The Mask Carver's Son
“The wind was howling and the wind chimes were rattling in song.
I had forgotten how cold Kyoto could be in the winter. I ate my breakfast with the charcoal brazier underneath the low lacquer table, the futon over my shoulders, and remembered how I had eaten here with my father in the same unnerving silence.
I looked into the basin of my soup bowl and hoped to see my mother emerging like a lotus flower from the dark swamp of liquid. When she failed to appear, I forced myself to remember her visage. I wanted to see her magnificent face, translucent as gossamer, looking at me. I needed to see her omniscient eyes, black as burned ginkgo nuts, comforting me in my struggle and beseeching me to find my way.
The day before, I had visited Iwasaki at the theater. Shrouded in swatches of raw silk, I carried the Semimaru mask that Father had sent me close to my chest.
“I would like to give this to the theater in honor of my father,”
Write Review:
User Reviews: