Past (The Testimony of a Magical Creature)

  Piano Sonata Number 14.

  “The thing is that… The thing is, my parents have not always been bad folk. They have not always been that bad. It is the system itself. The society… I don’t know how to explain it… for I have not always been good with words. But what I want to say is… What I want to say is that life itself is miserable. It is supposed to be miserable. So it had made them miserable, too.

  “Thou art repeating…”

  “What?”

  “These words…”

  “I don’t get it.”

  I looked at her. I was observing her.

  The little girl seemed to be losing her mind. She seemed to be so innocent, but I was doubting her.

  Was she insane? Was I insane?

  I was pretty much sure that I was insane.

  I was a magical ball, and here I was, trying to form a contract with lower life forms.

  “What I want to say is that I have been observing my parents slowly losing their sanity for a long time. Good people always die young. Flowers and butterflies wither quickly. It is a natural order of things. But my parents continued to live on, so they have forgotten who they were. They have forgotten about their beautiful moments together. They have even forgotten about me, their daughter. They were praying to God to end their miserable life. So, in a way, freeing them is the only blessing that I can give them. I freed them. I freed their soul, and now I am happy.”

  “I don’t remember them ever praying to God to end their miserable life,” said I to the little girl. She was clearly being delusional. She did not even seem to remember how she had chopped the head of her beloved father. Or was she just lying not to accept the sin of committing the heinous crime of becoming a murderer? I decided to ruffle her feathers a little bit.

  "Earlier, you had said that you don’t even remember what just happened. It is hard to believe that in this kind of situation, you had time to think all of this over."

  “Oh, no, it's nothing like that. I didn’t kill them. They have brought this on themselves. They have already been dead. Honestly, I don’t think that they are even dead. I think they are alive and well. But wait, thou thinkest that they are dead? I!”

  For a moment, for a brief moment, she looked as if she were snapping out of her delirium, but unfortunately, it all came to nought. It all came to naught when she turned off all her bulbs.

  “It is a little bit complicated. But I will try to explain." She was wearing a mask now. She truly looked like an actress. “I did not kill my parents. There is a little chance, of course, that they might be dead. But I know for a fact that they are not dead. Moreover, it ought to be said that they have always wanted to end their miserable life. Therefore, even in case they have been murdered, it was an honorable thing… It was an honorable thing to chop off their heads.”

  “Cut the act, will you?” I snapped, finally. Because she was coherently lying. Previously, I had said that I had been observing her, and I knew for sure that she was planning something, and that something was to plan to murder her parents. It was not an impulsive act of self-defense. She has simply convinced herself that she was not the one who committed the murder. Furthermore, to avoid the weight of a heinous crime, she was defending herself by lying to herself. “Do you remember me?”

  “Well, you are that magical creature, aren’t you?” answered she.

  “That is right. I am a magical creature, and as you can see, I am shaped like a shooting star, and thou knowest that people wish their sacred wishes on the falling star, right?”

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  “I think they do. I don’t know. I haven’t met a lot of people.”

  I proceeded as if I hadn’t heard her stupid statement, “Now, what I am offering to you is quite a big thing. We had met before, and you had refused my claim to fulfill your wish. But despite this, I am offering you again to grant you any wish. In return… In return for forming a contract with me. I want thee to sign a contract to become a magical girl, a goddess.”

  I stopped talking for a moment. I needed to calm down. I needed to be seductive. I was whispering now. I was talking audibly.

  “I will grant you any wish, my dear. Don’t you want to secure your future when the palace investigator comes here to inquire about what happened to your parents?”

  “Not really,” she answered.

  I was getting irritated again, but I quickly got a hold of myself and said, “But my dear, there is a high chance that you are going to get hanged. It would be such a shame… such a shame if a young girl like yourself gets hanged.”

  “I am not going to get hanged, since my parents have been righteously sent to heaven, and even if I were hanged, would that really be a bad thing?”

  She was suicidal, but I couldn't care less. One way or another, I was going to have her soul; therefore, I tried to be more seductive and pristine. What would a living corpse, such as herself, want?

  “How about the magical pie? It is made of an apple, you know, or I can simply brush your hair. I can brush strawberries softly out of your hair, which will grant you the power to be invisible, like a ghost. Do you want to be an invisible girl?”

  “I don’t want to be an invisible girl. More like I don’t care about becoming an invisible girl.”

  “Ah, perhaps you are more interested in acquiring wealth. Do you desire the treasure box? The treasure box is full of wealth, and it can fly… You can travel wherever you want to.”

  “I don’t desire the treasure box, sir."

  “Being difficult, eh… But don’t worry. You are going to be persuaded soon,” I said to her, staring through her. Through her soul. I slowly tasted the batter of her soul. I was contemplating my next move. I was examining the flavor of her soul. The taste of her batter was sweet but sour. There was something wild and untempered in her, and all of a sudden, I came up with a wonderful idea. “How about I make you an actress? Do you care about becoming an actress? Hmm…Better would be if you became a time traveler."

  Her eyes went blurry for a moment, and I was sure that I had finally been successful in swaying her.

  “What is the point of becoming an actress now?” she asked.

  “No, no, it is nothing like that,” I muttered in confusion. “It is… If thou hadst been hanged, like a hanged man from a tree, then thou shouldst have been torn from thy mother's womb. If thou hadst not been hanged, like a madman, then thou shouldst time-travel, traversing through time. Perhaps thou couldst have become a Shakespearean fool. Perhaps thou couldst have become an actress and a princess.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “I am not that well-versed in poetry.”

  “I am telling you that I can grant you the power to time-travel by possessing the body that you desire to possess. You can possess the body of a jokester; you can possess the body of a king. Basically, you can possess as many bodies as you want for any timeline.”

  “I am sorry. I still don’t get it.”

  “You can time-travel, but not in your physical form and flesh, but you can transfer your soul into as many people as you want. People from the past, people from the future, but no people from the present. That is the ground rule.”

  The little girl seemed to be confused, but I knew for sure that this time she was going to accept my offer. Why would you ask? Hadn’t she declined before? Well, simply because she was delusional. She did not dare to accept the simple fact that she killed her parents. Who was at fault, though? I couldn’t care less. I knew for certain that her parents were bad folk. For if a person were innately good, he would not simply turn evil, no matter how bad his life is. The little girl couldn’t accept that. Therefore, she would do anything to run from her reality, and time travel and acting would be a perfect alternative for her.

  “Come, dear." I reached out my hand to her. “I understand it now. I understand all of your pain.”

  I was a little bit nervous, waiting for her answer. Will she hold my hand or not?

  She did hold my hand.

  Present (Peach Mitani)

  Piano Sonata Number 15.

  Peach Mitani had been searching for a comfortable cottage for nearly three hours—at last, she had found it.

  It was a small one, though, and the head eunuch seemed to be gloomy about the whole situation.

  She was resting peacefully when all of a sudden she was awake.

  She tried to sleep again, but to no avail. She was feeling anxious and felt like something was missing.

  Her attempt to escape the palace turned out to be successful, and she was in turmoil.

  ‘Nothing comes for free,’ she whispered. ‘I learned my lesson when I took the offer from the magical creature for granted. Moreover, isn’t all this rather easier than I had envisioned?’