Garden Dress

GARDEN DRESS

MODERN FAIRYTALES

By Christen E

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Christen E. All rights reserved.

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Contents

Introduction

Train Ghost

The Shop Where They Know What You Need

Boundaries

Moon Flowers

The Three Brothers

The Story That Rebelled

The Beautiful One

The Garden Dress

Garnet Heart

The Singer

In The Playground

The Choice

The Dance of the Cats

Gooseberries

God’s Sale

Love Train

Introduction

Modern fairytales, like traditional fairytales, have magic, romance, heroes and heroines, villains, and significant morals or lessons in life. But they are set in today’s world and adopt current ideas and values. These stories loosely follow this distinction but occasionally venture beyond. Many of them are set in modern Japan, where I lived for 3 years.

The Garden Dress, the longest story in this book, is a modern fairytale reminding us about the priceless value of the arts in civilizing society. It is a magical tale, set in a Japanese city, and features a beautiful kimono that may unfold into a marvelous private garden. The key character is a mysterious lady of high culture, and also the proprietor of a unique antique shop housing artistic treasures of long departed master artists. She teaches Ai, a gifted young girl, the secrets of art and nature.

In The Story that Rebelled, the characters of an on-going story begin to disagree with the writer and a kind of crazy struggle ensues. In another story, a broken- hearted man stumbles upon a mysterious shop where the shopkeeper somehow knows exactly what he needs. In The Beautiful One, a Japanese country girl slowly discovers the difference between outer and inner beauty. The Love Train, in which a dreamer wakes up in an alternative and surreal London Underground, may well be the most bizarre and romantic fairytale ever told. The Three Brothers is a wild parody of a Grimm’s fairytale. Some of these stories are deadly serious, and some will bring tears, whereas others explore the fabulous realms ‘outside the box’. In these stories, magic, aliens, romance and the ridiculous all weave together in unexpected tales - imparting a poignant message that is entertaining, touching and stimulating to readers of all ages.

ECH June 2013

Train Ghost

The Keisei line train rattled past despite the April rain – it’s windows fogged up by the commuters stuffed inside. Several small concrete houses, which were shoddily built right next to the tracks, trembled. Somewhere in their thin painted walls a crack or two lengthened. Against the rain-swept balcony window of the corner house was the round face of an eight-year old boy. Tokabu, whom it was, pressed his face against the window and watched the 7:35 am train roll by, even though his mother yelled at him from the kitchen:

Hurry, you’ll be late for school!

He noted the time, train number and destination in his ‘secret notebook’ and returned to his bedroom where he hid it. Deep down he resented being carted off to school. There was nothing at school remotely as interesting as trains and all the teachers were far too loud and bossy! If he could have put his thoughts and suspicions into words, he might have said that school was the punishment kids had to endure for not having to work like adults! Tokabu loved trains. He loved them so much that it never occurred to him that the only reason his parents lived in this railway-side house, which they had inherited from grandfather, was that they were poor. He thought they were very wise indeed and every rattle and vibration of the house was a comfort and a pleasure that his unlucky schoolmates did not share nor understand. Only his grandmother, who at the age of 77 lived with the family, had time for little Tokabu. Both his parents worked day and night at an Izakaya restaurant, and yet they always seemed to be worried about money. We are poor, his grandmother had once told him, but the boy stared at the window. He was puzzled.

How can we be poor? he asked, we live by the trains and mama and papa are working all the time! He was too young to realize that success did not necessarily come from hard work alone. Many families in Tokyo worked long hours just to keep their heads above water. Grandmother hugged him closer and kissed him. Tokabu had a special relationship with grandma; after all, he had shared the only bedroom with her since he was born.

You remind me so much of grandpa, she had once said.

After school, the boy would do his homework and then, if the weather was good, stand in the small balcony overlooking the tracks and watch the 6pm express ‘bullet train’ whiz by. It made a lot less noise than all the other trains and seemed to glide into the distance like an elongated white goose! These Shinkansen trains were the highlight of Tokabu’s day and at night he would dream of driving one. If I could drive this train even once in my life, he thought, I would die happy!

It was early June when something both strange and wonderful opened up the child’s world wider than ever before. He had woken up as usual, earlier than the rest of the household, and in his pajamas went straight to the balcony window. It was 5am and the first orange and silver regular train was due to pass his house. His eyes lit up as he saw it coming out of the dawn mist. By the time it reached his home it would be going at 70km per hour, yet as it rattled by, it was as if time had slowed down and he saw that the train driver was waving to him! It was unmistakable. There was an old man with straggly white hair, in the customary uniform, looking directly at Tokabu and smiling broadly. Dreamily, the child waved back and then the train was gone!

At school he couldn’t concentrate. He thought about the old man all day. He wondered if he should tell his only friend, Akiba. Akiba was a computer-game fanatic so he could understand Tokabu’s infatuation with trains. In the end he decided to keep it a secret. That evening he waited on the balcony for the express at the usual time. He knew that from his first glimpse to the right to his last glimpse on the left about 3 seconds would pass.

His experienced ears picked up the distinguished sound of a bullet train approaching. Suddenly, there it was. His heart always thumped loudly as he watched it ‘sail’ by. As the carriages sped, perhaps 10 meters from the balcony, he thought, this is a really long one, and then he looked at his watch. It had stopped. As he looked up another white carriage was going by and clearly, behind a large passenger window, there he was - the same old man as before, smiling radiantly at the schoolboy! At first, alarm threatened to engulf Tokabu, but the smile of the man was just so… familiar. He was waving slowly and glowing with warmth. Instinctively, Tokabu waved back, and then the train disappeared in a blur to his right. The child was confused. What should he do? But he didn’t know then that this was just the beginning of the adventure. The friendly old man started appearing on every train that the boy looked at and though Tokabu knew that this was somehow impossible - especially when trains passed each other in opposite directions - his logic was disarmed by the loving warmth of his acquired friend. Here was someone who liked him, encouraged and understood him, with a generous knowing smile. He had never before imagined that a smile could say so much.

His secret, however, threatened to overwhelm him and after 2 weeks of these sightings he approached his grandmother. One evening when he was alone with her he asked,

Is it possible for an old man to be on every train that goes by and be looking at me and smiling as if he knew me well? Grandma didn’t answer so he looked up into her yellowed eyes and saw them looking far away. Absent-mindedly, she caressed her grandson’s head, but in her mind the old woman remembered her husbands smile. He had been a train driver most of his life until that tragic day…

It had happened a few days after his 55th birthday. As his train was approaching the station, a young boy, perhaps 6 years old, had run out onto the tracks in front of him chasing a ball. Grandpa had immediately pulled on the brakes and the train came to a screeching halt a few centimeters before the child, who had been paralyzed with terror. As witnesses went over to soothe the