Myths of Origin Four Short Novels - By Catherynne M. Valente Page 0,111

IN THE MOMENT THEY DRAW BREATH, I WILL BE THERE TO SNATCH IT BACK. THIS IS MY WORLD, NOW, IN THE DEEPS AND THE DARK. KEEP TO YOUR HALF, SPOILED BY LIGHT. GO, GET OUT, GOBBLE UP THE WHOLE WORLD IF YOU CAN, BUT COME NEAR MY COUNTRY AGAIN AND I WILL BURN YOU, BELLY-OUT, AS YOU BURNED ME.”

Izanagi scrambled back from the gales of the voice, which stank of putrefaction: mushrooms and oversweet fruit, spoilt fat and dried blood.

“I would not come into your disgusting country again for any price,” he sputtered, trying to scoop the offal from his eyes, scrape it from his tongue, “and I can sire worlds faster than you can lay them waste! You will see how many sons, how many islands, how many blazing boys will come tumbling out of me! You can’t take them all, and for every thousand you claw to pieces I will bring fifteen hundred out of the ground. You should not have been made, there is no need for you—you are a leech-child like that monstrosity you spawned, and you have as little strength, as little beauty. You cannot banish me from the dark—I banish you from the light, and no one will care that you are gone, when the world is as full of my children as the beaches of Onogoro with jellyfish!”

The stones said nothing, but rolled back into place like sliding screens. The voice was gone. The earth glared back at him, baleful and silent.

Izanagi turned from Ne no Kuni, half-blinded, and ran from the soundlessness of the cleft—he followed the green smell of water to a babbling stream and finally cooled his eyes, his nose, his throat, and his burnt hands. He dropped the comb into the water, and cleaned first his left eye, dropping a clump of dust and dried flesh from his lid into the cold river.

He could not be sure, but he swore that the clump glittered, and shone, not at all like rotted flesh, but like gold, and fire.

He cleaned then his right eye, dropping a clump of dust and dried blood into the cold river.

He could not be sure, but he swore that the clump glittered, and shone, not at all like dried blood, but like silver, and light moving on still water.

He cleaned then his nose, and with a great breath blew a clump of dust and pulverized lung into the cold river.

He could not be sure, but he swore that the clump darkened, and thundered, not at all like the terrible cry, but like rain approaching from far off.

And in the water three things opened their eyes: the first clump flared out in a spiral, with hair red as the flames which ate the house on Onogoro, and she was Ama-Terasu, and she was the sun, and her eyes seemed to both rise and set at once. The second pooled out in a slow circle, and his skin was the color of the river, and it was difficult to tell where he ended and it began, for he was all over silver light, and he was Tsuki-Yomi, and he was the moon, and his hair was grey as clouds. The third clump seemed to fall apart and come together several times, a dervish whipping the water into foam, and its hair was storm-black, wet with salt seas, and his feet were ringed by jellyfish like newborn diamonds, and he was Susanoo-no-Mikoto, and he was the storm-and-wind, and he was me.

FIFTH HEAD

It is sad, that this part never lasts | It is sad, that this part never lasts | the held gasp before events tumble towards the base of my belly | when you do not know whether becoming no-longer-a-maiden will be terrible or marvelous, whether it will be all whiteness and the smell of clean skin, the way it has been in your heart | When she is lovely and young and her flesh is full as a moon, the soft snort of a horse in the first morning of winter, | whether it will be different for you, when so many sisters have gone ahead of you, and you are plain, and not like them, who had faces like winter fruits | the smell of her heart beating, of the sweat beading on her throat, | whether he will whisper in your ear:

“Kyoko, Kyoko, I love you,” | Kyoko, Kyoko, I love you | “I do not care that you are plain.” | I do not care