Lucky Dog 1 Short Story – Anniversary 3 – Demon’s Ringlet

(Note that this is only an excerpt because I liked this part too much.  I probably won’t be doing the rest for a bit.)

(Because it’s the 3rd Anniversary story, it also may contain spoilers.  You’ll meet one of the other characters in currently untranslated routes.)

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Demon’s Ringlet

…will say Carnevale!!

 

□ memories

Memories are a good thing.  That’s what I think.

Don’t you think so, too?

Your “recollections” of the past are full of things you’re fine forgetting – stuff you don’t give two shits about, stuff from your fucked up crappy past, stuff you’ve done that you can’t forget about no matter how many bottles of bitter alcohol you guzzle down.

But, sometimes mixed in among those recollections are one or two “memories.”  Those are what’s precious.  How precious, you ask?  About as precious as finding a pink strawberry-flavored jellybean mixed in with a whole bunch of plain ones.  About as precious as finding out that the serial number to the train ticket you’d just bought happens to be a flush or a straight.

Memories are just that good.

Unlike those recollections you keep stored away in cardboard boxes in your mind and never want to touch again if at all possible after you’re done labeling them with stickers of “times of danger,” “times of regret,” “times of loss,” etc., “memories” are something much sweeter.

 

Yes, like a candy ball that comes rolling out with the momentum of a desk drawer when you open it.

Yes, that feeling that makes you want to stick a pole to it or tie a rope around it so you can fish it out any time you want.

Yes … that single star-shaped pendant jumbled in among your recollections of the past – so many of which are completely worthless.

 

“… … …It feels so warm…”

 

One of those very memories is taking my consciousness away on a joy ride this very moment.

It was … ah, yes.  It was early afternoon on a warm day like today.

It was probably around this time of the year, too.  The seasons match.  Probably April.  I had on overalls and a shirt way too baggy for me.  I clearly recall looking down at my feet clad in their wooden sandals.  No, I “remember.”

In my memory, I’m still a snot-nosed brat.

I remember now.  Even for my age, I was a stupid half-wit brat who never listened to a word anyone said.

 

… … …

…Gian?  Giancarlo…?

 

Somewhere, someone’s calling me.  I know it’s me that the someone’s calling for, and I know who’s doing the calling.  It’s the person who always brings me my food and who puts me to bed and, when I do something naughty every now and then, who slaps my palm with that willow switch.  I know it’s one of the Sisters – tall, always dressed in black and white.

I run away from her voice on purpose – it’s not for any real reason.  I just wanted to play hide-and-seek, and so I run from the Sister for actually bothering to care about someone like me – and keep running and running until I fly into the open courtyard.

Now, looking back on it, I can tell.  The Sisters – this kind, gentle place – were nice to me.

As a brat, I loved this place.  I recall this clearly.

The ground that can support no more than a few scraggly tufts of grass.  The bright and tender sunshine.  The refreshing breeze that blows by your neck as you run.  I recall all of it.  I race past all this and I look back to check on the voice still searching for me before taking off again.

This is the abbey I was in as a kid.  These are memories of the orphanage that was on those grounds.

This is the place I hated but loved as a kid.  It was a small church and it was a tiny courtyard.

This is the place I ran through as a kid, sandals flopping behind me as I raced towards the crystal blue sky and—

…Ah, yes.  I look up at the church soaring into the sky and black to my eyes, at the tower housing those tiny bells.  I crane back so far I practically fall flat on my back, so I run a few steps back, like I’m fleeing from the building, before turning straight back around and looking up again.

It’s a church steeple, its plaster peeling off here and there where I can see the brown bricks poking through.

I stand there, alone, as I stick up my thumb to try and measure the tallness of the tower.

…I recall.  I recall what I did after that.

I grow tired of staring up at the tower, so I start scurrying around trying to chase my shadow.  And … that was when I come to a small storage house behind the church.  Usually there’s just firewood and gardening tools stocked there, but this time, out in front, there’s bales upon bales of straw laying there, drying.

Thinking back on it now, I know they’re the bales of hay used for stuffing the orphanage’s and the Sisters’ beds.

At the time, I think … the old straw was probably laid out in that place to get some airing out and just to soak up some rays.  Even now, I can remember the dust dancing and glittering over the background of light beige.  No, I do remember.

But, at the time I didn’t know what it was I saw.  All I knew was that I was just so pleased with myself for having found a new playground.  I leap into the bales of hay and laugh at their bounciness and their smell.

I stomp all over the dried straw and send it flying, wasting all the Sisters’ hard efforts.  Now that I think back on it, I was one of those nasty kids who was always misbehaving so badly that actually not getting grounded from dinner was unusual … but…

…now that I think about it, why did I do something like that?  I haven’t got a clue.

Just as I’m cackling madly as I trampoline on the straw, I … suddenly break away, and just a little distance away, I find more straw, softening under the sunlight, sitting there just like how the first bales were when I’d first discovered them.  I stare intently at this new discovery…

And then … I sprint out behind the orphanage building.  I’d lost my sandals while playing in the hay, and I recall that the soles of my feet stung every time they struck the ground.

And then … I find, out behind the orphanage, what basically served as the service door lying wide open, and so I sneak in.  (I must’ve known I was doing something bad.  Why?  Because I recall sneaking around and jumping at every creak.  Which basically means I’m a living contradiction to the theory that humans are born good.)

And then … I find what I’m looking for.

Lying past the back door is the orphanage’s kitchen, and there, in the “furnace” – a stove built out of bricks lined in an arch – is a humongous pot that the Sisters always used to put soup in, and under that pitch black pot is some kindling, its flames flickering.

Jeezus, who did I think I was, Prometheus?

At the time, I probably wasn’t thinking anything.  I twist free a small branch, dancing with tongue-like flames, from the stove, and I take that branch – that fire – and run.

And then … yes.

I stand in front of the sun-dried straw, all out of breath … and I take the burning stick and jab it into one of those pale beige bales of hay.

Please, if you don’t believe my words, at least believe this.  At the time, I really wasn’t thinking anything.

I remember it clearly, even now.  The fire disappearing and the foul-smelling smoke licking the twig in its place.  The color of the hay, sitting there like nothing’s happened and like I didn’t just stab it.  Its smell.

Petulant, I pull the stick out, and then jab it in again.

And then … aah.  I remember it clearly.  That color.  That smell.  And that heat.

At first, the smoke thickens.  Then, in the time it takes for me to blink a few times, the smoke transforms into fire, and by the time I fall back onto my butt, the flames that were only lapping at the straw suddenly bounds forth and devours the mountain like an indulging, lustful thing.

Everything burned.

The orange arms of fire stretch out and lick the shed behind the church, and then the church wall itself.

And then … I’m currently here, alive, recalling what happened, so…

…At that time, I somehow managed to escape, and by then the sight of the flames had probably been seared into my eyeballs.  I recall it clearly.  Even then, I was still thinking nothing.

So much stuff happened after that that my impressions start getting scattered.

A chaotic rush of Sisters crashing forward, flustering about, and calling for help.

The sound of angry voices echo through the place, and the countless people bringing water buckets scramble about.  And the city folks from outside the church and random people just passing by start stripping their shirts off and whacking the flames or taking the water buckets from the Sisters and dousing the flames with them.

Even then, I just stand there and watch.  Stare at the writhing flames and the adults around them.

At the time, the whole time, I recall hearing the sound of my name – countless voices calling my name again and again – in my ears.  But I didn’t answer.  Just stood there, watching the flames and the crowd battling it.  Fear?  Regret?  Penitence?  At the very least, I don’t recall any of those appearing in my recollections.

And then, the fire burns out without any of the expected fuss.  To be more precise, the fire runs out of fuel.  All it had done to the stone-built church is burn it a bit (Even now, the burns are still there behind the St. Rita Abbey.  If you ever happen to pass by Daivan and you’ve got the time, please have a look) … and even the shed that’d almost gotten burnt down had been flooded with water, completely suffocating the flames until they’d disappeared.

And then…

The more I think about it the more I think I really am a stupid idiot down to the core of my soul because at the time, as I stood there at the scene, dazed, watching them put out the fire … my hand was still tightly clenching the kindling I’d used to commit my crime.  Thanks to that, all the adults around me, all the Sisters, knew in an instant that I was the one who started the fire.

The panicked Sisters.  The outside men standing around me at a distance and looking down at me.

“What has he done…?”  “Oh, dear Lord…”  I recall the Sisters making crosses over their chests and pulling their hands back before they could reach me, like they were hesitant about something.

“…How could a child do something like that?!”  “There’s no question about it.”  “It’s the devil!  How could he set fire to a church!”  The men from the city mutter and curse me under their breath, but I recall very clearly – not once did they try to approach me.  I…  Even then, after all that time, I’m still standing there, dazed.  I just have this impression that all the adults around me are keeping their distance, the impression that I’m watching myself from another world.  I recall feeling lonely, miserable with something that felt like hunger.

…Yeah.  I’m a bad egg.  No “if,” “and,” “but” about it.

But, I have clear, vivid “memories” of what happens next…

“…Gian!!  Gian..!!”

One second I’m standing there all alone, and then the next, my body’s suddenly flying through the sky.

…A large body, a pair of large arms.  A warm, large chest and a soft cheek.  The feeling of someone hugging me tightly, embracing me as though to protect me from the world, catches me off-guard.

“…Why you…!  Gian…!”

With me in her arms, she whispers my name into my ear with a tear-filled voice before kissing my hair with that voice and those lips.  She sets me down onto the ground, and then wraps me in her arms once again.

It was one of the Sisters that was embracing me, pulling away to look me over before embracing me again.

…The Sister that appears in my memory … Mamma … Mamma Teresa had been the head Sister in charge of the abbey even back then (I suppose it is pretty obvious)…  I don’t know if she’d lost her headdress to the wind or if she’d just taken it off, but her red hair, brighter even than the flames from earlier, fly everywhere.

Some soot clings to Mamma’s face and her hands.  Her face – now that I think back to it – was much younger than it is now (obvious, but still).  Huh?  Is it just me or was she quite the beauty?  Well, she’s a female gorilla right now, though.  …Huh?  Haven’t I seen her face somewhere before?  Well, it’s pretty obvious I have, but, I mean, somewhere else…?  Hm?

And then.

She embraces me, and then turns me round and round, checking to see if I’d been burned anywhere, and pats down my clothes before looking at me with eyes brimming with tears and smiling.  And then,

“…Aah, thank God…!  Thank God…!”

There’s no way Mamma couldn’t have realized I’d been the one who’d set the fire, what with the firestarter still in my hand.

But, Mamma embraces me and repeats my name, God’s name, and words of gratitude, over and over again like a prayer.

Now that I think about it…  This might’ve been the first time I’d heard the words “God” and “devil.”  No, I must’ve heard the word “God” before that, but the first time the words really entered my brain was … in this damned memory, as a paired set with “devil.”

God.  Church.  Fire.  Devil.  The adults distancing themselves from me.  Their cold gazes and voices.

And Mamma’s warm, strong arms and chest.  Her eyes, wet with tears.  Her voice, calling my name.

Yes … my memory of that day is preserved full-color in my mind.

I wonder … why are those memories of the church and of the fire that day coming back out of nowhere now, after all this time?

 

…Yes.  This is one of the reasons why Mamma – that female gorilla in charge of the abbey – will always have one up on me.

…I “remember” all of this … and chuckle.

…I remember the fire and the hustle-bustle from that day, and of course, as a set, I also remember getting grounded from dinner after that.

 

…It feels so warm.

…Yes, I recall that the sunlight from that day was just as warm as today’s.

…Pulled out of the memories I’d sunk myself into, I slowly open my eyes.

 

And the world I open my eyes to is one that passes into mere recollections with every marked second.

 

(…to be continued)

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