***THE END***
THE DRAGON'S LAST BREATH
By Takao Kimura
This is a story about something that happened a long, long time ago in the town of Shimo-uchi. Even then, Shimo-uchihad afamous temple called Ryuhtaiji, which means Great Dragon Temple. And near it, there was a pond called the "Dragon's Pond," because deep on the bottom of that pond was a Dragon, who had been living there for years and years and years. He had seen many wondrous things in his time but tonight, with the moon shining beautifully over the pond, he was sad.
"If you counted my age in human years, I would be nine hundred and ninety nine years old," he sighed. "I'm so old, I can't see very well, and long, dark nights like this are scary.
"Tell me what I should do, Mr. Moon," he said, sitting at the bottom of the pond and looking up through the murky water to gaze at the dim orb of the moon. It was just about the size of a summer mandarin. Other than that, it was completely dark. Not a single sound could reach down through the cold waters spreading out like a wall around him.
"When I was young and stronger than anyone else around, I couldn't even imagine such a thing as getting lonely. But now I'm so troubled and lonesome I don't think I can stand it. If I close my eyes, the light from the moon disappears and all I can see is darkness spreading throughout the world. I wonder if this is what it will be like after I die."
He sat there patiently on the bottom of the pond waiting for an answer, but the moon didn't reply.
"It's not good for me to sit here thinking about dark things day after day," the Dragon said, closing his eyes and becoming lost in his memories. "Yesterday, I did my best to try and snap out this funk, but . . .
"Oh, I wish I could forget about that happened yesterday afternoon already, but I can't. All it does is make me feel worse."
Yesterday afternoon, he had been lying on his side on the bottom of the pond just like always when the sounds of drums, and flutes, and bells suddenly came to be heard.
PI-HYARA, PI-HYARA. DON, DON. KAN, KAN, KAN.
PI-HYARA, PI-HYARA. DON, DON. KAN, KAN, KAN.
"It's been a long time since I've heard the sounds of flutes, and drums, and bells," said the Dragon, suddenly paying attention.
"I wonder what's going on up there? Aren't those the sounds that the humans make when they're praying for rain? I'm so old I can't even tell any more. But if the people in that village need my help, I'll tear my body to bits trying to help them."
Suddenly, he was almost like a young Dragon again, full of life and vigour. Before anyone knew what was happening, he jumped out the pond and flew madly about the sky gathering black clouds to cover up the sun.
In seconds, rain was pouring down like a waterfall. But when he looked down panting under the black clouds, he was in for a surprise. All the village children were dressed in their best clothes, drenched to the skin, and huddling under the big cedar near the temple to take shelter from the rain. No one looked very happy for his help, at all.
"The rain's got your cotton candy all wet," said an old man reproachfully, looking up at the sky, while a young boy wailed beside him. "And we waited so long for this day to come."
"The Dragon God who lives in that pond must be awfully angry to make it rain like this. What did I do? Either me or one of the other villagers has had to do something awful to make him angry like this. The town festival only comes once a year, and it's never rained this hard before. Not even once. What did we do wrong?"
"Darn it!" said the Dragon, sadly remembering his failure from yesterday. "I'm so old I can't even tell the difference between the sounds of a festival and praying for rain any more. I wish I was dead already."
He sat there moping on the bottom of the pond for a while, then suddenly raised his head again and pricked up his ears.
"Why, is that the sound of a flute again?" he asked himself. "No, my ears must be playing tricks on me. Just like yesterday, when I ruined the festival. I have to calm down."
But the pure, clean sounds of the flute wouldn't go away. It came echoing down through the dark, deep waters of his watery prison. As the Dragon sat there patiently thinking about his terrible life, he slowly came to forget about dying and a warm, peaceful feeling spread throughout his heart. His joints stopped aching and his ancient body filled with the power of his youth again. Once again, he gathered his strength and jumped up from the murky depths of the pond.
"SU-SU-PI. SU-SU-PI," went the flute as he was flinging his revitalized body about the great big, blue sky.
"Huh? What was that?" he said, coming to a stop. "It sounded awfully rough for a flute. If I remember right, it comes from a famous tune used to charm dragons. Someone must be calling me. I wonder who it is? Look. There's someone down there beside the pond. I think I'll go and see," he said, and followed the sounds down to the side of the pond.
There, he saw a great priest bathing himself in the light of the moon, while his young apprentice sat blowing the melody on a flute, trying very hard not to tremble too much with the approach of the fearful Dragon.
"It's unusual for priests to be sitting here by the pond blowing flutes," the Dragon said, raising his voice to be heard by the priest.
"Oh, there's a Dragon here, is there?" said the priest calmly. "The weather's really changed since yesterday, hasn't it? The moonlight tonight is really beautiful. No rain at all. Chinnen, my apprentice there, was bugging me to teach him how to play the flute so I brought him here to practice. Oh, that's right. Speaking of flutes, Honorable Dragon, this one must be very familiar to you. Take a look and see if you remember it," he said, holding his own flute up high for the Dragon to see.
"No, Mr. Priest," the Dragon said quietly. "I am very old and my eyes don't work so well anymore. I can hardly see at all. Why don't you play it a bit for me."
"I see. I'll play you a tune, then. It's called 'Dance of the Dragon.'"
At first, the melody was a little ragged, but as the tune progressed, the Dragon's eyelids lifted and his eyes brightened. Without even knowing what he was doing, his body twisted around itself, his great mouth snapping open and emitting wisps of smoke as his task violently slapped the surface of the water and his body rose up in the air, carried on the sweet sounds of the flute.
"Ah, you do remember, don't you, Honourable Dragon?" said the priest. "Chinnen. Look at this flute. There was a priest from this temple many generations ago who went to China with a group of his followers and risked their lives in many dangerous places. This is the flute he took with him.
"No, it's not right to talk just about saving the flute. I should tell you about the Dragon that helped everyone out by using his great power when he was riding on the sounds of the flute."
"Please! Please! Please tell me the story about what happened then, Mr. Dragon," pleaded Chinnen. "You were the Dragon, weren't you? I know you were. I can see how strong you were then just by looking at you now."
"Until now, I thought I'd lost all my powers and would die soon," the Dragon said. "But now, when I hear the sweet sounds of that flute, I can remember when I was young and strong and at my most powerful. I almost feel like I could do it all over again. Don't stop, Mr. Priest. Won't you keep on blowing a little bit longer, please? I'll tell you the story."
And while the Dragon flowed along on the notes of the tune the priest was playing, he told them the story of what happened in China all those many years ago.
"It was about two hundred years ago," the Dragon said, floating along contentedly on top of the notes. "When one of the priests from this temple went to China with a large group of followers to learn about the Buddha and other things. On the way there, nothing bad in particular happened, but on the way home there was a terrible thing. That day, I had a presentiment that something bad was going to happen so I was at the harbour where the priest's ship was supposed to arrive. I floated high up in the air and I could see that the ship the priest was riding in would be there any minute.
"Now, up until now, the sky was a deep, qui
et, peaceful blue. Suddenly, the clouds started to rush in and the peaceful waves on the calm sea started to rise. Soon, a hard, slanting rain was driving down and the ship started rolling from left to right in the sea like it would sink. It was like the white caps of the giant waves were reaching out to swallow and take the ship in. It was rolling so hard, none of the priest or the others could even stand. Even while the waves were covering the ship completely, he clung to the mast desperately, reciting the sutras for help. Thunder pealed and lightning tore up the sky. The ship was being tossed like leaves on a tree in the wind.
"If this kept up, the ship would be broken to bits, I thought. Desperately, I dove into the sea and swam under the ship. The waves were so strong, I thought I'd be crushed against the side of the ship. But I pushed back like I'd never done before and forced back the waves. I had to get that ship out of the waves and someplace safe. I had to. Or they would all die. I twisted my body around the length of the ship and tried to lift it up, but it was almost the size of the main hall of The Great Dragon Temple. I thought maybe if I tried over and over again, I could pull it out, but each time I tried my body sank back into the foaming waves. I was doing my best, but I couldn't pull that ship out of the foaming water.
"Just then, I heard the priest's voice calling me.'Dragon! Dragon! Come help me!' he said, and I thought if he can try that hard, so can I.
"'Buddha,' the priest said, continuing. 'I practiced this flute to help me with my study of the Sutras. It looks like I may be separated from this world soon so I want you to listen to my last song.'
"Then he started playing. The sounds of flute mixed in the fury of the storm and got fiercer and fiercer. I thought the power of the storm would win out over me, but slowly, little by little, the sounds of the flute calmed the seas and the waves began to disappear. Then, a little while later, the sky started to break and the rain stopped. And finally, the boat was able to reach the harbour safely."
"Did that strange power come from the flute," asked the apprentice, Chinnen, listening with his mouth open in awe.
"The power comes out of the pureness of the person blowing on the flute, Chinnen, not the flute itself," said the priest. "All the flute does is hold the power. Just like all we hold is the power of the gods. And to know how to use it, you have to study the way of the Buddha as hard as you can, don't you, Chinnen?"
"Tonight, I find I've got powers like I've never had since I was young," said the Dragon uneasily. "But I'm afraid that after I'm all by myself again, after I sink down into the deep, lonely waters of the pond, I'll return to my loneliness and narrow, stunted heart."
"Honourable Dragon. Don't start worrying about things you can't do even before they happen," admonished the priest, going back from the edge of the pond. "You've got to stand and fight against it like you did against the storm. Chinnen and I will, too, practicing this flute. Well, that's it for us today. Good night," he said, as the Dragon quietly slipped back into the depths of the pond.
From the next day, the Dragon could hear the sounds of the flute echoing down to the bottom of the pond night after night. And little by little, his strength started to come back to him. He was getting stronger and stronger. The priest was nursing him back to health with his flute.
Then, in the middle of the night on the tenth day, something happened. With a great rush of energy, the Dragon came bursting up from the bottom of the pond, a great pillar of water rising behind him and splashing all over the ground. The wind roared and rain started to fall in great sheets of slanting rain. Thunder pealed and golden bolts of lightning flashed through the pitch black sky, interrupting the night.
The Dragon belched out a huge fire of flaming red fire from his mouth and while it glittered and shone in his eyes, climbed up into the sky in a flash until he could look down upon the huge cedars in the temple's courtyard.
"My time in this world has come to an end," he said. "Thanks to the priest my last days here were not so bad. With a body as big and powerful as this I'd like to do something that's useful to his people. What a pity that the entire village has to cling to life along this narrow strip of land. I'll cut through the mountain and make rice fields where they can grow soft, white rice. I'm going to raise up a big storm for the benefit of the people in the village."
As soon as he shouted that, the Dragon twisted his body around the mountain and shook it the left and right, and started to cut through the mountain. TIMM-BEERRRR! The mountain shook and trembled, trees falling, and the earth crumbling and falling into the pond, as the fallen trees were burnt up in the fire belching from the Dragon's mouth.
A sound like his world would end soon echoed and a blinding flash of lightning ran across the sky. Frantically, the Dragon flung his body again and again against the mountain, until his body was covered in blood and mud, his scaly skin hanging down in tatters from his bones. Again and again he did it, not stopping for a rest, until he was staggering from the effort.
Morning came. And just like last night's big storm was a lie, the sky cleared up. Everyone in the village came out from their homes and ran to the interior of the mountain.
"It's like I'm seeing a dream," one of them said, rubbing his eyes. "How a big, rugged mountain like that disappeared overnight and became this wide, flat field."
"We can make a big rice paddy here," another said happily. "And then we can eat all the rice we want. We'll never go hungry again."
"This is all due to the dragon who lived on the bottom of the pond," said the priest, standing behind them unnoticed. "He gave us his life to cut through this mountain and give us the rice fields."
"Honourable Dragon," said the priest. Burnt trees and other things were under his feet and spread out all over the place. "It looks painful. It must have been awfully hard."
The villagers turned around and sat down. The priest narrowed his eyes and began to pray.
"Honourable Dragon. Your last breath was wonderful, a memorable thing to see," he prayed, looking up into the sky as if he was searching for the Dragon, as Chinnen blew quietly on his flute beside him. And he could see a big white cloud that had the shape of the Dragon floating in the sky.
After that, a big box with a lid containing the Dragon's bones was enshrined and deified at Ryuhtaiji Temple. And the Dragon became a god who protected Great Dragon Temple.
The Love of a Silver Fox: Folk Tales from Seki CIty Page 23
