I often find myself thinking about my mother. What if she had made it? What if she had raised me? Her son with dark slanted almond shaped eyes and dark hair. I looked nothing like her. She, with her porcelain skin and blue eyes, red unruly hair down to her waist. She was so beautiful. I feel like she was stolen from me...978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwYDinyttX8
I bring my mind back to my present situation. We are refugees. I know you probably have not kept up with our story, but we are wanted in the king's court: dead or alive. Now, we are hiding out in an old library with ruined tapestries along the wall. I watch as the warriors train. It is the culture of these people to become warriors, and they are trained from a young age. If my mother had lived, would I have become a warrior?978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtFjU4SdKBb
I remember when I was young, my hair slicked down and puffy sleeved shirts and dress pants. Posing for portraits that my mother loved. That my father disdained. My father used to be a scientist before he became a baker. He had a lab underneath our mansion. He used to spend hours down there while my mother and I would play the piano. She was a lovely pianist, and she taught me. She was the daughter of a lord, raised in upper class. Therefore, so was I. After all, my father was a very smart man and valuable to the king. 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB7PsvD35bq
"You are so smart, Scott, never give up your skills." Scott was not my proper name, but she called me that. Everyone else called me Yasuhiro because that was my father's language. 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB1HsMgM1jS
I nodded. I can still remember her voice. I was but four then, maybe five. That is the day that the king's men stormed our mansion and changed my life.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA1hwqlPoDG
"Isla!" Father came up the stairs from his lab and grabbed her. "Take Yasuhiro downstairs! Go, now!" 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIk4uhCdvky
My father was a scrawny man. Tall and wispy. No way he could take on the king's men. But he would risk his life for us.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyELkb05gvq
"Daichi, what is going on?!" my mother exclaimed to him, but he thrust her to the stairs and repeated his commands. "Come, Scott."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaYSQEaEpWx
I remember my mother's grasp was firm. My hand was so small inside of its pasty hold. She took me to my play area. I spent much time in my father's lab when he watched me. He made me custom toys: glowing neon car tracks, toddler learning laptops that projected onto the wall, interactive puppets, you name it...we spent hours down there together.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS5FWco994T
"Yasuhiro," he would say. "Do you know what your name means?"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTmZxBZU8Ao
I would shake my head.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7SAoiwECyY
"Calm and respectful, peaceful, if you will. You know, those qualities will take you a long way. But you must also be strong and brave and bold when the time comes."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ390CI9Umor
"Yes, Father, I will. And what does your name mean?"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1vG8IBj4k7
"Daichi? It means 'wise.' How fitting, huh?"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmLqkbeqvBD
We both laughed.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLuLbVdDziQ
"But promise me, Yasuhiro, you will remember to be brave when you need to be, brave but always respectful."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8tGDkboZdQ
"Yes, I promise."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfJWgSlKhWI
Perhaps now was one of those times as we made our way through the play area to the the back of the lab to hide behind tables occupied by blue stuff.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGnSLtWpO1A
"Scott? Do you want to say your ABC's?"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsy8CEJqhHN
I sang them for her about four times at her request. Even amidst all the noise...the shattering of glass. The clank of the now-out-of-tune piano.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeJiFobAmKY
"Quiet, darling little Scottie," she whispered. "You are my greatest treasure, Yasuhiro."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRnbHr6hzqN
I heard the echo of footsteps on the metal stairs, like trapped thunder across the room from us. 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHPsRcQFj3v
"No, there is nothing here," my father said. Pause. Clinking. "Please do not touch anything. Some things are toxic. I do not even allow my family down here. I am working on a better therapy for anaphylactic shock, which I suffer from, allergies. I am working with bronchoconstictors as well as bronchodialators."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzr3X3kqbqf
"Ah...is that true...so would you mind if I do this?!"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5TlKI4akui
We hear the clash of glass.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBSGsPHmsnX
"Noooo!!! Why would you do that?! Now, get out now!!!"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVZ6UyJGfjd
"Oh no, he wasn't lying. Everyone move!"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb3mkU7aoyR
"Everyone move!!!" 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXwg5zGdXic
Gagging and coughing.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlcWlLtFnCx
My mother huddles me to her chest, protecting me from the gases that now engulf the room. She began to choke.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZReVTxkf6
"Isla! Isla, where are you? Say something!"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZWtKmHew14
"Father!"I screamed, but my mother quieted me and continued to shield me for as long as she could. She grabbed my father's gas mask. There was only one hanging beside us. She put it as best she could on me, and I watched her fade, melting like a beautiful snow in summer, as she sunk to the ground.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMosESBYK9b
"Mama! Mama!" I wailed.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm64Y873ZQH
"Yasuhiro!!!" my father exclaimed. "I cannot see you. Where are you?!"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzmBKFjQZCZ
I stood up, and my father raced across the room, scooping up my mother's fading form and me all in one go. I remember everything going so fast. The clank of the stairs beneath my shoes before I let the gas mask fall to the ground. We raced out into the open hillsides that was our land. Green grass and wildflowers for miles. My father laid my mother on the cobblestone path trampled by the soldiers' hastened escape. 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVazYZtNyV0
"Isla, please speak to me..."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Xp3beQoyy
My mother suffered from bronchitis quite often, and I learned later he had been working on different therapies to make her stronger; she never could deal with harsh changes in the environment, pollen, or anything like that.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡquuZql8JPv
"Isla, I'm so sorry. When we get through this, I...I..."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSCOV0LTipn
"Daichi," she smiled up at him, blue eyes sparkling. "I love you. There are no two people in the world I love more. Do you think you will be done by next spring? So that Scott, you, and I can go to the cherry blossom festival?" Her face was already turning blue. 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIjtgm7iDxu
"Yes, yes, I just have to repair my lab, and...and..."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOzBwiOsjKK
"Yasuhiro, that would be fun, right?" she asked me; I nodded eagerly. "Hmmm, look at this evening sky. I never get to enjoy it this time of year. The cold air always sends me into coughing fits, but now, it smells so sweet. Daichi, hold me, will you?"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhZJ2xId4mo
"Yes, just you and me. I am going to put Scott inside."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWwtjPCybgO
I was quiet as my father set me on the porch and escorted my mother to an oak tree. She could barely walk. By nightfall, my mother had left us. My father returned to me and took me to the site. He had already wrapped my mother in beautiful grasses that interlaced with her white cotton dress and decorated her fiery red hair. Her skin was porcelain again, but I could see where her veins were bulged. Now I know it was her body's last attempt to get oxygen to her essential organs.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsRH6d0PRup
"She's so beautiful," my father whispered, more to himself. He released my hand and knelt down beside her.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMXTVY0rLAx
"I'm so sorry, Yasuhiro," he whispered through gritted teeth. I have never seen a man cry like that in my whole life, to this day.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWyIzEhu7t2
"Call me Scott, please, Daddy," I whispered. I did not understand much. Not why she had died. Or why those men had come after us. But I did understand that I had lost my mother, and I was desperate to have her with me. Her son that didn't look like her, but that held her in his heart for a lifetime and beyond. 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKudYXE7twJ
"Scott, yes, that is good."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7tpoC0a88v
He struck a fire with some flint and let the fire turn her to orange diamonds amidst smoke and ash, just like he did to our mansion.978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW7JMFHI3zy
"We must go," he explained. "Those men are after us. They consider us rebels to the king."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiW45AuxK8F
"But why?"978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx5iiZNZOCt
"That is best explained another day, my son. Another day...when you're older."978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmEGNcLOUO8
He toted me over his shoulder, and we began the journey on foot away from the only home I had ever known. Away from my mother. But I carried her with me; and among the burning house, as its exterior faded, I made out the figure of a piano. And a beautiful voice and ivory keys. 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxpu2ZOgLRG
If that day had not happened, you can imagine where I would be. I would be Yasuhiro, probably a pianist and upperclassmen dining in a fine mansion. My father and mother would have spent innumerable spring days together because he would have finished his work, and we would have gone to the cherry blossom festival. And I would have run through the wildflowers in my younger days and ridden horses through them as I grew, becoming a warrior, as is customary for men among my mother's people. I would not be here among the renegades, watching warriors; perhaps I would have been a warrior, strong brave, raised by a strong, brave woman and an intelligent, loving father, a scientist. Things would have been different. But my father is a good man, though he left his work behind. He raised me well. And now, people just call me Scott. 978Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtij8Rynjou
