11-25-2022, 08:14 AM
I am Tsukino, but the dead will forever commit me to the name Chizuru Funai. I have just turned fifteen, and I would like to confess something cruel I did when I was even younger. This cruel something that I believe serves as the black ledger for keeping tabs to the karmic debt I pay to this day.
Oddly enough, this piece of my childhood likes to bubble up from the depths of my mind more often than the recent horrific incident that night of ████ █████ ██; and if someone were to ask me which memory I preferred, I would reply with "Would you rather to split open your thumb with a kitchen knife or be sliced through cleanly by a katana?" ... but I digress.
Our family had a pair of pet lovebirds, Shio and Asahi. Shio meaning "salt" because, as you would expect, the colors of her plumage were speckled with soft shades of grays and whites reminiscent to the seasoning. Asahi —"morning sun" in the regional Shengese I spoke—boasted a lovelier palette of yellows and reds just like a mango. They coexisted with us in a silver-wired bird cage cleverly tucked to the corner of the dining room. That way we could not forget to feed them during the mornings and evenings we dined together.
Again, coexist. I repeat it because I wish for you to look upon it with scrutiny. All they did was nestle against one another, whistle a few pretty notes while living off the generosity of my parents; and undermining the daily labors of my twin brother and me in caring for them. When we had to feed them or clean their cage of droppings, I felt bitter when they squawked in complaint at us. As in their perspective, we were interlopers encroaching upon their nest. The pair were mother's main source of entertainment at home. Father was often working in his studio, and Chiaki and I went to school until the mid-afternoon. At the time, I felt they were no more valuable than pieces of furniture.
And this was my flimsy line of reasoning for one afternoon while Chiaki and me were cleaning their cage. Asahi was in his regular snobby mood along with Shio cajoling him from their swinging perch. Him, nipping at my fingers several times while I was busying changing out the lining at the bottom of their cage with some dried grass trimmings. Brother had left momentarily left to throw away the old ones.
One more bite-- the webbing between my fingers-- before I snatched up Asahi and, with my small fist, began to squeeze his tinier body in a fit of anger. Tighter, yet tighter still. I could feel the crunching of his hollow bones and his eyes bulged out from its sockets. Yet I didn't care. I only wanted to repay the accumulated pain he had delivered to me in kind all at once.
A pink froth spilled out from his agape beak not too long after he stopped convulsing. It was fluffy like cotton candy, and I just stared at it dribbled from his mouth and onto my knuckle.
"Chizu, what have you done?" Chiaki had said trepidatiously off of the corner of my vision and snapped me from out of my stupor. I was smart enough to have reclosed the cage door prior to this event as Shio was now reacting wildly to the death of her mate; throwing herself against the bars of the cage. Brother had set the cage from its stand and onto the ground before she had the change to tip it over.
We glanced at each other in a way similar to telepathically communicating; an unspeakable, strong bond between twins since as we grew together in the womb. Mother liked to say that our umbilical cords were the red strings bounding our fates together eternal. Chiaki and I had the same idea in mind of disposing of Asahi's body.
We decided on burying him underneath the crawlspace of the house. Next to one of the wooden pillars supporting the foundation. If this was not bad enough, we had forgotten to pray for his soul as he returned to the life stream.
Both of us gave a lame excuse of Asahi flying away out of our carelessness— it was all my fault, but Chiaki was kind in shouldering that burden with me. Mother was unrelenting when spanking us raw with a bamboo stick and sending us off to bed that night without supper.
Shio died a week after of loneliness.
. . .
Have I not repaid that debt to you, Shio? Asahi? Have you not taken enough from me? My parents? My village? My peace of mind? Why must it have been me to have survived that night after the failure of the Ensō Ritual that took Chiaki away from me?
The Sinuipo Massacre.