Today's prompt today!

[flemmings]

"Your hands once touched this table and this silver"

After grandfather died Mom and my grandmother went through his papers and sorted everything away into his desk drawers. The books that were usually heaped around his desk went back into their slipcovers and onto the shelves. The pens went into the pen holder. After that his desk was always kept clean and dusted. No one used the study and no one said why, but we all knew it was still my grandfather's. On warm days I'd go there with my books because it was cool and peaceful and safe. The sense of him was everywhere. Once or twice I recall having conversations with him about what I was reading. It was a lot later that I realized, if I was able read, then I must have been at least six at the time. My grandfather died when I was five. But of course that wasn't a problem, not for him.

When my father died no one cleaned out his study. No one knew he was dead, including me. Things were tidied a bit-- put in neat stacks on his desk. I remember going in once or twice and seeing them all sitting there in the gloom. My father was still recuperating in my parents' bedroom, unable to walk or talk or do much but move his eyes. When he got mobile he moved into the study and pretty much stayed there. He liked being in the back wing of the house more than in the family rooms up front. Maybe Mom thought it a hopeful sign, that he wanted to be near his handbooks and tables and all.

But of course he never went back to work.

Sometimes when I'm sitting there having dinner with Aoarashi I look around at the study. My father's papers are long gone, back to the firm he worked for, I suppose. His engineering textbooks and handbooks sit on the shelf, their titles meaningless to me. They represent a whole range of knowledge that I'll never know anything about, a whole side to my father that I'll never find out about now. Sometimes I can almost see the man he'd be if he'd lived, a pale man with greying hair and a little smile, who talks about universities I might try out for and professions I might go into. But it's a dim, fading spectre. It vanishes in the face of the reality that sits across the table from me, wearing my father's clothes and my father's body, and sharing nothing else of him at all.

--------------------------------------------------------
Although actually IIRC Aoarashi moved into Kagyuu's study. So no need for sniffly depression.

Comments

[incandescens]

That does have the right sort of grey watercolour feel to it.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

this fits the cold November day! (yes it is rather coolish!)

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

*has a bout of sniffly depression anyway*

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

Owww.
you know, I never really thought about Ritsu's real father. He is sort of a "forgotten" person in the family compared to granpa, isn't he?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You get reminded about him, though. Like in that story where his brother dies and Ritsu has to go up to the yukiguni and meets the ghost of him, still a child. And the latest one where Ritsu sees his lantern coming down the river at o-Bon, and thinks 'No one lights a welcome fire for my father's spirit because no one knows he's dead.'

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

That's true, but in that family, people without the powers sort of don't count..Well, no that's not it...Lets say they miss out a lot. I always wondered what did Ritsu's father really thought about his child and his father-in-law and the atmosphere of the house. Most "sensitive" people in the story find the place creepy.. Unfortunately, I am one of those non-sensitive person, so I probably won't feel a thing and miss out on a lot of things.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

They may miss out but... Grandmother and Tsukasa are the main non-sensitives and are kind of powerful because of it. I imagine Ritsu's dad was like Grandmother and that Kinu chose him because of it. Father-in-law was a famous writer and his family kept many of the old customs like dressing the only boy as a girl-- and anyway, Takahiro came from the tohoku himself so old customs probably didn't feel that strange to him.

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

>non-sensitives and are kind of powerful because of it.
I agree, but Tsukasa does have some sort of power doesn't she?

On a different note, how do you say 霊感in English? People with psychic ability? But it sounds more aggressive than 霊感. Sensitive to psychic energy?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Tsukasa has psychic sensitivity, but she seems to have gone into complete denial about it because what she saw scared her so badly and now she sees nothing.

I think we just say 'she's psychic' which is a vague catch-all phrase. To have psychic ability can mean the same thing- senses things, sees things- but it also takes in the more active psychic powers like telepathy and telekinesis. The older and I think more british word is 'sensitive', as in she's *a* sensitive, because the adjective alone now generally means someone whose feelings are easily hurt.

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

I think I like she is a sensitive... I was trying to differentiate sensitive person and a sensitive. So I will say a sensitve from now on when I try to explain 霊感。
Thank you.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Of course, people may not know what you mean by *a* sensitive, since it's an older usage. My feeling FWIW is that in current American English, 'she's psychic' = 'she's a sensitive', in terms of general vagueness as to what abilities (not powers) she has, and to what degree she has them.

Then again, to many people 'she's psychic' means 'can read minds/ thoughts.' Maybe 'she's sensitive to psychic phenomena' covers it best, though it's still a mouthful after 霊感