Sophan - One

ONE

My childhood friend Jake Burns is getting pretty upset, stomping and waving next to what’s left of Mr. Trung’s koi pond. I’m sitting nearby, writing this beneath an old Oriental-style gazebo, which looks just like I remember as a kid, except its white paint has faded with time. Honestly, I can’t believe it’s still standing after all these years.

The koi pond hasn’t fared nearly as well. Its concrete border is cracked and crumbling. Water lilies clog its scummy surface. And I have to wonder. Have the koi somehow survived the years? Do they still live and breed in the pond’s depths? Are they still waiting, after all this time, for Mr. Trung to wade into the water, hands upraised, chanting . . . ?

No.

I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to be here, either.

Neither does Jake. He’d beaten me here, was standing over the spot where he once destroyed an old stone chest with a hand-sledge. As I’d thrashed my way through overgrown weeds he’d waved me off, clear from his agonized expression that he desperately wanted me to run away.

But it’s too late for that, now.

This was set into motion long ago, dictated by forces much larger than me. I’ve anticipated tonight for the last twenty years. My expectations came true yesterday when I received my package in the mail. Soon as I opened it, I knew the time had come to finally face my fate.

So I ignored Jake (which is easy if I don’t look at him, because he can’t speak), cleared a spot on the gazebo’s third step, sat, opened the cardboard box and pulled out its contents: an antique-looking wooden chest painted a deep black. On the lid, etched and inlaid with silver is an exotic, oriental character I’ve come to know far too well.

But I can’t open it just yet. Someone needs to know what really happened to Jake Burns.

And I need to tell it . . .