SKY OF PAPER: AN ASIAN STEAMPUNK FANTASY

CHAPTER 8

　

　

When a boy and girl are joined together as shyo mu and shyo mah, there is a certain ceremony that must be done. I can only ever recall witnessing it four times in my youth. There was always a priest present, watching over the two as they placed several burning incense sticks on a humble, wooden alter.

Such affairs were kept as private as possible. Even their guardian, usually a large, imposing man with a sword at his side charged with their protection, was required to stand outside, next to the temple entrance.

At first sight it was easy to assume they were getting married, but unlike marriage, both the boy and the girl never looked at each other, or expressed fond emotions. Instead, they sat side by side on a bamboo mat before the alter while the priest bound their palms together with a red ribbon, symbolizing their unity.

After the priest had given his blessings, the two picked up their tea cups with their free hands and sipped it reverently. For such an important moment, it was one of the simplest ceremonies I had known.

Unfortunately, none of this happened when it was decided that Kassashimei would become my shyo mah. It was such a landmark moment in my young life to be paired with someone, and yet, for reasons that were not explained to me, it had to be kept a secret. As such, there would be no ceremony for us.

Beginner students such as myself were forbidden to be bound to another, which was why I felt both scared and confused about the strange situation I found myself in. It was as if I was standing in an empty field and told to walk to a certain place without knowing which direction it lay, or what awaited me when I got there.

I found myself so worried and filled with apprehension, that during tamma reading class, I had lost a great deal of my focus.

We were doing an exercise in the courtyard, which involved all of us to walk in the same direction, gazing only at our tammas. If the arrow in the glass ball pointed a certain way, we were to follow it. The idea was that we all would move and turn at the same time, like a flock of birds, as we followed the changes of the currents.

We were made to concentrate as hard as possible while we moved about like performers on a vast stage. Master Wa was quick to scold anyone who looked at anything else besides their tamma. We were spaced out in such away that we could hardly see the person next to us without turning our heads. He wanted to make sure that none of cheated by looking at the other students and copied their movements.

Every once in a while, Master Wa would call out my name.

"Terr, you're going too slow," he would say. "Why are you stumbling around?"

Sometimes the arrow would continue to point to the right or left, which meant I had to spin or continuously move in a circle. Because my anxious mind continued to be distracted, I would find myself running into other students, or accidentally shoving my shoulder against them. At one point, I became dizzy from all the spinning and turning and clumsily fell to the ground.

I looked up to see Masa's foot strike my shoulder. He pretended to not see me and acted like he was stumbling before regaining his balance. I groaned as I sat up and rubbed at the pain in my shoulder.

"Stand up, stand up right now," Master Wa said firmly.

"But my shoulder."

"I don't care if it's bleeding. Now get up and continue your tamma reading."

He smacked the ground with a swatting stick he had grown accustomed to carrying around with him.

As I got to my feet, I found that Masa had been pulled aside by one of Master Wa's assistants. He was sternly lectured, at first by the assistant, then by Master Wa himself, who personally inspected his posture, then expressed his distaste for the boy's actions.