The Way of Gods And War
A Short Story From the World of 'Kami'
I swore to never get involved. War of men is not for the Kami. But we forget at times that war is not just made up purely of great battles and destruction, but of real people, just trying to find a way to get by, day by day. I never thought those two elements would meet. But then they started building the balloons.
For a moment, I thought they were building huge paper lanterns on the east coast. Perhaps the people of Japan were honouring the old ways, or were sending messages of peace to the enemy.
Alas, if only that were true. To the balloons they tied explosives, and by lighting a fire inside the balloon they sent it high into the sky, carried by the jetstream across the Pacific Ocean to strike the Americas. A great part of me would have swiped the thousands of balloons they launched from the east coast out of sky, but I knew the rule. This was War. We would have no place in it. True, we had been involved in warfare in the past, but this...this was different. Man brought his own clever machines this time. We Kami came to a decision very early that this fight was theirs and theirs alone.
But then there were the children.
They didn't go to school, not anymore, though they still wore their school uniforms. They were only clothes they had left, even though they were dirtied and torn from working for the war effort every day. It wasn't so long ago that the children from this small village would play and frolic on the beach. Now they spread out huge sheets of washi paper and built killing machines.
Their bony hands worked to press konnyaku paste into the edges of the sheets, acting as a glue to stick several washi sheets together, and fold them around to make a balloon tall and wide enough to fit them all in. Which didn't say much: they looked like skeletons with skin stretched over them. At the end of each day, the Inspector would walk the length of the beach, checking each balloon made by each group of children. They'd watch the man in the impeccable military uniform with their bulging eyes, both terrified and hopeful. A well made balloon meant ration tickets for food that night. A poorly made balloon meant punishment and no ration tickets.
I'd been watching one group of four children in particular. They seemed to work harder than anybody else on that beach, and yet they failed to pass inspection more than anybody else. The oldest in the group had cuts all over her hands, apparently taking punishment for two people. And then I saw him: a baby in swaddling wraps, smuggled into the beach under the dress of the oldest girl. So that was why they were bent double over the balloon all the time, I thought, they were hiding the little thing. But why? Why did these children bring a baby to a beach where they built weapons of war?
I kept watch over them, until the tragic reason became apparent. Every day, one of the children would look around to make sure no other group was looking, scoop up some konnyaku paste in their fingers, and gently press it into the baby's mouth. Of course. I should have figured. No wonder why their balloons failed inspection so often: they didn't have enough konnyaku paste to finish it properly. And so they were punished. Punished for feeding a starving baby.
This is War.
I continued to watch this group. I am not sure why I did: there were many more groups of bedraggled and hungry children on this beach. But this group intrigued me more somehow. I should have stayed away: simply observing them feed that baby and getting punished by the Inspector at the end of each day tested my resolve to not get involved.
And then, one day, the inevitable happened. The other children were so utterly starved that, almost without thinking, they would scoop up the konnyaku paste and, instead of smearing it onto the edges of the washi paper, stuck their fingers into their own mouths. They couldn't help themselves. The mind of a child and the mind of a starved man are not easily controlled things. The two together...well, they never stood a chance. They consumed the konnyaku paste entirely, the balloon paper lying forgotten.
This is War.
When the final morsel had disappeared, the children seemed to snap out of a trance. They looked over the washi paper as though it had just appeared, and panic fogged their eyes. The oldest girl wrung her hands. One skinny shirtless boy looked around wildly, as though hoping to scrape some konnyaku from the other groups. I could almost make out his heart beating fast against his rib cage. But the sun was dipping towards the mountains, and the other groups were finished, dusting the sand from the vast white spheres. The Inspector would arrive very soon. If he punished children for balloons that were badly made, what would he do for a balloon that wasn't made at all?
The oldest girl bolted from the beach, baby still clutched in her arms. At first, I thought she was making a run for it. Getting herself and the newborn away from danger as quickly as possible. But before I could commend her for making a wise decision, I saw where she was running. To the Shrine. To me.
I had never felt a prayer quite like that, before or since. It was overflowing with fear, love, desperation, anger. It burned to the touch of my essence. Such complexity! I admired the prayer like a curate's egg. And yet at its core, it was so simple: Help. The girl was on her knees before me, tearing the scabs on her skin and making tiny blossoms of blood flick onto the pale stones. I watched her carefully as she picked herself up, collected the silent baby in her arms and left my Shrine, and bowed deeply at the torii before she walked away.
Help. How could I possibly help? And yet...how could I not? These children had intrigued me, and I will admit that I had grown somewhat concerned for their welfare. Even Kami share that trait with humans. To see them punished by the Inspector, perhaps fatally...it was unthinkable. And yet I knew the rules. I could not interfere, could not help. Involvement of our kind had never helped in the past, anyway: we only escalated the destruction and the death. And even if I could help, I would only be satisfying myself, and furthering the War. To save the children, they would need to have a balloon ready for the Inspector. A balloon that would fly across the ocean and kill innocents. People who were just as innocent as these children. No, I couldn't get involved. Besides, there were other children on that beach too, some who were just as hungry, surely. They built their balloons just fine and got their food rations tickets - rations that this group could have used if they had just built the balloons instead of feeding konnyaku paste to themselves. And a baby...
I caught myself. Was I trying to rationalize the punishment of children? I let the girl's prayer burn through me, appalled at myself. War truly was hell.
By the time the Inspector came around to the group, the oldest girl had returned, though the baby was nowhere to be seen. The children had made a balloon, as big and impressive as any other. The Inspector frowned, and moved in closer. He ran a finger down a seam. It wasn't clear and tough like konnyaku paste was supposed to be, but a dark orange colour, and soft - it shifted in shape under the Inspector's touch. He turned to the nearest boy, who looked up at the adult with wide, hopeful eyes. The Inspector struck him with the back of his hand, and the boy crashed to the sand. The other children didn't dare move.
"Tree sap!" The Inspector roared, phlegm flying from his lips, "You dare to insult the Divine Emperor? You eat our resources for the war effort, and then you think you can fool me with this? I..I..."
Words failed him in his fury. His face turned red and he bared his yellow teeth. The children leaned back for fear he might explode. But then he took a deep, long breath...and smiled. The kind of smile a dog would flash before it bites.
"I see. Very well," he said calmly, "You there, oldest child. Do you deem this fit to fly?"
The oldest girl licked her lips, her eyes darting from the balloon to the Inspector. She brushed her lank hair out of her eyes, then nodded.
The Inspector puffed out his chest. "Very good! And you are confident that it will fly?"
The girl nodded again, more firmly this time.
The Inspector's smile turned into a grimace in a heartbeat. "Then it will fly higher than any other balloon at launch tonight, or you shall never receive rations again."
The girl swayed on the spot. The Inspector stepped forward and grabbed her by the chin. "This is war, girl. You will understand very soon that when you put your family first, you doomed them."
He let go, and she crumpled to the ground. The Inspector turned and walked away, leaving deep boot prints in the sand.
That night, the balloons lined the beach, floating above the sand by ten feet, the fire within flickering yellow and orange. It was beautiful, in its own way, under the full moon. It would have even been peaceful were it not for the explosives tethered to the balloons.
The tree sap balloon stuck out even more with the fire glowing inside it: the seams were thick, dark lines spidering across its surface like the fault lines on a globe. The glow danced in the eyes of the children stood underneath it, holding the explosives down with their bony hands.
"Release on my word!" The Inspector boomed from a megaphone, "Any released early will be punished!"
The girl looked up at the balloon, her eyes pleading. She mouthed a word, then she looked at the Inspector. Normally he paced the whole beach, barking his instructions over and over until release. But today he stayed close to them, and now he and the girl locked eyes. It was brief, and the girl tore her gaze away almost immediately, and yet the breeze seemed to pick up when she did so, gently tugging at her skirt.
The Inspector smirked, and looked up at their balloon again. Of course it wouldn't fly. He knew that. Delaying the inevitable just lengthened the children's torture - which, of course was exactly what he wanted. Even the other groups were shuffling their feet and shivering in the cold.
Finally, he raised his megaphone again. The children of the tree-sap balloon winced as though he'd struck them.
"Three...two...one...RELEASE!"
The children leapt away from the explosives, and the beach filled with the sounds of wire pulling taught. Slowly, calmly, the balloons floated upwards like giant paper lanterns. They filled the sky, bathing the beach in a low orange light, illuminating the tree-sap balloon. It still stood on the beach, pulling weakly at the wires. The hot air escaped through the poorly-sealed seams, and the explosives didn't budge.
"I KNEW IT!" The Inspector boomed. He strode forward, kicking up the sand as he went. The other groups of children on the beach bolted. They knew what was coming. "On top of your treachery and lies you don't even have the brains to do it well! This is the end for you all!"
He grabbed the smallest girl by the hair. She screamed and he threw her into the sand. The oldest girl stepped forward. The Inspector swung around and grabbed her by the neck.
“I will make sure none of you ever eat again,” he said. The oldest girl was turning red in the face, her weak fingers trying in vain to peel at the vice grip of the Inspector. “Maybe it would be merciful if I ended your sad little lives here…”
Snap. One of the balloon wires burst away and whipped the Inspector across the face. Letting go of the girl he staggered back, clutching his face. The tree-sap balloon ripped open at the seams like an egg and the fire burst forth. The breeze blasted across the beach again, hurling the flames directly at the Inspector. He screamed, throwing himself to the sand and rolling, but it didn’t work. He staggered to his feet, and in a ball of blazing flames ran for the black ocean, where the waves swallowed him. He didn’t come out.
It was the last time I would ever do such a thing. The others in the area had been watching the plight of the children and, they too, came to same decision as mine. And so, for the final time, the Kami of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water came together to help a human in a war.
Never again.
For a moment, I thought they were building huge paper lanterns on the east coast. Perhaps the people of Japan were honouring the old ways, or were sending messages of peace to the enemy.
Alas, if only that were true. To the balloons they tied explosives, and by lighting a fire inside the balloon they sent it high into the sky, carried by the jetstream across the Pacific Ocean to strike the Americas. A great part of me would have swiped the thousands of balloons they launched from the east coast out of sky, but I knew the rule. This was War. We would have no place in it. True, we had been involved in warfare in the past, but this...this was different. Man brought his own clever machines this time. We Kami came to a decision very early that this fight was theirs and theirs alone.
But then there were the children.
They didn't go to school, not anymore, though they still wore their school uniforms. They were only clothes they had left, even though they were dirtied and torn from working for the war effort every day. It wasn't so long ago that the children from this small village would play and frolic on the beach. Now they spread out huge sheets of washi paper and built killing machines.
Their bony hands worked to press konnyaku paste into the edges of the sheets, acting as a glue to stick several washi sheets together, and fold them around to make a balloon tall and wide enough to fit them all in. Which didn't say much: they looked like skeletons with skin stretched over them. At the end of each day, the Inspector would walk the length of the beach, checking each balloon made by each group of children. They'd watch the man in the impeccable military uniform with their bulging eyes, both terrified and hopeful. A well made balloon meant ration tickets for food that night. A poorly made balloon meant punishment and no ration tickets.
I'd been watching one group of four children in particular. They seemed to work harder than anybody else on that beach, and yet they failed to pass inspection more than anybody else. The oldest in the group had cuts all over her hands, apparently taking punishment for two people. And then I saw him: a baby in swaddling wraps, smuggled into the beach under the dress of the oldest girl. So that was why they were bent double over the balloon all the time, I thought, they were hiding the little thing. But why? Why did these children bring a baby to a beach where they built weapons of war?
I kept watch over them, until the tragic reason became apparent. Every day, one of the children would look around to make sure no other group was looking, scoop up some konnyaku paste in their fingers, and gently press it into the baby's mouth. Of course. I should have figured. No wonder why their balloons failed inspection so often: they didn't have enough konnyaku paste to finish it properly. And so they were punished. Punished for feeding a starving baby.
This is War.
I continued to watch this group. I am not sure why I did: there were many more groups of bedraggled and hungry children on this beach. But this group intrigued me more somehow. I should have stayed away: simply observing them feed that baby and getting punished by the Inspector at the end of each day tested my resolve to not get involved.
And then, one day, the inevitable happened. The other children were so utterly starved that, almost without thinking, they would scoop up the konnyaku paste and, instead of smearing it onto the edges of the washi paper, stuck their fingers into their own mouths. They couldn't help themselves. The mind of a child and the mind of a starved man are not easily controlled things. The two together...well, they never stood a chance. They consumed the konnyaku paste entirely, the balloon paper lying forgotten.
This is War.
When the final morsel had disappeared, the children seemed to snap out of a trance. They looked over the washi paper as though it had just appeared, and panic fogged their eyes. The oldest girl wrung her hands. One skinny shirtless boy looked around wildly, as though hoping to scrape some konnyaku from the other groups. I could almost make out his heart beating fast against his rib cage. But the sun was dipping towards the mountains, and the other groups were finished, dusting the sand from the vast white spheres. The Inspector would arrive very soon. If he punished children for balloons that were badly made, what would he do for a balloon that wasn't made at all?
The oldest girl bolted from the beach, baby still clutched in her arms. At first, I thought she was making a run for it. Getting herself and the newborn away from danger as quickly as possible. But before I could commend her for making a wise decision, I saw where she was running. To the Shrine. To me.
I had never felt a prayer quite like that, before or since. It was overflowing with fear, love, desperation, anger. It burned to the touch of my essence. Such complexity! I admired the prayer like a curate's egg. And yet at its core, it was so simple: Help. The girl was on her knees before me, tearing the scabs on her skin and making tiny blossoms of blood flick onto the pale stones. I watched her carefully as she picked herself up, collected the silent baby in her arms and left my Shrine, and bowed deeply at the torii before she walked away.
Help. How could I possibly help? And yet...how could I not? These children had intrigued me, and I will admit that I had grown somewhat concerned for their welfare. Even Kami share that trait with humans. To see them punished by the Inspector, perhaps fatally...it was unthinkable. And yet I knew the rules. I could not interfere, could not help. Involvement of our kind had never helped in the past, anyway: we only escalated the destruction and the death. And even if I could help, I would only be satisfying myself, and furthering the War. To save the children, they would need to have a balloon ready for the Inspector. A balloon that would fly across the ocean and kill innocents. People who were just as innocent as these children. No, I couldn't get involved. Besides, there were other children on that beach too, some who were just as hungry, surely. They built their balloons just fine and got their food rations tickets - rations that this group could have used if they had just built the balloons instead of feeding konnyaku paste to themselves. And a baby...
I caught myself. Was I trying to rationalize the punishment of children? I let the girl's prayer burn through me, appalled at myself. War truly was hell.
By the time the Inspector came around to the group, the oldest girl had returned, though the baby was nowhere to be seen. The children had made a balloon, as big and impressive as any other. The Inspector frowned, and moved in closer. He ran a finger down a seam. It wasn't clear and tough like konnyaku paste was supposed to be, but a dark orange colour, and soft - it shifted in shape under the Inspector's touch. He turned to the nearest boy, who looked up at the adult with wide, hopeful eyes. The Inspector struck him with the back of his hand, and the boy crashed to the sand. The other children didn't dare move.
"Tree sap!" The Inspector roared, phlegm flying from his lips, "You dare to insult the Divine Emperor? You eat our resources for the war effort, and then you think you can fool me with this? I..I..."
Words failed him in his fury. His face turned red and he bared his yellow teeth. The children leaned back for fear he might explode. But then he took a deep, long breath...and smiled. The kind of smile a dog would flash before it bites.
"I see. Very well," he said calmly, "You there, oldest child. Do you deem this fit to fly?"
The oldest girl licked her lips, her eyes darting from the balloon to the Inspector. She brushed her lank hair out of her eyes, then nodded.
The Inspector puffed out his chest. "Very good! And you are confident that it will fly?"
The girl nodded again, more firmly this time.
The Inspector's smile turned into a grimace in a heartbeat. "Then it will fly higher than any other balloon at launch tonight, or you shall never receive rations again."
The girl swayed on the spot. The Inspector stepped forward and grabbed her by the chin. "This is war, girl. You will understand very soon that when you put your family first, you doomed them."
He let go, and she crumpled to the ground. The Inspector turned and walked away, leaving deep boot prints in the sand.
That night, the balloons lined the beach, floating above the sand by ten feet, the fire within flickering yellow and orange. It was beautiful, in its own way, under the full moon. It would have even been peaceful were it not for the explosives tethered to the balloons.
The tree sap balloon stuck out even more with the fire glowing inside it: the seams were thick, dark lines spidering across its surface like the fault lines on a globe. The glow danced in the eyes of the children stood underneath it, holding the explosives down with their bony hands.
"Release on my word!" The Inspector boomed from a megaphone, "Any released early will be punished!"
The girl looked up at the balloon, her eyes pleading. She mouthed a word, then she looked at the Inspector. Normally he paced the whole beach, barking his instructions over and over until release. But today he stayed close to them, and now he and the girl locked eyes. It was brief, and the girl tore her gaze away almost immediately, and yet the breeze seemed to pick up when she did so, gently tugging at her skirt.
The Inspector smirked, and looked up at their balloon again. Of course it wouldn't fly. He knew that. Delaying the inevitable just lengthened the children's torture - which, of course was exactly what he wanted. Even the other groups were shuffling their feet and shivering in the cold.
Finally, he raised his megaphone again. The children of the tree-sap balloon winced as though he'd struck them.
"Three...two...one...RELEASE!"
The children leapt away from the explosives, and the beach filled with the sounds of wire pulling taught. Slowly, calmly, the balloons floated upwards like giant paper lanterns. They filled the sky, bathing the beach in a low orange light, illuminating the tree-sap balloon. It still stood on the beach, pulling weakly at the wires. The hot air escaped through the poorly-sealed seams, and the explosives didn't budge.
"I KNEW IT!" The Inspector boomed. He strode forward, kicking up the sand as he went. The other groups of children on the beach bolted. They knew what was coming. "On top of your treachery and lies you don't even have the brains to do it well! This is the end for you all!"
He grabbed the smallest girl by the hair. She screamed and he threw her into the sand. The oldest girl stepped forward. The Inspector swung around and grabbed her by the neck.
“I will make sure none of you ever eat again,” he said. The oldest girl was turning red in the face, her weak fingers trying in vain to peel at the vice grip of the Inspector. “Maybe it would be merciful if I ended your sad little lives here…”
Snap. One of the balloon wires burst away and whipped the Inspector across the face. Letting go of the girl he staggered back, clutching his face. The tree-sap balloon ripped open at the seams like an egg and the fire burst forth. The breeze blasted across the beach again, hurling the flames directly at the Inspector. He screamed, throwing himself to the sand and rolling, but it didn’t work. He staggered to his feet, and in a ball of blazing flames ran for the black ocean, where the waves swallowed him. He didn’t come out.
It was the last time I would ever do such a thing. The others in the area had been watching the plight of the children and, they too, came to same decision as mine. And so, for the final time, the Kami of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water came together to help a human in a war.
Never again.