Diva's Second Act

It took three days for Ai to realize she was a prisoner not a guest. She spent the first day on the shelf trying to shake off the despondency of leaving her friends behind in the attic. What she wouldn’t give to hear Yoshi-kun describe how he lit up a spring festival again. Even Matsu-san’s stuffy war stories would have been welcome, though they always happened during a storm. But what else could one expect from a general’s umbrella?

The second was spent trying to hear any traces of grace in the insensate notes played by children on other instruments. Even the accomplished geisha Hatsuko was a novice once, Ai told herself as she observed them from behind her glass case.

A month later, she could bear it no longer. No one noticed her. No one would ever play her again. Ai swooned. Her neck clicked against her cell.

“What’s this?” Mrs. Tanaka said turning towards the back wall of the music studio.

“Would you believe it?” Trina said. She motioned towards the old shamisen. “I found it with other junk in a client’s attic. They said I could keep it. I thought it looked pretty good there.”

“Hmm,” Mrs. Tanaka said, touching the case. “No bachi. Still lovely though. May I take her out?”

“Sure,” Trina replied. “Even if you break it, it didn’t cost me a dime.”

Mrs. Tanaka reached in. She heard the soft sigh with the first pluck of the string. “How much do you want for her?”

Trina regretted saying she got it for free. She probably could have asked for more. Still, it was money she didn’t have before. She laughed as they shook hands. “You know, sometimes I think this thing is a bit of a diva. It’s always falling over.”

 You don’t know the half of it, Mrs. Tanaka thought, cradling the shami-shōrō.

Ai smiled.

Shamichouro-Kotofurunushi-Biwabokuboku illustration by Matt Meyer

curator of one of the most informative and beautiful sites devoted to yokai lore, yokai.com 

as well as author of two amazing books, The Night Parade of  One Hundred Demons: a field guide to Japanese Yokai

and  The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits: an Encyclopedia of Mononoke and Magic.

Liner Notes for this Groove:

A shamisen is a traditional Japanese stringed instrument. A bachi is a flat, ice scraper shaped object used to play a shamisen. It's a little like a guitar pick in function. A shami-shōrō is a shamisen once owned by a virtuoso player that has attained sentience.

This short fiction was composed as a response for Magaly Guerrero’s prompt Telling Tales with Magaly Guerrero:A Pantry of Prose over at Poets United. The poem it was based on was Lament of a Shami-Shoro.

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