InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Blind ❯ Winter 2005 to Autumn 2006 ( Chapter 4 )

Blindby FireFalcon1414

 

Disclaimer: I do not own, in whole or in part, the Inuyasha series. All rights belong to Takahashi Rumiko.

 

*** *** ***

 

Chapter 4: Winter 2005 to Autumn 2006

 

I have met my love.
When I compare this present
With feelings of the past,
My passion is now as if
I have never loved before.
--Fujiwara no Atsutada

 

I tapped my fingers lightly against the outside of the windowpane I was leaning against, listening absently to the quick, irregular pattern, feeling the slight vibrations travel through the glass to reach my side, the side within the house, the side sheltered from the wind, from the world. I was waiting for Keiji in the library, sitting on the windowsill, as I sometimes did, and in my idleness, I had managed to push open the window so as to feel and breathe the cold, bitter air.

 

I felt the touch upon my shoulder, signaling my dear companion's entrance, and reluctantly drew my hand back within the house, within my cage. I was reminded of the song the children sometimes sang when I had lived among them: “Kagome, Kagome, bird in the cage…”

 

As I reflected on this gloomy thought, I allowed myself to be helped down from my window, allowed myself to be led to the armchair I resided in day after day, though I stopped Keiji when he tried to close the window, saying that the cool air was refreshing. He obeyed my wishes, as he nearly always did, and moved to his seat. He did not begin to read, and I did not ask it of him, too lost in thought was I.

 

A while later - it is difficult for me to say how long; inability to see clocks or the changing colors of the sky tends to hinder one's ability to reliably tell time - I broke the silence, not with the cause of my reflection, but with some classic small-talk: weather.

 

“It's going to snow soon,” I said quietly, “I can smell it on the wind when it blows through the window.” He did not comment, so I went on, “I give it about a week, maybe less.”

 

I heard a deep breath in, followed by a short “Six days.”

 

I did not question him. “I made a pretty good guess, then.” Nothing. “It will be the first snow of the year, too. Do you like the snow?”

 

“Well enough.”

 

“Oh?” I prodded.

 

A hesitation, and he responded, “I do not have particular preferences concerning the weather. It cannot be controlled, and so what use is it to prefer one sort to the other? That would only lead to joy or misery depending on chance. I would prefer to know.”

 

I grinned. “One day, scientists will develop technology to control the weather. Then will you have a favorite sort of weather?”

 

Rather than answer my question, he instead said, “You truly believe that?”

 

My grin nearly faltered, and although I maintained it, I fear my voice must have dipped a moment as I quietly told him, “I have to. If I lose faith in technology, I lose faith in the return of my eyesight; and if I lose faith in that, then I lose faith in my future. If I lose faith in my future, well, I may as well just die now, right?” I do not think my smile remained as I finished.

 

He did not answer for a moment. When he did, his voice was even lower, even quieter than it usually was. “Why is it that you wish for your eyesight so much? What is it you want to see so badly? It cannot be your friends who abandoned you so easily; I find it difficult to believe that you yearn to see your mother and brother to this extent. What is it?”

 

The smile returned, slowly, as I answered him. “I want to see the rain falling, and the rainbow through the rain. I want to see a butterfly open its wings just before the blur of taking flight. I want to see the trees change color in the autumn. I want to see the glare of the sun off of newly fallen snow. I want to see this library that has been my haven these past few years, and I want to see the view from that window, and from all the windows of this house. I want to see the doctors who have been so kind and helpful. I do want to see my mother and brother, and my grandfather's grave.” My hesitation was brief; I am unsure of whether he even noticed it. “But, more than any of those things, I want to see you; you, whom I have never seen before.”

 

“Me?” His voice was coarse as he scoffed the word scornfully. “You would not wish to see me if you knew my looks. I would be the one you least wish to see.”

 

I think I surprised him with my laugh. “Oh, but don't you understand? I do not know your looks, so whether I would wish to see you or not if I did does not matter. And how would you know who I would least wish to see? There is no one, that I can think of, who I would actively wish not to see.”

 

“Perhaps you do not think hard enough, girl,” he growled.

 

My eyes narrowed. “Don't you start calling me that! I have a name, and you should know it as well as you do your own, since you learned them on the same day, Keiji,” I scolded.

 

I heard him sigh, so I stopped my rant to listen to him expectantly. He said nothing, yet interrupted when I opened my mouth to continue it with a quiet, “Do not argue with me on this point, Kagome.” I shut my mouth with a snap, folded my arms unhappily, and leaned back into my chair with an indignant huff, though I did not argue any more.

 

I spoke a while later, moved by some unknown thought or emotion. “You'll never forget me, will you, Keiji?” I asked, reminded of a similar question asked of me by a small redheaded fox demon over five hundred years ago.

 

He snorted. “Why would you ask such a silly question?” he asked. “Of course I won't forget you. You wouldn't let me.”

 

I snorted right back. “Of course I wouldn't let you! But… if I wasn't around to remind you of my presence every two seconds, you wouldn't forget me, would you?”

 

He paused. “No,” he answered quietly, “I would not forget you.”

 

“Pinky promise?” I asked, extending my little finger across the gap between our armchairs.

 

“Excuse me?” he asked, sounding a bit confused, though I am sure he would never admit to the emotion.

 

I sighed exasperatedly, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It's a way of sealing a promise, so that you can never break it. You just link your pinky fingers together, and that's it. There is no going back on a pinky promise,” I said unquestionably. He did not respond. “So? Do you promise to never ever forget me?” I prodded, adding “I'll never forget you if you never forget me, Keiji,” to sweeten the deal.

 

I heard a sigh that echoed mine from earlier before a slim digit found its way to mine. I grinned, clasping my pinky finger around his and waving the joined hands decidedly. “There!” I declared once we had both withdrawn our fingers. “Now neither of us can ever forget!” He answered with a grunt, but I accepted it and flopped back into my seat contentedly.

 

We sat the rest of the day in silence rather than over a book, neither of us really in the mood to break it. I spoke, finally, when we were nearing the time when my mother would arrive home. “I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so you will not see me. It is just a check-up; the doctor will tell us the latest news on optometry - new technology and such - and the nurses will run a few tests to see if they have the technology to operate on me yet. It is really no big deal; we do this twice a year, as you know. So… that is all. I will not be here tomorrow.”

 

“We will meet the next day, then,” he said absently, as though entirely absorbed in his own thoughts.

 

I nodded. “Yeah. The next day. Well… good night, Keiji.” He grunted a response, and I left the room just as the familiar sound of my mother's key turning in the lock resounded through the house, empty now save my self.

 

*** *** ***

 

I went to and returned from my appointment with the doctor, just as I had done twice every year since my injury. At this point, the only obstacle between my recovery and me was the slow advancement of technology, our financial situation having improved steadily since my mother's promotion. They had told my mother and me of the new treatments available for blindness; it was difficult to tell, they said as they did every time, how to help me, because the cause of the blindness was such a mystery. I had told them, of course, that I had gotten acid in my eyes somehow; no, I did not know the name of the exact chemical; and no, I could not give them any more detail of how I had gotten that chemical there, of all places. They took samples of my eye tissue for tests, as they had at all of my visits, with promises of calling with the results in two to three days.

 

The phone rang just as we were sitting around the table for dinner on the second night after the doctor's appointment. My mother stood up swiftly, grumbling something about “wringing telemarketers' necks” for “interrupting our nice family meal.”

 

She answered the phone with a brusque “Hello?” closely followed by a more polite “Oh, Dr. Hiroshi's office, thank you for calling…” A pause to listen. “You have the results of my daughter's tests?” She did not say anything for a moment, but Souta did.

 

“Mom, are you alright?” At my questioning sound, he explained to me as I heard him move toward our mother, “She's crying.”

 

Mom's voice, damp but light, spoke into the receiver. “Thank you, Ms. Nozomi... Thank you so much! Yes, we will be down tomorrow morning at eleven to set a date… Thank you! Good night!” I heard the click of the phone, and before I could ask what was happening I felt a pair of arms encircle me, pulling me against my mother, and I heard that same damp voice telling me, “They did it, Kagome! They found a cure! You will be able to see again!”

 

We went to the doctor's office the next morning to arrange a day for the operation; it was set for a week from that day - my mother was very insistent, though I heard some of the nurses commenting on my comparable serenity.

 

My mother left to go to work directly upon our return home, apologizing to me repeatedly for not being able to stay with me to celebrate the good news. I waved her off with a smile and moved to my usual post in the library, eagerly waiting for Keiji's arrival so that I could tell him all that had happened.

 

He did not come that day, nor did he the next, as I sat on my windowsill patiently. He did visit, finally, on the day of our previous discussion; the day it snowed.

 

I was sitting, as I had been for the past few days, when he came upon me. I was pressed up against the pane of glass, as close as I could get to the snow, every muscle in my body tense with the yearning to be on the other side; yet, when I felt his light touch upon my arm, I abandoned my post and threw my arms around him, scolding him for staying away for so long while I had such good news.

 

He did not respond to my flurry of emotion, save to place a steady hand against the top of my head, so by the time I drew away I knew the reason for his silence. “You already know, don't you?” Silence. “You already know that I will be operated on in five days.”

 

A pause, then the short, affirmative “Yes.”

 

I turned my face away from him. “Oh.”

 

“You are… disappointed?”

 

“Yeah. I wanted to tell you.”

 

“Then tell me.”

 

“But you already know!”

 

“That doesn't hinder your ability to tell me.”

 

“Well… yes, that's true.” I straightened and faced him again. “Keiji?” I said stiffly.

 

“Yes?”

 

“The receptionist from the doctor's office called the other day. My blindness can be treated. I am due for operation in five days. I'll be able to see again,” I said, maintaining the formal stance as long as I could before breaking into a grin. “Isn't it wonderful?” I said through joyful giggles as I threw my arms around him again. “I will finally be able to see you!”

 

“It is a very joyful occasion,” he said stiffly.

 

I pulled back. “So you say, but you are hardly acting like it. What is wrong?”

 

He hesitated. “Nothing.”

 

“I don't believe that for a moment. Tell me! What is bothering you?”

 

“Nothing, I said,” he repeated, beginning to sound agitated; I did not push him, but jumped down from my perch and flounced my way to the armchair.

 

“Are we going to read today?” I asked, flopping backward.

 

I heard his footsteps drawing closer to my seat, and raised my face accordingly. “No,” he answered.

 

“Oh? Then what will we do?” I said playfully, as though it was a riddle that I was searching for the answer to. “Talk? You are not much one for that. Sit in silence? I'm hardly in the mood,” I puzzled onward until I felt his sudden grip on my hand pulling me up quickly.

 

“We will go outside.”

 

“We… We will?” I asked, straightening my skirts absently, head reeling slightly from the fast change in altitude.

 

“Yes. We will.” His hand found mine again, and we were moving, out of the library, down the hall, to the back door.

 

“But… it is snowing out!” I protested, even as I quickly slipped into the shoes he handed me. “I don't have a coat!”

 

He paused. “You do not wish to go outside?”

 

I hesitated. “Well… I do, but…”

 

I heard the door open swiftly, felt his hand on my back guiding my forward. “Then we will.”

 

The gust of cold air hit me in the face full-blast, drawing a laugh from my throat, and it seemed my feet moved of their own accord as they carried me forward, into the drifting snow. A shiver ran up my spine at the sharp cold of the snow on my ankles, seeping through my thin socks, and I laughed again. It had not been snowing long, yet already it was deep enough to bury my feet; “It must be coming down pretty hard,” I said.

 

“Yes,” he confirmed, “though I would not call it a blizzard.”

 

“No, of course not. You would not have brought me out if there were any chance of danger.” I ducked suddenly, scooping up a handful of the soft fluff in my bare hand, packing it quickly and efficiently with the other and lobbing it in his general direction. I burst into a victory dance, complete with another gale of laughter, when I heard the dull thud of my snowball hitting its target.

 

“Do you think that wise?” he asked coolly.

 

“Probably not,” I said around my giggles and chattering teeth. “I mean, you have the definite advantage when it comes to a snowball fight - being able to see your opponent, and all - and now I can't feel my fingers, but it was still fun, so it was worth it!”

 

I heard his sigh, though I had to strain to hear the following mutter, “I will never understand females…”

 

I giggled again. “So stop trying! You will only hurt yourself. I know I gave up on understanding males years ago, and I haven't once regretted the decision!”

 

The heavy feeling of his hand on my head followed another sigh and the crunching sounds of footsteps in snow. I grinned cheerfully up at him, shivering violently with the intense cold and entirely incapable of caring. I pulled the sleeves of my sweater down to cover my steadily numbing hands, clutching them closer to my chest, and leaned against him for warmth. “Cold now…” I mumbled, and felt him nod.

 

“Shall we go inside?” he asked, placing a hand on my elbow to guide me.

 

“No,” I denied, moving my arm from his grasp. “I want to stay out just a bit longer; the snow is too nice for us to just leave.” He sighed for the third time since we came outside, so I turned to him. “What is wrong?” I asked. “I know you well enough to know that something is bothering you. You keep sighing, and you would not have brought me out here for just any reason. What's going on?”

 

I heard the crunching footsteps move away from where I stood, and then turn back to where they had originated. Another sigh. “I will not visit you tomorrow,” he said quietly.

 

My smile wavered, but returned. “So? You will come the next day, won't you?”

 

“No,” he said. “Nor the day after that.”

 

I frowned slightly. “When will you return, then?” He did not answer, so I prodded him further, my frown growing. “In a week? A month? Please say something, Keiji.”

 

He paused, and I nearly spoke again, but he cut me off. “I will not return, Kagome. You will not see me again.”

 

“Again? There is no again! Why won't you let me see you?” I demanded, tears beginning to form as I slipped into hysterics.

 

“Because it would cause you pain to see my face,” he said rationally, calmly; so calmly that I wanted to hit him with a large, blunt object.

 

“And you don't think it would cause me more pain not to?” I insisted, moving forward to grab his sleeve. He tore it roughly from my grasp, and I fell to my knees, unsupported. “How could you do this to me, Keiji?” I sobbed, hardly feeling the cold snow on my bare legs. “How could you leave me like this, so easily? I needed you and you came! I still need you, but you insist on walking out of my life as simply as you walked into it! I won't let you, dammit!” I lunged forward, grabbing his sleeve again, and there was the harsh sound of ripping silk as a bit of the cloth came away in my hands. I clutched it to myself, crying over it, and I thought that he had left. His voice proved me wrong.

 

“It is not easy,” he said quietly, “and it is not simple. It must be done, though, because not leaving would cause you more pain and distress in the long run than leaving would.”

 

“How can that be possible?” I sobbed. He did not answer, and silence fell for a moment in a blanket as thick as the snow, neither of us moving. Finally, I whispered, “Why is it that everyone I love leaves me?”

 

I did not expect an answer, but he always did surprise me. “I do not know why Inuyasha left,” he told me gently, “but this Keiji is deeply sorry for bringing you grief.” I heard a rustling of silks, putting me in mind of a deep, graceful bow - I could not imagine him as being anything less than graceful - and the crunching of footsteps leaving. I continued to hear the steady beat of footsteps long after I knew he was gone, and it took me a moment to realize that the rhythm was that of my own heartbeat. My tears had stopped, and I raised the bit of cloth from his sleeve to my face to wipe away the salty remains before standing slowly and making my slow, careful way to the back door, groping for the doorknob and letting the screen door slam behind me, not even flinching at the sudden noise as I walked confidently now to the library; lifted myself to the windowsill, raised the pane of glass, and held my hand out to catch the drifting snowflakes.

 

*** *** ***

 

My mother noticed my wet clothing when she came home that afternoon; I apologized and said that I had spilled a glass of water on myself. She then noticed that the back door was unlocked; I said I had opened it briefly to let in some fresh air. It did not occur to me that I was lying to my mother, and she did not notice the untruths. She did observe, however, my unusually sullen and depressed nature, and made a weak attempt to cheer me up by offering to make oden for dinner. I plastered on a fake smile that even she must have seen through and thanked her, adding that I was tired and excusing myself to go to my room, where I stayed for the rest of the evening, leaving only briefly for dinner.

 

Both of my family members commented on my sallow complexion the next morning, saying that I looked as though I had not slept well the night before. I did not tell them that I had not slept at all, nor that I had spent the majority of the night sitting on the windowsill in the library, waiting for someone who would not come. Similar comments greeted me the following morning, and the next.

 

The day of the operation came; my mother had insisted that I take sleeping pills the night before, saying that I needed to be well rested. I slept better that night than I had since Keiji's leaving, though my dreams were restless, of searching for something I would never find, a needle in a haystack, a thousand and one shards of a shattered jewel, a shattered heart… The operation went as planned, and I returned a week later to the large, empty house, a blindfold tied securely over my eyes, due to be removed the next week.

 

That day, too, came; the sun had set, and I heard the clicks of switches as Souta turned off all of the lights in my room in preparation. My first view of the world would be one of total darkness.

 

I felt my mother's hands behind me, moving in the darkness, removing my blindfold slowly, gently, until all that shielded my eyes from the world were my eyelids and the salty grime that collected from their being closed for so long at a time that sealed them shut. I raised a hand, using a nail to peel it carefully away one eye at a time, until even that shield was gone, leaving only my thin eyelids, which opened soon afterward. The first things I saw were the dim outlines of my room and family, so dim in the faint light that I was unsure of whether I was actually seeing them or not. The former was confirmed to be truth when the outline I'd decided to be Souta moved to light a candle, his back turned to me to protect my sensitive eyes from even that, the weakest light source we had been able to think of. I squinted against that little brightness, seeing more in that moment than I had in over six years before it all blurred together. I do not know if that was because my eyes had trouble adjusting, or if I had started crying; I assume the latter, as the next thing I remember was sitting in my mother's arms, sobbing into her shoulder even as I felt her tears falling into my hair.

 

*** *** ***

 

The next morning I awoke before my family, rising from my bed and dressing quickly before slipping out of the door to make my way to the library. I was disoriented at first - I was so used to making the journey without the use of my vision that I was unsure of how to do it with - but I always managed to orient myself by closing my eyes and feeling for the wall. I finally reached the room I had spent so much time in over the year and a half since meeting my missing companion and took it all in: the soft leather armchairs, the bookcases lining the walls, the windows with the windowsills deep enough for a person to sit comfortably upon them. I moved immediately to the window I so often inhabited, perching on the sill and wedging the pane of glass up enough to stick my hand out in the all-too-familiar position. The cold air swept in, warmer than it had been a week ago, and I turned my studies from the library I had lived in to the outer world I had not.

 

The window provided a view from the side of the house, and the snow, so thick and soft when Keiji had been a part of my life, was thin and nearly melted now - it would be gone entirely all too soon. Storm clouds lay heavily overhead; too warm for snow, rain would soon fall from them, washing away even what little remained of the snow I had enjoyed so dearly.

 

I looked, now, away from the ground and sky, to what lay between. A fence divided our yard from that next to it, and a house stood on the other side of it; one, I figured, which was probably quite similar in appearance to my own, though I had never seen it from the outside. I soon tired of examining the house across the fence - like a child seeing the world for the first time, I wanted to see everything at once, leading to a notoriously short attention span - and, withdrawing my now-cold hand from the window and stuffing it into my sweater pocket, I felt there a material quite unlike the heavy wool that sheltered me from the chill.

 

Pulling it forth, I found it to be silk; From Keiji's sleeve, my mind registered slowly, sadly, as I turned it in my hands, examining it as I wondered, What are the chances that the sweater I grabbed from the closet this morning was the same one I wore that day in the snow? It was a fairly large piece of cloth -I must have had a pretty good grip on it to rip so much off - with a red and white pattern floral; I could not figure out from the bit the I had whether it was a white pattern on a red background, or a red pattern on a white background, but it seemed so very familiar, somehow…

 

Try as I might, I could not place where I had last seen that pattern - it had been so long since I had last seen anything at all - and I must have been thinking over it, lost in the memories I had buried away, for longer than I had originally expected, for my mother found me there half an hour later.

 

“Kagome, dear, I went to your room and you weren't there; I was worried!” she scolded me half-heartedly. “Come, now; I'll fix you a warm breakfast. I took the day off from work so I could drive you down to Grandpa's grave; didn't you mention you wanted to see it?”

 

She did not seem to notice the patterned silk I hurriedly stuffed into my pocket at her approach - what would I tell her if she asked where I had found it? “Remember that ghost, Mom? The one you don't believe exists? Well, I tore this from his sleeve, and it seems familiar… Have you ever seen it before?” In addition, I would then have to convince her that no, I have not lost my mind, and that would have taken far more time than I was willing to waste, so I just nodded absently and followed her into the kitchen.

 

We went that day, as she said, to Grandpa's grave. I knelt there, in front of the head stone, and traced his name and dates carved there with my index finger before bowing my head low to the ground, letting the tears fall that had not fallen on the day of his funeral. My mother and brother stood to the side at a respectful distance, allowing me to mourn for the ancestor who had done so much for me: made up diseases for when I could not go to school, trying to protect me from what he saw as being “threatening demons,” putting up with those demons he'd been raised to hate because I'd asked it of him, telling me myths and stories I didn't listen to or believe until they came true, being a constant source of knowledge… The list went on and on, and I cried for its ending.

 

We stopped by the hospital on the way home to meet with the doctors who had made my vision possible; I looked at them with joyful grins, and thanked them repeatedly for what they had done for me.

 

It started to rain as we pulled into the driveway, and my mother and brother hurried into the house, my mother holding a newspaper over her head to shelter her hair, my brother just ducking and running. I took my time walking to the front door, watching the streaks of water falling from the sky, the puddles forming and the ripples spreading, the droplets sticking to my coat and to the hair hanging in my face. I looked up, searching for the rainbow I had told my once-companion of, but could not find it before my mother called for me to come in, saying that I would catch a nasty cold, standing in the rain like that.

 

*** *** ***

 

Time passed, and I spent many hours puzzling over that piece of cloth; sometimes, I thought I almost had it, as though the answer was right there, staring me in the face, if I could only put a name to it… Every time this happened, though, my mother would call for me to help with dinner, or Souta would come bouncing hyperly in to ask me to play Super Smash Brothers with him, and who could refuse beating their little brother's sorry little Link ass with Princess Peach? I never could.

 

The spring came, and with it came heavy rains; I searched every day, yet never could find my rainbow. They let up briefly very early on the morning of my birthday, and I was privileged enough to see a butterfly dry its wings in the dawning sunlight by my window before taking off, those newly-dried wings now only a multicolored blur surrounding the delicate body as it fluttered away. Rain was falling again by the time my mother served breakfast, and I wondered if the butterfly had found shelter in time.

 

My time over the spring and summer was spent with a tutor, getting back on track with my education; I had missed the entirety of my high school senior year, yet had been accepted into a small college an easy walking distance from home on the condition that I work to catch up. I worked hard; my tutor was a good teacher, if a bit more distant than I would have wished for someone with whom I had to spend the majority of my day alone, five days a week; I didn't complain, though, as she probably had places where she would rather be than stuck with a high school dropout with atrocious mathematical skills.

 

Despite my numeric ability - or lack thereof -, I did manage to “graduate” by the time the new school year came around, if only barely. I got into several of the courses I was most interested in - I was in the philosophy class centering around Fukuzawa Yukichi, the author of the novel my brother gave me for my birthday last year, and a class on the study of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, as well as another class on myths and fairytales, though I missed out on the one on the Warring States Era; somehow, I was less disappointed about that than I had expected to be.

 

Every day, as I walked or rode my new pink bike to and from college, I looked up at the light filtering through the trees, and watched the leaves change color; green to yellow to orange to that rich, deep red, fading from one to the next so smoothly it was impossible to say which moment it was the former and which the latter. Of course, once they had been dyed their variety of colors, they fell from the trees that had held them for so long to the ground, where they curled inward and grew dry and brittle; faded from the deep red to a dull brown; crunched underfoot and were gone in so many dead leaf particles.

 

Despite my joyful awe at the sights and colors of the world around me, I gradually grew more and more unhappy. I missed Keiji utterly, and had difficulty making friends among my new peers; they were all so much younger, fresh out of high school, and I was a mature young woman of twenty-four who had not had anything even slightly resembling a social life in roughly seven years. They did not know how to act around me, and I had long since forgotten how to act around them. I took to spending my free time in between classes reading or talking to teachers; I did enjoy my time with my philosophy instructor, arguing the points of Fukuzawa - independence and equality of opportunity - versus the earlier Chinese viewpoints such as Shushi's scientific philosophy and ÅŒyÅmei's idealistic intuitionalism. Really, I think these conversations did me a lot of good; they reminded me of other, similar conversations, and the person I had had them with. These memories plagued me each day, and each day I grew more reclusive and depressed, drawing within myself. My mother worried; my brother worried; Keiji remained absent; and my emotions curled in on themselves like the leaves I observed.

 

Autumn was well in place when I got sick again.

 

Though he forsook me,
For myself I do not care:
He made a promise,
And his life, who is forsworn,
Oh how pitiful that is.
--Lady Ukon

 

*** *** ***