"The Wind 'Pon My Back"
Written by Joey Radu

"Will you be my second?"[1][2]

"Of course."

We were deep within some forsaken forest in the heartland of Japan, in the 27th year of the Tokugawa[3], and the sun was beginning to set upon the world. As I gazed upon the warrior who knelt before me, my eyes were chips of ice. I felt no pity for the man whom I had defeated, and who now must take his own life, in the name of honor. In Japan, all men must be as warriors; they must be strong, and if they are weak, they must die.

This samurai, he was tall, to be sure, but was rather lanky for his status. His eyes were like deep pools, that, while they seemed dead and dull on the surface, must have shone underneath. They looked like they contained much wisdom, of the kind that can only be acquired through many hardships. Was there any other kind of wisdom, though?

"May I ask your name?" he questioned.

"Yamada Takashi[4]," I replied. "And yours?"

"Motomura Kaze."

"That is it? Just Kaze, wind?"

"No, there is more. I just do not know what." His answer was quite point-blank, and it baffled me with its simplistic finality.

"Why not? Why do you not know?"

He sighed, and turned away, looking up at the sky overhead. After several minutes, he said, "Many, many years ago, my mother and I were running through the fields, laughing like the gods must have when the world was young. We rolled together through the grass, and smelled the perfumes of the earth: the sweet fragrances of the flowers, the musky scent of the dirt, the odor of the pines. I told her, 'Mother, some day, I will soar through the sky.'

" 'Of course, you will dear! In fact, why not now?' And with that, she picked me up and twirled me around, many times. When she finally put me down, we laughed, for a long time. We laughed, and laughed, till we were doubled over, and had to blink through our tears of mirth. Then, at last, she asked, 'My boy, how will you fly? Will you be a bird, with strong wings to carry you?'

" 'No, mother, I will not be a bird,' I whispered. 'A bird may fly far, but in the end, he becomes tired, and must come down to rest. The wind is his friend, but the sky is his adversary. No, I will not be a bird.'

" 'Then what will you be?'

" 'I do not know,' I responded, and looked away."

"That still does not answer my question, Kaze," I stated. "I asked why you do not know your whole name, and you only told me of the flight of the bird. Why do you not know?"

At this point, I handed him a pure, white cloth, and a wooden container of water. He accepted the two without emotion, and took out his wakizashi[5], so that he might begin to wash it.[6]

"I was not done with my tale, Takashi, "eminence". There is more to be heard."

"Do tell," was my simple request.

"Long years after my conversation with my mother, but still many years ago, my father lay upon his death bed, weak, yet not old, at the time when the cherry blossoms of Tokyo begin to fall to the earth, majestic in their awful beauty. He was upset with the world, with my mother, with me. He spoke thus:

" 'My son, you have trained long, but are still not a samurai. If you will not be a warrior, how then will you waste your life?!' He demanded.

" 'I wish to fly with the wind,' I responded, half-serious, half-dreaming. 'Why is my name Kaze, father? Is there not more to it?'

" 'There is more, if you can find it,' was his only answer. 'What will you be then? A wispy cloud, one that can be blown into nothingness by the slightest breath of wind?' It was evident that he was still angry, and would die that way. Him, and him alone, I pity.

" 'No, father, I will not be a cloud,' I resented.

" 'Then what will you be?!' He spat.

" 'I know not,' I spoke sadly, and looked at the floor."

"Is there a point to be made here, Kaze, or are you postponing the inevitable with stories of days gone by?!" I questioned of the fallen warrior.

"Yes, there is a point. I was still not finished answering your question," he retorted quietly.

It was then that he motioned for the calligraphy pen that I held in my hand. I handed it to him, along with a well of ink, saying, "Yes, your tanka. Naturally..."[7]

"Continuing on, then..." He spoke. "After my father died, years flew by like the winds of the kamikaze[8], and I did become a warrior; that much you must already know. One day, upon the edge of a seemingly endless bamboo forest, inside which the spirits of the deposed surely lurked, a dreadful battle was being fought. I found myself facing a most difficult nemesis, one who had trained with me as a boy. As the conflict waged around us, we were in our own private duel of wills. Our katana scraped together, and our skin was devoured by wounds, yet still we clashed. At last, I pierced him through the side, and he knew all was lost. He gasped to me:

" 'Well, my enemy, you have won, indeed. You are like the arrow, flying through the sky, bearing tidings of death.'

" 'No, I am not,' I countered. 'The arrow may be blown off course; it may be broken in half, and become useless. I am not an arrow.'

"The man, now in his death throes, spoke only, 'Then...what...are...you, oni?'[9] He gave up his spirit to the world, and I looked upon the scene with despair, and despair, only.

" 'I don't know!' I cried, desolate and alone. 'Who...What, am I?!' I sobbed into my hands, and fell to the ground, defeated by an invisible opponent.

"The only answer I received was the harsh and callous gusting of the wind..."

As he finished this next, perhaps last, part of his narrative, I began to understand. My eyes began to soften, and my heart began to melt. I, the rock in the river, the tall tree in the forest, the moon in the sky, began to wash away, topple down, crash into the world. I shed no tears for the men whose names I knew or did not know, it mattered little, but for the man who did not know his own name, for him, I wept.

"It need not be this way..." I choked. "You can leave now; there is no need to execute...this ceremony."

"No," said he. "I have lost, my honor has vanished; I must be vanquished, once, and for all. My tanka is complete, too." Now he handed me the cloth, with which he had washed his wakizashi, and which now had many characters written upon it. I accepted it, and gracefully folded it up, before putting it inside my armor. "You will not forget about it?" he questioned.

"No, of course not. It will be dealt with properly, and respectfully."

"Let us continue, then..." he sighed resignedly.

And, with that, he picked up his wakizashi, and I, my katana. We both knew what to do, trained from youth in bushido[10], the way of the warrior.

As he brought his short blade to his stomach, his breathed in deeply, saying, "Be not sorrowful, Yamada-kun[11], for I now know my name."

With those words, he pulled the sword swiftly across his abdomen, and let out a low, guttural noise. Finally, he spoke his last words, terrible in their truth:

"Ughnn...Heh heh...The wind...It is blowing..."

I swept my long sword speedily across his neck, easily severing his head from his body. After all his suffering, he was finally at peace.

I took out the cloth from underneath my armor, and undid my careful folding. What I read simply made me smile, and comforted my tired heart. The words, in all their pristine beauty, were:

After all this time,
I knew all along, that I
Am only a kite,
Sailing silently through the
Sky, with the wind 'pon my back.

[1]The entire story takes place during the process of seppuku / hara-kiri, which, in essence, is ritualistic suicide. It is performed when something truly dishonorable happens to a person, such as a samurai losing a battle, a servant disobeying or failing a lord, etc.
[2]" 'Will you be my second?' " refers to the fairly common act of having a person assist you in seppuku. This person shortens your suffering by severing your head almost immediately after you have sliced open your stomach.
[3]"...in the 27th year of the Tokugawa..." is equal to 1627 A.D. The Japanese used to measure years in relation to how long an emperor had been ruling, but the Tokugawa family was not that of emperors. They were shoguns, the true leaders of Japan (sort of like the Prime Minister of Britain and the Queen), although it was not uncommon to hear years measured by a shogun's rule, or, in this case, an entire shogunate.
[4]"Yamada Takashi" and "Motomura Kaze" are names, of course. However, the family name is first, and the given name, second. Just Japanese custom, is all.
[5]"...took out his wakizashi..." refers to the shorter of two blades most commonly carried by a samurai, the other being the katana. The wakizashi was never taken off, and was worn while eating, sleeping, and while doing everything else, as a samurai needed protection at all times. It was also the blade used to commit seppuku, as this story shows.
[6]"He accepted the [pure, white cloth, and a wooden container of water] without emotion, so that he might begin to wash [his wakizashi]." Washing the blade is just another part of the "ceremony".
[7]"Yes, your tanka. Naturally..." A tanka is a form of poetry, quite similar to a haiku. Its pattern of syllables is 5-7-5-7-7.
[8]"...years flew by like the winds of the kamikaze..." Kamikaze, despite all those incidents in WWII, actually means "divine wind" (and is related to the suicide plane (pilots), anyhow), and refers to a typhoon that protected Japan from an invading Mongol fleet.
[9]"Then...what...are...you, oni?" Oni means spirit, or, more loosely, demon.
[10]"...trained from youth in bushido..." Bushido essentially means "the way of the samurai/warrior".
[11]"Yamada-kun" contains the honorific -kun, which refers to a friend who is a male. However, its use in this case is rather strange, because only children or very, very, very close friends use -kun. Perhaps there is a reason behind Kaze's saying it...?