Taiko.

This is a story/poem/ thingy/wibblywobbly/dream-like thing. Take from it what you will. The words are truth but also lies, I fell asleep to a dream like world, continued it while awake, and now, sleep

I saw many a strange thing that night. Not so strange as wonderous though. Wonderous, beautiful, frighteningly pleasant.

Jumbled up in bits and pieces, a crystal collage of fantasy and fright.

 

I saw broken bits of a girl running from the robotic, red-haired queen of Nausica. Only to escape to the windmill. The Windmill in which she ran up, up and up with panting breathes as she became afraid. She didn’t know she was afraid at first, until she looked behind her. Behind her in the image of the Goblin King he swaggered on up the stairs casually as the girl continued to run.

 

Finally as he appeared next to her, she could not help but feel love for the beautiful Goblin King that frightened her so. As she reached out in panic, she opened a door. A door to a cupbard in the Windmill, where the Goblin King’s body is kept.

I watched as the connection grew strong.

I watched as he protected her and laughed at her mastery of flight.

I watched him chuckle when the Nausica queen crashed her flight vehicles.

I watched through billions of little glass shards containing reflections of the life of them. The life of the girl and a mixture of a Goblin King and the pin-striped suited fellow of Ponyo.

 

Through and through I watched the life of a girl, who though I knew what she looked like, she had no appearance at all. I watched as that girl ran from the queen and the palace in which she was kept. I watched as she fell in love with the Goblin King and protected him always.

And I woke up.

I woke up to see her tears as she woke up in the real world, racing to the Windmill to find and protect the Goblin King once more, only to realize that his death would be the one to save hers. That she was not protecting the Goblin King, the Goblin King was protecting her.

 

Now.

I look into that Dystopia.

I look into the world that was so desperate, a summly gang of scientists and brutes ripped apart time to reach through, and grab what they could. Grabbing anything at all for a hope that the world may continue to survive.

I clenched my heart as I saw them rip the girl with no appearance from her world, and into theirs.

I saw them hook her up to machines to keep her asleep and connected to the future.

It was a wrong future, and only one knew that.

A pin-striped suited Ponyo fellow of a Goblin King.

I cried as he died in the past to return her to her future.

I mourned as neither of those worlds existed at all.

The problem is…

Some of those little glass shards were a bit too foggy.

There are gaps in the plot.

If neither world exists, if it is neither past, present nor future that these characters and heartbreaking stories reside, then where?

I was not told directly that these stories did not take place in these times.

In fact, it was whispered. Whispered from the background as I recall throughout  the dream.

 Throughout the endless melodies and perfect quiet, there lay the beating of drums.

A soft, beating Taiko.

Hearing them constantly as if they were not there at all,

As If I, of all people, were the Master.

 

They were not just there,

They were there to tell the story.

They set the beat,

They placed the time-line,

They beat for the things I did not understand.

In each little beat of the Taiko,

There lay a secret.

A secret that I lay my head down to,

Hoping that maybe,

I will soon understand where these stories take place,

That maybe I will end up amongst those who stand omnipotent,

Beating their drums to tell a story to twist and turn throughout the ages.

 

The drums were not there.

I know they were not there

And yet I heard them.

I do not know what a Taiko sounds like

But I know that it cannot be anything BUT a Taiko.

I know that the Taiko holds secrets,

I know that the Taiko holds the truth,

Just as I know that these stories do not exist.

That these worlds I visit do not exist.

For things have often been lying to me lately,

But seeing as I have laid my head down in the exact same way,

Performed this day six times over,

Maybe this time the drums will be louder.

Maybe I’ll end a day identical to all the others,

Maybe the drums will beat loud and close,

And tell me where those worlds exist.

Maybe,

Just maybe,

They will also be so kind as to inform me,

Where am I.

And why is that I have no appearance?

More importantly.

When will this day end?