As Far As You Know
Teasers
Song of the Shadow
I was 22 years old the first time I died.
It was in the fall semester of my fourth year at Wayne State where I was studying to become an Asian studies and history teacher. An early, October snow shower was in the late night air, and I was reading in my poorly heated apartment. Mine was the only occupied loft on the fourth floor, which was the topmost level of the old factory remodeled into student housing.
I was exhausted and felt a cold coming on, and every now and then I would find myself staring out through my drafty window at the falling snowflakes and the whitening campus. I could see the street, and just beyond the sidewalk on the far side, the driveway of old Doctor Muller’s house that sat on the corner lot, with the front door facing the intersection.
Next to Doctor Muller’s house stood the run-down fraternity house of Delta, inhabited by an alcoholic gang of misanthropic “students”, some of whom were past their fortieth year yet still lived there in squalor. I used to avoid walking past this ominous residence whenever possible, as did all the women on campus. There were rumors that a string of sexual assaults had taken place there, years ago.
Although it was well after midnight and below zero, Doctor Muller had come out of his house in nothing more than a light spring jacket. Eschewing a pair of gloves or even a hat, the old man began to clear his driveway with a heavy, rusting shovel. Even from across the street and four floors up, I could dimly hear the scraping noise.
The street was deserted, so my attention was unavoidably drawn to a woman who appeared at the front door of the Delta house and began walking out to the sidewalk, never taking her eyes off of Doctor Muller all the while. And why wouldn’t my attention be fixated on that woman, since she was a small, slender thing dressed in a brilliant white fur overcoat. Her loose black hair hung to her waist and blew about in the wind.
This was the first and only time I had seen a female at the Delta house. I wondered if she was the girlfriend of one of the occupants, or perhaps a prostitute leaving after a “business transaction”.
I continued to observe as the woman advanced on the sidewalk and stopped at the foot of Doctor Muller’s driveway and said something to him. Doctor Muller was a mean old man and recently retired from teaching in the Mathematics department. From what little I had heard, his former students did not miss him. Without really acknowledging her, he simply waved his hand at the woman as if to send her on her way and continued his noisy shoveling. But the fur-clad woman seemed to be insisting, and then I saw Doctor Muller shouting at her and making a rude gesture with his finger. Satisfied that he had made his point, the old man resumed his slow work.
What happened next went so quickly and was so surreal that I didn’t even flinch. The woman’s hair, blowing in the gusting snow, lashed outward up the driveway and struck Doctor Muller on the throat, where it stayed. Clearly startled, the old man dropped his shovel and raised his hands to his neck. The woman’s hair lifted the writhing Doctor into the air and smashed him down, headfirst onto the icy cement.
Numb with shock, I backed away from the window and sat in the chair at my desk just staring blankly with my heart pounding in my ears for what seemed like a long time. It must have been a hallucination or a dream, I thought. Slowly, I forced myself to stand up and peek out the window again. Lying in a heap on his driveway, now partially covered with snow, was old Doctor Muller. His shovel lay next to him. There was no sign of the woman.
Just as I had made up my mind to call 911, there was a knock at my door. Interrupted in my reach for the phone, my hand instead went to the deadbolt. Perhaps one of my neighbors had seen what happened outside and had come to verify that they hadn’t imagined it either. I would be glad to know that I wasn’t the only one who would have to report what I saw.
The door opened inward and there she stood. Her pale skin seemed almost translucent over her Asian features, and her eyes were a shade of green so light they could have passed for yellow. Before I could speak she stepped toward me and caught my arms in a grip of steel. Her coat had fallen open and some brightly colored handle protruded from the belt of the kimono she wore. She spoke to me then, in a rich far-eastern accent. “You have seen me. Only one with the blood of the golden river within her can see us. Are you Mandarin?”
Unable to get my hands free, I tried to keep calm, but failed. “My parents are from China. Please don’t hurt me!”
Then she said, “You are what I have needed to find here. You shall be my champion, my servant who fights for the honor of the Bone Flowers. From this moment you will walk on the strands of two worlds.” Before I could react, she pressed her cold lips to mine. A freezing pain quickly spread from my mouth outward to the rest of my body, and everything went black.
The next time I opened my eyes, I was lying on a mat in a large, empty room. At my feet was the object I saw hanging from my attacker’s belt, a straight-bladed sword in an ornate lacquered sheath. She stood several yards away from me, her fur coat gone, and her long hair was tied into a braid. She was barefoot, and stood with one leg out in front of the other. She raised her hands, palms up, and said to me, “Pick up your weapon. Your first lesson begins now.”
I was only four minutes old the second time I died.
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