It's dark. The waves rush on again. Again. Over me. All around me. Heat travels up my skin, burning me, making me sweat. These are rivers that run on my skin. Rivers of hot, thin sweat licking my skin like the darkness, loosing their calmness until they becomes rivers of blood. Thick, their waves becoming one and rushing over my chest, covering my eyes, demanding to enter through my mouth.

The darkness pulls me harder and my breath becomes thinner in my lungs. I cannot breathe. I am drowning in these rivers. Sweat and blood run faster, maddened on their race, turning into each other and weaving themselves into one. I can smell them. Their smell is too strong, like cyanide and sulphur and the waste inside me. Their smell stinks.

The darkness can hear me moan. Clean myself. This water clings to my skin. This stink is all over me.

Ceilings all look the same. Every morning when I wake up I expect to see a different sort of ceiling, but the boards are all the same. It doesn't matter if the architect used bamboo to decorate the wood, if he coloured it or carved it. The ceilings over me always look the same. One can see reflections in them, on the polished ones the faces are shinier, on the coloured ones the faces seem darker.

I've seen many ceilings. Too many. I should stop greeting new ones, but I can never seem to find one that covers the sky, but keeps it inside the house. All ceilings look the same to me, all of them show me faces. I can't keep one single ceiling or sleep under the same one for long. I am running from those faces. Still, the ceilings fail to understand. I am running from those faces.

This ceiling is different.

I turn my head sideways, the bangs of my hair tangled behind my head. The others are not awake yet. She's still sleeping in her room, her own hair undone from the ribbon I've seen her wear. Perhaps she's still in a dream. Perhaps she's awake.

My arms lie flat beside my head. I close my hands, watching the way my fingers move and open them again. I wonder what she sees in her ceiling when she wakes. This is her ceiling. I stare at it long enough, asking something of it, I suppose. Does it show her faces like other ceilings do? Has she found me staring at those faces? There is light coming in through the windows, crossing the floor, touching the wooden boards. They are still asleep. I can hear their placid moaning.

I sit up in my bed, hands behind me and shake my head. My long hair runs down my naked back free like the light that begins to touch it, making it red like fire. I better get up and get myself busy. No one did the dishes last night. It was that boy's night and he had claimed to be terribly busy elsewhere, said he had to work on the sword swing he'd learned that day. I should go do them before she wakes up. Kaoru dono likes her house clean.

Hitokiri. Hitokiri. It stinks of him. I can't breathe. I close my eyes to clear my head, and I know I am jerking it sideways like a madman, but I can't breathe. The smell is too loud. My body has become numb and all I feel is the hard grip I have on my katana. My head buzzes from too much thinking. This smell is driving me nuts, like a flowing cut on my nose, blood running close to my nostrils, strong enough to be all I smell. But, this smell is not the smell of my own blood, even though I know my lips run red. This is the blood on my hands, on my clothes, on my hair... This is the blood that stinks of Hitokiri.

I close my eyes as I feel them coming and grip my katana harder. It seems I am dying, but it cannot be. I can never die. Flashes of light run about me as my blade dances in the air, splitting the wind in uneven pieces, biting hard into the darkness around me. These are foolish men who run at me. A warrior must know when his opponent is stronger, and when death shines in his eyes and comes from his sword. These men do not know this, so they rush onwards, their own swords dancing with equal cunning, bolder than mine. Their screams die around me and my hands grip my katana harder. Their blood touches my face. I open my eyes once more, and find their bodies left in death with arms that grope towards their killer. Warriors reduced to nothing but corpses that soon begin to stink. The world is whirling around me, new warriors coming to face me, their screams once outside now rupturing their entrance into the insides of my head. I hear my own voice. I seize to listen to it, hearing it grow louder in my head. I know I look like a madman. I sound like one. I stink like one.

Yahiko always finds some excuse not to do the dishes on the days when we eat the most. He must be snoring loudly in his bed, sprawled like a frog, but there is a smile on my lips. I am glad I have something to do thanks to him. This might even save him a beating from Kaoru dono.

The water I've made is cold and the hairs on my arms stand on their ends as I draw them in and out from the wash basin. I watch my fingers work over the dirt, the rag a diminutive weed between them. Kaoru dono needs a new cleaning rag. I'll get one when I go to the market.

The dishes make a quiet sound when I place them on each other. I fear to disturb her sleep even with their wind like noise. Then she'd surely lie awake on her bed, feeling the wooden block beneath her head and her mass of dark, tangled hair, her small fingers moving unconsciously, her eyes watching the ceiling and the faces she finds there.

This water is too cold. I take my hands out of it, watching the way my fingers have become wrinkled. It takes very little for my fingers to shrivel. The dishes are fewer than I fancied, so I soon shall be finished. Why does that boy neglect them this way? I squeeze the rag, watching the murky water fall into the basin. This water makes no bubbles. None at all.

A small bird has begun to sing, perched on a small branch outside in the garden. I can see it from the small, half closed window before me. I wont open it. The light works its way inside quickly enough already. The bird hops twice on the branch. It has a shinny, red body. It walks slowly over the long branch, hoping to one of the wooden rails of the dojo's ceiling. Legs of thin bone make almost no sound as they hop, their nails like pins, and it opens its beak to allow a strange song like a human moan escape. A human moan.

I feel the dish I am washing fall from my hand into the murky water. My fingers try to hold it, a small gasp escaping my lips, but my nails merely scratch the surface and it bangs the bottom of the basin.
I do not know why I cannot move, but merely listen to the horrible sound it makes as it cracks into a thousand small pieces. I do not know why I am watching its porcelain body die as I hear the bird break into flight. There is something in my throat and I hardly hear myself moan as my fingers weakly try to hold the dish, willing the pieces together. The cold water becomes darker and the basin begins to shake sideways as I desperately try to hold the other dishes as they start to fall into the water. I do not know why I am so slow as I reach out to stop them, but the bird has awoken lots of other birds, other birds who each take flight. Their sound bangs into my head. The dishes crash into each other and I watch my other hand reach to catch them. Hold their pieces together. Willing the pieces together. Pieces like bodies falling apart. Broken pieces of porcelain burst into my skin as I move my hands. The murky water grows darker with my blood.

I do not hear myself scream. I do not see the film of glass that covers my eyes. I do not hear my breath quicken as moans escape my body like the cries of an animal. I do not see my own hands shake and become bloody by the encrusted pieces in the skin.

I do not see her by the back door by the panel she had removed slightly so she could watch me quietly.
 

Hitokiri. I do not turn around and I do not stop on my way. Doors surrender to my blade and bodies fall turned inside out where I walk. My feet fly over the floor and I feel the one who calls me follow me. He bangs his body on the walls he passes because he is clumsy as he runs. The warriors around me draw away, resisting the urge they feel to attack me, but I know I am smiling. I have not begun to kill yet. The one behinds me screams as the whirlwind appears from behind him. The warriors before me gasp as they see their killer, a man twice my size and their strength incarnated into hands and limbs. I lick my lips, feeling his body rush forward as in a dance. My heart beats louder in my chest.

Kill them. Finish it already. I shake my head, willing the crawling smell that finds its way inside again. My feet hurt and I feel a dizziness come to my legs. My left shoulder hangs open, wounded. I feel the blood run over my half naked chest. The one who is speaking to gasps, gripping his blade harder. He is government limbs. He should know the way the warriors around us fight and should not leave his back open as he does. Still, his eyes widen as I slash forward and cut those who dare come near him. I grip the katana harder, filling the blood sip through my grip. I do nothing because someone tells me. He does not like my answer.

I feel the fire burning on my eyes, the blood of the ones who dare come near us dripping down from the blade to my fingers. Monster of Ishin limbs. The huge warrior before me sees this through my eyes. I can tell. I long to lick the blood from my katana. The fire swirls over me, the heat of the government soldier who looks at me asking me to become animated again. He likes this smell. His faces twists as he gasps and I can sense those behind him begin to smile. The Ishin worm is dead like those others they have destroyed. This man is over like the countless of men and women they have murdered brutally, sins I have atoned for. So they think as they stand waiting for him or me to move, waiting for their leader to spring into my hands. My shoulder hurts too much. All I can feel is the wound burn in my head.

We are animals, not men. Flames leap higher and screams burn into the houses that catch fire. The men before me deserve to die. These are foolish me who know not what they chase like an animal. Kyoto deceived them to believe it was them who were doing the hunting. I turn my stance, not allowing my breath to lose its beat. We are covered in filth. A horrendous scream bursts inside my chest. We are covered with stink. All of us. The Ishin soldier beside me looked at me. We are the law.

The whirlwind is nothing more than a huge hurricane of filth. The man beside me screams and flows into the wind of the killers, his sword cutting like a crazy horse. I watch him become lost in the hands and teeth and legs of the killers, and he turns around to look at me. I can feel his hands reaching for me, almost dragging me with him. I need no invitations. I hear myself scream as well, my feet moving faster than the wind I break with my katana. These men deserve to die by my hands. The soldier swings around to look at me, laughing as his protector comes to his aid. I cannot think. I cannot hear my insane screams, but I know I am smiling. The huge warrior groans as my katana lunges into his throat, his eyes rolling in a deranged wail. I whirl my blade watching his body fall, watching the others lunge at me.

I cannot see. It is too dark. From the wind I hear his wretched scream. My body shakes, gripped by the hands of the soldier who spoke to me. He fell forward, impaled in my blade. My eyes widened in horror. The rivers. I feel them covering me again. Cold hands grip my clothes, reddened lips and eyes loosing their life. I stagger backwards, my feet loosing their momentum. Screams. I cannot loosen my katana from the government man's body. Death. There are tears in my eyes as pain surges up my body as a blade pierces my right breast. These men deserve to die by my hands. I fling my body like a madman taking everything to hell with me. I am not justice. This man deserved to die by my hands. He's not justice. I do not know.... I do not know who deserves to die by my hands... him ...them ... me...

I killed them. The water of the washing basin soaked my dress and I blink as I notice it. I shake my head. My hands lie before me on my lap, small shards of the broken dishes on bleeding wounds in my fingers. I bring them to my mouth, pulling the pieces slowly with my teeth. I've made a mess of Kaoru dono's washing. I lift the basin, feeling it much too heavy on my hands. The ceiling and its faces. I am running from the ceiling and its faces.

I move the panel wall to my right and let myself out. She must be asleep in her bed. I will her to be so. Asleep and unable to see any faces on her ceiling. Not lying awake, perhaps moving sideways or sitting on her bed, and watching the shadows and lights crawl across the wooden floors and planks of her ceiling. My bare feet touch the ground as I step outside, the basin in my hand. My fingers grip the wooden bucket harder. Ceiling of curves and contours of delicate blue tiles. Delicate hands built this dojo, kind hands constructed hard walls and floors and took care to give it a strong ceiling. A ceiling unlike any I've slept under ever since I begun to wander.

My bloody fingers ache as I fling the wash basin away from me. It rolls twice and lies helpless on the sandy earth. The faces find their way into the water, into the mirrors, into the songs of birds. They live not only in the shadows of ceilings. I cannot feel. I cannot feel the hot tears that run down my cheeks and into my lips.

I cannot run away from the faces. I feel my nails burn into my skin. I cannot run away from the faces. I stink. I cannot run away if I stink like this.

My bare feet make no sound as they rush forward and I pick up the bucket. Clean myself. I fall on my knees before the small brook in the garden. I fling the bucket into the flowing the water. So cold. Colder than the one left in the dish sink. Clean myself. I grit my teeth as the thin water stings the wounds in my fingers, but I pay it no heed as I scrub my skin. Harder. Harder. The water cold against my white skin, my fingers working fast, splashing the water over my long sleeves and over my feet. Clean myself. My long hair falls over my face, the sweat on my brow sipping into it as it reaches into the brook. I reach up and pull it into the water as well, yanking it desperately. Scrub away the smell. Scrub away the dirt. The blood. The smell. The stink. The blood. The faces. Clean myself. Clean the years of death and mercy by my hands. Those men deserved to die by my hands. Those men deserved to die by my hands. Clean this blood. Clean this hair like blood. I want to smell like the brook. Like the water in this brook. Clear. Sweet. White.Untouched like nature.Innocent.Clean myself.Clean myself of this stink.

Oh, God. It wont leave me. This stink wont leave me. Tears run my cheeks down into the water. Oh, God, someone help me. Someone clean me.

"Kenshin."

Hot hands. Hot fingers touch me, hold my hands and stop their frantic movement over my face and hair. Small fingers find their way into my shaking hands, willing them to stop, pulling them towards her body. I feel the breath of my body leave my aching chest as she reaches into the brook. The water her hands bring is cool against my skin. She does not look up to me, her eyes looking at my hands and her own fingers as she touches me. I watch her hands move slowly into the water and over my skin. Her long, dark hair falling over her face and down over my white arms as she moves in slow rhythm. Slow, gentle rhythm of cool water.

The darkness of a calm river stares at me from her eyes as she lifts her head, daring to look at me. I cannot speak. I can only feel my chest heave silently, its breathing now becoming even with each breath I take. Her hands stop their cleaning, her fingers holding my hands. Her eyes narrow as a smile comes to her lips, finding its way into her eyes. Strong hands built hard walls in this house. Sharp turns of walls and beams and daring boards that hold together her home, held together by a strong, forgiving ceiling that covers the sky, but keeps it outside.
 
 
 

Author's Note

Honto ni arigato de gozaru, for reading this. If you like it, please let the author know. Such things make him ever so glad. He, who speaks to you now, hopes this was a good read. It was begun on an aeroplane, where he was dizzy and feeling ill, which explains some of the diction in the story.
 

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© August 12th-14th, 1998 Team Bonet. Not original characters created by author. Written on a trip back from New York to Florida, and while listening to great Arab music and Menudo.