
Everywhere was great fun and there was laughter and song and joyfulness everywhere. Small children ran rampant, laughing and buzzing about like two legged bumblebees. The children weren't unattended and loose, as one might expect. They were always under the watchful eyes of the adults of the village.
It was a strong belief in the village that no child is raised by parents alone, and all adults are responsible for every child. It was the belief that being raised by a village, rather than a single pair of parents, created a stronger bond to the village, a larger sense of responsibility to the survival of the village. It may very well have been this belief that enabled the village to have a consistency of no violent crimes, and almost no smaller ones.
Still, accidents do happen and whenever a large group of people are put together in a small area, friction does occur. It was a tribute to the village itself that the very spirit of the place made those small times of friction small indeed and the accidents that happen, few and far between. Chow would tell Sun that it was because of the magic of the waters that the people of the village were so well behaved. Or maybe it was just because the people of the village were more grown up than the rest of the world. Generally, though, he would just shrug his shrunken shoulders and tell her it is just the way it has always been.
At night, when the games had quieted down and the last cake had been walked, when the musicians had put their instruments away and the dancers had twirled their last spin, there were fireworks that exploded over the river that flowed nearby and everyone gathered at the shore to watch. Some of the people sat on benches and some sat on blankets they had brought specifically for firework watching. Some stood in small clumps near the few stands that were still open, selling liquid refreshment or something on which to nosh. Some had found privacy among the trees and it was there that lovers could be found stuttering and stammering and turning red-faced.
Sun and Moon stood near Lai and Sami, and all four were quietly watching the bright colored spirals and bursts in the air. Sami had made quiet and subtle mention to Lai about finding a quiet spot among the trees. Lai had replied with a hard fist to his shoulder, but she softened it with a small, tight smile. The promise of that smile kept Sami cheerful. He had already asked Lai the important question, and Lai had already given the important answer.
The wedding was to be the spring of next year, when the melting mountain snows caused the waters of the river to run high and lively. This was considered to be extremely good luck to those of the village. Fast running waters keep evil away from the celebration, ensuring it to be a successful start to a happy and long lived union.
The only question the villagers had about the marriage was to which of the couple would eventually rule the roost. Lai was extremely devoted to Sami, and Sami could not say no to anything his love asked. Those at the Go table gave it a fifty-fifty chance of being either of the two, and those at the Mahjong table gave even odds that it would be both of them. Regardless, the entire village believed it to be a good union, and had already given the happy couple more blessings than they could spend. There was even a small plot of land reserved for them, not far from the village itself.
There were no such plans for Sun and Moon, although it was assumed by all that knew them that marriage was in the works. If any in the village were to be asked about the pair of youngsters, they would answer that it as a union that should happen and would happen, given time.
Even the couple themselves, if pressed, would agree that it was something that should happen and would happen, when the time was right. Both of them would also agree that the time was not yet right.
The reason the time was not right is because Moon wanted to see more of the world, so that he could present to his future bride a more worldly and knowledgeable man. He had plans to travel to a University on the far side of the mountains and apply for studies there. He had, in point of fact, already sent inquiries and had already received a positive response from the University.
Sun understood this desire for knowledge, as she too had the dream of adding to her knowledge and understanding of the Universe. She hoped go to another, different University on the far side of the mountains and learn from the instructors there. Sun, had not, as of yet, received any response to her letters of inquiry.
Such is life, as it moves from one cycle to another, hope and waiting, joyfulness and disappointment, life and death.
As the couple stood watching, hand in hand, the brightly colored skies above their village, all they knew, all they were sure about, was their here and now. That they were together and quite likely would be together in the future.
But then, what would life be like if not for a few surprises, now and then?
Night birds and night bats flitted among the darkened leaves of maple trees and pin oaks standing tall and standing guard around a small acreage of land. There was a fence around the square patch on the Earth, made from old and sun bleached timbers that had been gathered from the fallen branches of the surrounding forest.
Most of that patch of land was hoed and rowed and tilled and planted. Tall wands of near ripe corn and short runners of snap beans grew and thrived there. Golden waving oats and wheat bowed their heads in reverence to the summer wind. A small square held green and rounded watermelons, another held beige and rough skinned muskmelons. Cucumbers, dreaming of being salads or pickles, slumbered in their beds.
There was a building, a house, a farm house specifically, sitting at a point where there was a break in the rickety old fence. The house was not very large, but it was painted bright white so the moon could see it's reflection on the walls. The roof was red tar roofing tile, old and patched, a plaid cap covering the house's one and a half stories. The bottom half of the house, the ground floor, had four rooms. Kitchen, dining room, bedroom and living area were all that lived on that floor, and though they were as old as the fence, the rooms were clean and well kept. Each room had two windows in them, and each window had a lace curtain tied back and away to the side, so that the outside could come looking in and the inside could go looking out.
The solitary half story, rising from the bedroom below, was not much larger than a church steeple. Square and majestic, it rose wearing the same patchwork cap as the lower floors. It was a humble room, holding only a highbacked wicker chair, a rickety folding table with a paint spattered top, and a telescope. The telescope was black and brass, and when the sun or the moon passed across the lens, the telescope would wink twinkling. If the wink was ever returned, it was never discussed.
Sun Yin lived there with her grandfather, Chow Yin. She was a pretty young woman, barely reaching the height of her seventeenth year. Standing in stocking feet, she was not quite tall enough to reach the tallest of shelves. It was this denial of her need and recognition of her lack that frustrated her more than anything else in her young life did. Her grandfather, who had once been a tall man, but now bore his years in stooped back and white hair, could look her in the eyes and when she would cry out in frustration, he would just chuckle at her.
"You reach for things that you may yet grasp, granddaughter," he would say in his wise and crackled voice, staccato between his chuckles. "Whereas I cannot grasp things that I once could reach. Go fetch a ladder and quit complaining."
There was country road that passed before the house. When a traveler, more likely lost than not, would come, rumbling and rambling down the road, dust would plume out behind him. The dust would drift in large clouds up the small drive and cover the front porch with a thin coating of silt.
The road also gave the same response when Chow would drive his old and rusty truck from their small farm to the village market, some ten miles away. The crops were held onto the flat bed of the truck by a fence made of the same timbers as the fence that surrounded the farm. It was not very elegant, perhaps, and certainly not as fancy or as pretty as any of the new trucks seen in the village, but it ran quietly and happily.
The truck, as old as it was, never squeaked and never gave out with a cough or belch of smoke or noxious and poisonous fumes. It was fueled by grandfather himself, from a barrel next to the garage. The fuel was made by grandfather, from the grain he harvested and a bit of cane sugar. Sometimes the fuel fueled grandfather as well, on those nights when he found it difficult to drift off to sleep.
Part of Sun Yin's duties included sweeping all the road silt away from what it had blanketed. It wasn't hard work, as the dust usually settled on of the two old and yellowing rocking chairs on the cracked concrete of the porch or on Shep, the equally old and fairly useless dog that adopted the farm even before Sun Yin was born. A quick wipe with a brush, a damp rag and the chairs were clean again. Quick dance of the broom and the tiny porch was clear of dust. Shep, though, was a different matter. He had to be bathed in a tub of hot soapy water, an event that was something that neither Sun Yin nor Shep appreciated.
"Shep, granddaughter," Chow would say in his older than old voice, "is one of the last dragons on earth. He chose this form, as he knew his end was coming and wished to live his life out peacefully. Show him some respect!"
Sometimes his chastising would come with a soft whack of a rolled racing form, which grandfather read faithfully every day, though he never placed a wager. Sometimes his grumbles would be accompanied by a sever finger wagging and crossed eyebrows.
Sun Yin would, in truth and had she the choice, rather have had the whack of the racing form, because when grandfather crossed his eyebrows he looked very scary to her. As scary as any demon she had seen in any book. When grandfather was very angry, his turned as bright red as a holly berry AND he crossed his eyebrows, and that was a very scary look indeed. It wouldn't surprise Sun Yin if grandfather could blow flames out of his nose and smoke out of his ears when he was that angry. And so, she tried very hard to be as good as possible and not raise her grandfather's ire.
And so, Sun Yin and Chow and even old Shep lived a quiet life of farming and season change. Winter became spring, spring moved to summer, and summer gave way to autumn. Once autumn gave way, then it all started over again, and it had, for seventeen of Sun Yin's years.
And of course, there was school. Part of Sun Yin's schooling took place in the village at a tiny one room school house where all the children, from the age of walking to the age of leaving, were taught reading and numbers and some sense that the world outside the village was much larger.
The other part of Sun Yin's schooling came from grandfather, who taught her about farming and the seasons and other things when he thought about it. He taught her how to read the stars in the sky and the names of the constellations and how there were more things in the universe than even he could tell her about. That is how the telescope happened to be in the tiny room at the top of the house. It was a gift that Chow had given her on her eleventh birthday, and she used it almost every night to gaze up at the stars, far, far above her, and she used it to wonder what was out there that even grandfather didn't know about.
This is not to say there were not exciting times. There were many celebrations in the Village and Chow and Sun Yin would rumble into the village and take part. There were celebrations for every season, and sometimes there were celebrations just because there was needed a celebration. Grandfather always seemed to know when they would occur and he would hurry Sun Yin into a pretty dress or freshly washed jeans and shirt and off they would go; throwing dust into the air that Sun would have to clean off of the porch with the coming of the next day.
Once inside the village, Chow would park his old truck at the edge of town and Sun would walk with her grandfather down the short stretch of main street until they reached a small thatched hut of the combined post office and barber shop, which sat near the center of the village.
Here, Sun would leave Chow to play long and noisy sessions of Go or Mahjong with his friends. Chow would give Sun a little spending money and send her on her way. He cautioned her not to speak to anyone she didn't know, and to stay close to her friends.
Sun had three friends that she had made in school. This wasn't because Sun was standoffish or snobbish. She was, in all honesty, a wonderful girl, kind and gentle and helpful. She would often be the one to work with the younger children, when they were having difficulties with their spelling or the arithmetic. She actually had many friends at school because of her own gentle nature, but she had only three deeply close friends that were her own age.
There was the funny one, Sami, he of the dark hair and flashing eyes, who was taller than Sun even though he was younger. There was the serious one, Lai, with her perfect skin and large brown eyes and who was already showing signs of the beauty she would be, as she grew older.
Her best friend of all was a young man named Moon How. He was the same height as Sun and of the same temperament, which is to say he was good and gentle to all he met, curious when it came to the hidden and unknown mysteries of the Universe, and not easily angered by the stones that tripped him up on the path of his life. He also grew frustrated with those things that were just out of his grasp.
"That's what they made tall people for," he would grumble to Sun. Even in his grumbling, Moon would have a smile on his slender and sharp boned face. Even in his grumbling, his eyes would still twinkle blue sky and bubbling, babbling brook. Even in his grumbling, he would still melt her heart.
And then Moon would pull Sami away from Lai and make him reach to the taller shelf, the higher branch, the just out of reach prize. Lai would do so, laughing, and retrieve the whatever it was with a wink. After passing the item down to Moon or Sun, Sami would often bow deeply and say, "For you, my honored friends, it is always an honor to be your stepladder." Then, with a chuckle, he would resume whatever he had been talking about with Lai.
It was considered by most families in the village that Moon and Sun would naturally be a couple, simply because of their names and nature. Grandfather himself had made mention of the relationship, and had told Sun that if her parents had been alive, they would more than likely have approved of the boy.
This made Sun both happy and sad, as she knew it to be the truth. Her parents, what she could remember of them, were happy people and left her a legacy of a joyful spirit. She was three when they left her, and her last memory of them was being held by Chow as she waved goodbye to her parents as they were lowered into the ground. At three, she had never heard of an automobile accident, and at seventeen, it was something that still troubled her dreams.
Still, on a night of village celebration, with her arms tightly wound around her friends, sad memories get left far behind on the dusty road of things long passed, as they should be. There are many more exciting things in the here and now to captivate and entertain the mind of a young person alive in the world.
All along the dusty main street, for the ten blocks it ran, there were stalls set up that sold trinkets and foodstuffs, and games that could be played, if one was more willing to part with hard won coins rather than strolling away with a small stuffed animal. There were singing contests as well, and a cake walk, where a cake could be won, simply by standing on the correct spot at the correct time.
Everywhere was great fun and there was laughter and song and joyfulness everywhere. Small children ran rampant, laughing and buzzing about like two legged bumblebees. The children weren't unattended and loose, as one might expect. They were always under the watchful eyes of the adults of the village.
It was a strong belief in the village that no child is raised by parents alone, and all adults are responsible for every child. It was the belief that being raised by a village, rather than a single pair of parents, created a stronger bond to the village, a larger sense of responsibility to the survival of the village. It may very well have been this belief that enabled the village to have a consistency of no violent crimes, and almost no smaller ones.
Still, accidents do happen and whenever a large group of people are put together in a small area, friction does occur. It was a tribute to the village itself that the very spirit of the place made those small times of friction small indeed and the accidents that happen, few and far between. Chow would tell Sun that it was because of the magic of the waters that the people of the village were so well behaved. Or maybe it was just because the people of the village were more grown up than the rest of the world. Generally, though, he would just shrug his shrunken shoulders and tell her it is just the way it has always been.
At night, when the games had quieted down and the last cake had been walked, when the musicians had put their instruments away and the dancers had twirled their last spin, there were fireworks that exploded over the river that flowed nearby and everyone gathered at the shore to watch. Some of the people sat on benches and some sat on blankets they had brought specifically for firework watching. Some stood in small clumps near the few stands that were still open, selling liquid refreshment or something on which to nosh. Some had found privacy among the trees and it was there that lovers could be found stuttering and stammering and turning red-faced.
Sun and Moon stood near Lai and Sami, and all four were quietly watching the bright colored spirals and bursts in the air. Sami had made quiet and subtle mention to Lai about finding a quiet spot among the trees. Lai had replied with a hard fist to his shoulder, but she softened it with a small, tight smile. The promise of that smile kept Sami cheerful. He had already asked Lai the important question, and Lai had already given the important answer.
The wedding was to be the spring of next year, when the melting mountain snows caused the waters of the river to run high and lively. This was considered to be extremely good luck to those of the village. Fast running waters keep evil away from the celebration, ensuring it to be a successful start to a happy and long lived union.
The only question the villagers had about the marriage was to which of the couple would eventually rule the roost. Lai was extremely devoted to Sami, and Sami could not say no to anything his love asked. Those at the Go table gave it a fifty-fifty chance of being either of the two, and those at the Mahjong table gave even odds that it would be both of them. Regardless, the entire village believed it to be a good union, and had already given the happy couple more blessings than they could spend. There was even a small plot of land reserved for them, not far from the village itself.
There were no such plans for Sun and Moon, although it was assumed by all that knew them that marriage was in the works. If any in the village were to be asked about the pair of youngsters, they would answer that it as a union that should happen and would happen, given time.
Even the couple themselves, if pressed, would agree that it was something that should happen and would happen, when the time was right. Both of them would also agree that the time was not yet right.
The reason the time was not right is because Moon wanted to see more of the world, so that he could present to his future bride a more worldly and knowledgeable man. He had plans to travel to a University on the far side of the mountains and apply for studies there. He had, in point of fact, already sent inquiries and had already received a positive response from the University.
Sun understood this desire for knowledge, as she too had the dream of adding to her knowledge and understanding of the Universe. She hoped go to another, different University on the far side of the mountains and learn from the instructors there. Sun, had not, as of yet, received any response to her letters of inquiry.
Such is life, as it moves from one cycle to another, hope and waiting, joyfulness and disappointment, life and death.
As the couple stood watching, hand in hand, the brightly colored skies above their village, all they knew, all they were sure about, was their here and now. That they were together and quite likely would be together in the future.
But then, what would life be like if not for a few surprises, now and then?
