Usually, after dark, when nobody is walking outside, there… on the bridge that goes in that street with dining place, something is happening…
A procession of different characters, some of them big, like some red peppers, with colored umbrellas, sylph women dressed in kimonos, unknown little animals with silver collars next to their servants, are walking in silence…
The scenic cortege is walking on the curved bridge, and then… they enter in that tavern with sweet-sour flavors.
That night I decided to follow them. The hunger got hold on me, and the curiosity exceeded my limit. I knew that I shouldn’t talk with the others for a while, not to offer the suspicion of an intruder.
I downed my head, walking in the same way, and that made me feel a bit familiar in that crowd. The fume coming from the scented sticks was imbibing the rich colored dresses of that procession.
We stopped next to a big wood door that watched the entrance, and waited there.
A breezy corridor guest us, and whispers of humans, spirits, and little pets started to be heard. We walked into a hall ornate with wood embroidery of a disappeared dynasty…
On furnishings, were laid plateaus, with different types of food, each one separated and enlightened by trembling lamps.
Delicious aromas is feeling everywhere, and they are wrapping me…
Is fume and clinks around…
Most of them are going to the trays, perfectly arranged on the rosewood furniture. Women with dresses of sprightly colors are speaking in a dialect of a secular empire.
One of the cooks, with hospitable look, is goading me to serve the dishes with crab, lobster and shrimp. He’s keeping in his hand a multicolored fish, with scales of rainbow. Is cooking it, in laughing flames and sizzled oil.
Is smiling, and his eyes are becoming edgy lines.
I don’t understand his words, but I feel the amiable voice, and I start to taste, easy at the beginning, and after with fasted appetite.
I’m looking around me, and I am seeing the guests dining with joy, men and spirits together… Even the pets with faces of cat-dog are shivering of happiness.
I drink small cups with warm liquids, with burn that makes me blush, and I feel Asia coming through my veins with sounds of wind bluebells…
Maybe I have red circles in the cheeks, like the ladies in kimonos.
The noise is coming up, with conversation and murmurs of comfort, in that night with scent of orient…
All at once, appeared, next to a Spirit of Steam, a woman dressed in a black, with red spots of striped roses on her dress.
I looked at her, surprised of her big eyes like charcoal, with muddling eyebrows.
Her noble profile and the sureness of her conversation with the spirit next to her, let me knew, in a way, that she was well known here.
The steam of the spirit was moving a mouth, and his words, with low tonality, were vibrating around her.
I didn’t understand what they were saying, but I looked fascinated at that image, of human beauty and something else, above us…
I asked the cook, catching his eyes:
– Who is that woman, dressed in a black kimono?
– She is a “Shori”, she is keeping us alive, he answered…
And I remembered the old legend, saying that the “Shori” was the human ambassador, who keeps the bond with them, with living spirits…on the other side of river Stix.
The “Shori” knew how to soften the wish of death between these two separate worlds.
For a split of second her black eyes looked at me, and all my thoughts passed in her knowledge. She waited another moment, and she bended her head almost imperceptible.
I answered to her greeting with a too deep bow, but my thought was lost in that face of eyes and ebony hair, with warm blooded lips.
Seems that she smiled, amused by that jumbled moment. She talked for a while with the spirit of steam, and then, after he floated away through that crowded hall, she approached me:
– Is that your first time here?
– Indeed, first time I pay a visit to this place,… and my voice was trembling a bit.
She smiled…
– It’s saying that the humans, when they come here first, they can have a revelation of an expected future.
She pulled up her hand, giving me a hot cup of sake…
– What you are expecting from the future? she asked again..
Was hard to sustain her intense glance…
– I don’t know for sure, probably the hope for another story.
It passed few moments…
– From where are coming the spirits, I asked ?
– From ancient Asia, the land that they still name home… The spirits can configure the future that somebody is expecting it. The important thing is to understand them…
They can reveal the encrypted Enigma that we are carrying with us most of our life.
On her finger was resting a silver ring with an amethyst stone on it, which was sparking a cutting violet in the light of that room…
– How can I understand the message of the spirits ?
She looked at me:
– It will come in your dream, but you have to believe in his Reality… Only then, they will give you a chance to your story.
Her hair, with a touch of Night, was emanating a perfume of Amber and Spice, that was covering me. And with the sake, I was feeling high, somehow…
– What is you name? I asked
– We…“Shori”…we don’t have a name; we are human messengers in a world of dream…
I was looking to her silhouette, who was dominating in a way, all that noise around there:
– I wish I could see you again, I said, surprised by the aplomb of my words…
She smiled again with kindness:
– I am not what you imagine, but my soul could start to search for you, one day…
She extended her hand, slowly, touching mine…
The amethyst stone sparked again, and I felt a soft dizziness …
In my left side, I heard the happy laugh of the cook… like he was a witness to our conversation… I turn my eyes and looked at him… He was sharing plates, between the vivid flames from his kitchen full of Orient.
…
When I turned back, she was not there anymore…
I tried to reach her in the colored crowd…
Somewhere, at the end of that hall, the black kimono was distancing away, entering in the labyrinth of the pagoda…
I waited for a minute, and after I left, floating myself through all the people there.
…
Outside, the night received me with the air full of scent of basswood trees, on the street with curved bridge…
Late, I arrived home…The window of my room was opened, and the lamp on the night table was giving a quiet and calm touch.
…
I felt asleep, embraced by a pleasant lassitude, and my last thought flew to the Far East, with Hopes and Dreams impregnated by the perfume of Amber and Spice.
Somewhere, outside, between the crowns of trees, the Spirits of the Night were slinking Whispers…”
