"Meant to Be" by CL

Competition 6 Honourable Mention

Disclaimer: This is a story of fiction and does not reflect the author's beliefs or ideals.

It is time.

A bright torch of flame grows nearer beyond the slats of my wooden prison. I bring up a hand to cover the light as they blind my eyes, which are accustomed to the dingy darkness swathing these cells. The guard rattles the weighty, iron chain encircling the wooden door before it finally clicks free and clanks sharply against the floor. I slowly push myself off the dank, mouldy and sparsely littered straw bed covering the ground. I willed my aching muscles up to stretch as I drew my shoulders back and straightened myself with all the pride I could muster. After today’s last meal, which I could hardly swallow, I donned a new white kimono that was rumpled but clean.

Surrounded by samurais and their gleaming long katanas, my bare feet scraped along the narrow stretch of the dimly illuminated stone tunnel. The flickering flame torch cast dozens of changing and warped shadows, plighting the wall with haunting figures that ate up the wall. Slowly I exited the doorway to an inviting, beautiful sunset that washed the expanse of the sky with bright orange and dripping blood-red hues.

Bending at the waist, I bowed before kneeling one knee down at a time on the rough straw tatami mat. It lay in the middle of the courtyard to the daimyo* I once served. In front sat the new big, burly daimyo enthroned on an elaborately carved and furnished chair, shrouded in shadow overcast by the roof.

The ritual began: “Akao Azai, general and samurai of the Azai clan defeated by lord Oda… ” I paid no attention to the scripted words read off a scroll by the refined and snobbishly well-dressed young man that would eventually sentence my death.

I am a warrior, a fighter, the sword is all I know. My life and my honour began and would end with a blade.

When the man had stopped reading, silence split across the courtyard. My right hand slipped calloused and worn fingers inside my kimono. There my fingers found the crisp edge of a paper. Pulling out my death poem, I placed it to the right of the small, squat, squared shaped table in front of me. On top of the table balanced a single dagger.

If I was a farmer planting life or fisherman yearning for fish instead of lusting for blood, would my life have ended any differently I pondered?

I opened the top of my kimono by slipping my hands inside the sleeves and parting them from the opening in front of my chest. Just then, a single thought came across my mind so fleeting, yet it had still managed to burn a trail scarring of shame before me. I don’t want to die.

I picked up the cold, biting hilt of the dagger and unsheathed the dagger. Following my lord would be my pride as a fighter and the courage defining me.

I wrapped one sweaty and clammy hand on top of the other as I positioned it over my bare and exposed abdomen contracting as I inhaled.

I exhaled.

For honour, I thought.