Coming of Age by Venona Keyes

Author:Venona Keyes [Keyes, Venona]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2014-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

A PERSISTENT and urgent knocking on his front door woke Aero out of his deep sleep. He fiddled with his sleep mask, only to discover it was still dark. He looked over at his clock. Ten o’clock! Who would be knocking at his door at this time of the evening? Who knew he would be here? Aero put his pillow over his head. The knocking stopped. Good.

A few minutes later, he heard people roaming about his house.

Burglars?

Lights went on, and muffled voices seeped through the walls. He swore he heard Daniel and Ikemi.

“Daniel, you bring out the futons! Yuki, you start dusting! Yoshi, you start sweeping! Dump the garbage in the fire your father is building outside.”

Kuso! It was Ikemi! There was no way he could hide now, and Daniel was going to be here any second. Daniel opened the door and turned on the light, looking surprised that Aero was in bed.

“Aero-sensei! You’re here! We were going to surprise you by doing the traditional end-of-year cleaning of your house!”

Ikemi poked her head in the doorway. “Get out of bed! You can beat your own futon since you’re here!”

Daniel shrugged and smiled at him. “You’re on your own, Sensei. But one thing I’ve learned over the last week is that Ikemi’s a slave driver!”

Aero groaned, got out of bed, and rolled up the futon while Ikemi took his laundry.

As Aero turned to go back in the house to return his freshly aired out and beaten futon to his room, he noticed two kadomatsu now flanked the doorway. The three bamboo shoots representing heaven, humanity, and earth were tied with straw rope and sat among pine boughs, flowers, and ume branches. A small straw mat bound the arrangement. The traditional floral arrangement was thought of as temporary housing for the kami, or spirits, and where there were kami, there were blessings. Upon closer inspection, an Ecos manga was nestled in the pine boughs. Blending traditional with nontraditional; making the ordinary extraordinary, Aero thought to himself and smiled. He jostled the futon so he could reach out and touch the soft pine needles, then was relieved of his burden by none other than Daniel.

“Do you like the kadomatsu? I thought to personalize them just a bit so the visiting gods would have something to occupy their time while taking up residence.”

“Did you make these yourself?”

Daniel blushed and ducked his head. “Yes, I did. I took ikebana classes at the Japanese Consulate back home.”

Daniel took the futon back into the house, and Aero hurried after him.

It took all of forty-five minutes to clean the house, including the drawing studio. Aero kept a clean house and had a cleaning service in once a month, so there wasn’t much to do. He was sure he beat an already clean futon.

“Would you join me in bidding the old year good-bye and ringing in a fresh New Year?”

Aero had not listened to the tolling of the Buddhist temple bells since he was a teenager. He generally put

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