Legends of the Koi
The grandson tends to the koi fish, feeding them and watching how their scales glitter in the shy sunlight.
He finds calmness in their movements and tranquility in their indolent swimming.
Grandfather couldn’t stop his coughing. Hacking and struggling through the bloody phlegm, he coughs into a handkerchief cloth. He lays in bed, so weak and sapped of life, while rain patters the smooth, wooden floor outside. The rain patters atop the koi pond, where koi fish meander and swim gracefully beneath thunder. The grandson, next in line to maintain the koi fish and their zen garden, just received news about his father serving in the Imperial Japanese Army. Soldiers from the town told him, with his mother and his younger brother, that his father did not survive a recent battle without a single ounce of feeling in their words. His father was a war statistic.
Grandfather begs for water, some medicine, anything to stop the coughing that torments his throat and lungs so horribly, yet the grandson hesitates. His mother and younger brother have gone into town to buy food and supplies. They both grieve silently, except the grandson can hear them cry through the walls, which echo sorrow and weeping voices. The grandson jolts from the exasperated demand, bows, and goes to fetch some medicine, running through the rain and thunder to search for anything that could ease the coughing. He catches a glance of the koi fish swimming, almost tempted to feed them later. He resists another glance.
With a handful of medicine, things that must aid his fading grandfather, he presents them to his grandfather, who groans and beckons for water. The grandson gives the water sheepishly, not sure why those koi fish distract his attention. His grandfather keels left to cough heavily, bloody phlegm apparent and visible. The grandson tries to make sense of the different herbs, using a mortar and pestle to grind some herbs into a tea. His grandfather barely manages to keep the water down, coughing through each gulp. He groans as the grandson stops his grinding, slowing it to a halt while the rain patters.
Grandfather says he will be meeting the grandson’s father soon. He will meet him very soon. The grandson lowers his head, cradling the mortar and pestle to his chest, closing his eyes in silence while rain and thunder continue outside. His grandfather groans and moans in his bed. He tells the grandson one resounding truth: Koi fish and people have existed for generations, but people always carry a legend within them. Now, only the thunder remains, rumbling and thundering above their home, a true force of nature, yet the grandson grunts. He sighs. He finishes creating the tea, listening quietly to the wind that blows against the thin doors.
His grandfather soon fell asleep. His tea had gone cold. The grandson tends to the koi fish, feeding them and watching how their scales glitter in the shy sunlight. He finds calmness in their movements and tranquility in their indolent swimming. Peace when Japan seems so beset by war, always fighting and battling. According to his grandfather, times were more idyllic, before the Westerners arrived and changed everything, changed so much so quickly that the old ways became antiquated history. The grandson acknowledges these thoughts with mild grunts, mesmerized by the fish who swim into another pond, connected by a narrow river, a corridor between ponds, as the other pond contains a gentle waterfall. He considers that pond.
What will await any of them in another pond? What awaits his grandfather? The koi fish swim.
