by Toshiya Kamei
The town tailor busied himself sewing Sayuri’s bridal kimono. The embroidery on the indigo fabric depicted a golden dragon flying through clouds. In the tailor’s imagination, the creature flapped its wings, soared high into the air, and circled over a muddy river flowing into the ocean.
Sayuri was Mr Numata’s only daughter. He was reputed to have rapidly gained an enormous fortune by illegal and barely legal speculations, and the girl’s kimono showed off her family’s ill-gotten wealth. The wedding was only a few days away. It was a rush order, and the tailor put aside his other tasks. As the deadline fell the following morning, he toiled late into the night. When he finished sewing in the wee hours, a sharp knock came at the door.
“Who is it at this hour?” the tailor wondered aloud, with a glance at the wall clock. He slid the shutters open. With a serious look on her face, a pale-faced girl stood before him.
“Oh, Miss Sayuri. I didn’t expect to see you so early.”
Sayuri wore a faint smile as she looked around.
“How is my kimono coming along?”
“It’s finished, miss.”
“Is that so?” She tilted her head slightly.
The tailor beckoned her inside, picked her folded kimono off a rush mat, and extended it before her eyes.
“Congratulations, by the way. You must be happy.”
The girl remained silent while the wall clock ticked out the seconds. “Thank you,” she finally mumbled with a fleeting smile. Before she looked down, however, her face clouded. “That’s what everybody says. Happy. What is happiness? Do you know? To please one’s father? Increasing his wealth by marrying well?”
“I don’t know, miss. Don’t tell me you’re not looking forward to your own wedding?”
“Excuse me,” Sayuri said, with a look of resignation. She stood behind a shoji screen. The candle flame danced on a nearby table, casting her oversized shadow along the wall. The rustle of her clothing falling filled the otherwise silent room. Dressed in her bridal attire, she walked toward the door.
The tailor gasped, not only because the bride-to-be’s beauty moved him. An otherworldly flicker ignited in the girl’s eyes like a funeral pyre.
“Miss Sayuri, where are you going?” he said, his voice trembling. The girl vanished into thin air, her kimono slowly falling like a petal to the floor.
Exhausted and confused, the tailor staggered forward. He walked over to where the kimono fell and grabbed it. The embroidered dragon was gone. He stepped outside. A real dragon flew over a persimmon tree, circled a few times, and swam toward the sun peeking from the horizon, where the clouds tinted wine red.
TOSHIYA KAMEI is a fiction writer whose short stories have appeared in New World Writing, Trembling With Fear, and Utopia Science Fiction, among others.