Once upon a time…

I am old, child, older than the moss on shrine stones. Long ago, when my knees still bent, I sought a lost stone said to carry the first dawn. My mother’s mother learned its name from a wandering Kurnai elder, who spoke of a light that remembers. I crossed narrow roads between rice fields and pines, where men wore two swords and bowed to rules like iron.

In those days, fishermen feared the Lantern Tide. On the twelfth moon, fish rose glowing, each carrying a small fire. Folks believed the tide answered questions, but only the humble could hear. I went to the inlet with a bowl of simple rice, and waited. The glowing fish circled. One leapt and spat out a shell. Inside was a tiny map, a line of dots to a mountain shrine.

I climbed under cedars. A fox with one white ear watched and did not bar my way. In a cave behind a wooden bell, the stone waited, warm and pale. It showed me my mother’s smile. I left it there, as the elder had said: such light belongs to the dawn, not to my hands. I walked home lighter, with the map folded in my heart.