Under the canopy, the whole land is
covered by the spring now. The white clouds are floating
lightly in the bright clear sky. Because everything is too
beautiful, I shout in my mind. "Hey, you cloud, horseman of
the sky!" Tempted by the beatiful weather, I went to cycling
near my house, with my daughter strapped into the seat hung
from the front saddle of my bicycle.
Here and there,
double cherry blossoms, peach flowers, purple magnolias,
ireas, weeping golden bells are blooming far and near, and
in my flower garden, two pretty tulips began to bloom with
her long neck smoothing out towards the sky in the midst of
other dandelions, spiraeas, sweet-smelling daphnes and
violets. I noticed that the cute cosmos was giving its first
cry of newborn of seed leaf. Perhaps shortly in ten days or
so, azaleas will start to bloom all together.
After
starting from the gate of my house, cycling towards "One
Single Cedar", standing distinctly alone just at the middle
of a junction of three roads, I noticed a woman also coming
by bicycle from another byroad and going about 10 meters
ahead of us following the same single path in the field.
Her bright long black hair waved and flowed beautifully
on her shoulders, her sleeves extended to her wrists
comfortably, her graceful hips moved healthfully in black
pantaloons and her slim elegant arms were thought of in the
flesh color sweater bearing small flourish design of red and
black colors at the wrist and waist. Her figure was really
of true beauty, and I was feeling like, "Yeah! go ahead with
that spirit." For, I thought she must be the wife of the
couple who moved recently to one of the rented houses just
across from my house.
My cycling was slow with my
infant daughter sitting just in front of me enjoying the
surrounding scenery in the field, so her figure disappeared
out of our sight before long, and we moved into the street
lined with zelkova trees. The trees just a week ago were
towering high just like taking their roots in the sky but
are now wearing light yellowish green fresh leaves of
newborn, then passing the sunbeams streaming through the
leaves of trees, we began to go down the sloping road
turning to the right.
There, I remembered that I was
running out of gas in my disposable Bic gas lighter which I
began to use recently, being fond of it. So I dropped in at
the grocer's which is the only one shop selling sake and
cigarettes too. Parking the bicycle and putting the coins on
the outside counter, and saying "Lighter, please", I looked
into the shop, where it was very dark compared to the
outside brightness filled by sunbeams, and there, I found
the lady, looking for something in front of the shelf. Her
long arms and legs caught my eyes as being more beautiful
and shining than those on the bicycle. Her slender white
finger pointing at some goods and her lovely voice saying
"Can I have that one, please?" again attracted my eyes and
ears, and I felt very happy feeling like "Oh, you were
there, you were there, my dear!"
Another shop
assistant said to me, "Which one, sir?" moving the showcase
of the lighters to me. There were 5 colors of white, yellow,
red, blue and green, and when I was picking up a green one
after evaluating the colors, I felt a sign that the lady in
question turned her face back to my direction. I was a
little shocked, and I blushed with a bit shame. I turned my
eyes away so as not to meet her eyes, but I could not resist
seeing the beauty at last. I dared to watch her face
directly. Then I was greatly impressed like an electrocution
shock.
An instant, all of a sudden, her big thick
lips, huge snub nose and awfully glaring eyes drew near
expanding to my eyes. It was really a bolt out of the blue.
Surely there was a face under a bonnet.