It's Still Life

At an Intersection Named After an English King and a Saint
Six Sentence Story: Part 21 “The Beauty of Imperfection”

last week: “I fill my lungs with swirling night air, look up at the amber light filling the window of my flat, and shout …

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“You look uncomfortable,” I say , and Hanzō nods, “Wabi-sabi,” and at reading my expression he explains, “There is beauty in imperfection ..”

… I listen, he’s talking about ‘nothing lasts’ and ‘nothing finishes’ … I watch stars dive from the sky through chandeliered branches of the trees as we sit on summer-hard ground.

The day is new and the sky is not yet trampled by blue, and I ask “Are you hungry?” and Hanzō suddenly raises his head and says, “Chadō, tea ceremony – make matcha tea, and if it’s done correctly, I will eat a meal that you prepare for me,” …(my internal dialogue is best unheard and unanswered).

I long to rid myself of subservience to madmen and ghosts, teleporting samurai, and Drake … I long to be alone like a single deep bell’s tone …

… and I put water on to boil and pocket a bamboo whisk from Apregè’s kitchen, a small, imperfectly formed tea bowl made from the light and colour of sage-green clay, a wooden box with powdery matcha and an Irish linen serviette.

I am a voiceless rhythm as I walk to where Hanzō waits – he is the dark heart of silence, a stream that could fill my veins, his back straight, his mind in harmony with the golden light rising on the horizon.

Hanzō bows, admires the bowl as he slowly and deliberately sips the tea, and then he wipes the rim of the bowl with his little finger, and sets it before me with a slight clockwise turn.

“Yes, I am hungry,” his eyes laugh, but his expression dials to neutral.

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Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, include the word “Dial”. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2024.