Hey everyone! I know I said in my #introduceyourself post that my main focus will be EDM-related things, and that's definitely the plan, but it'll be a couple of weeks before my next festival, so until that time I'll post some other things that I write about. This is an original short story I wrote, centered on the ancient Greek concept of katabasis, the hero's descent into the Underworld to overcome a barrier and learn something new that will help him along the path to his fate. The CNMI is mentioned several times throughout the story, and it stands for the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which are the islands that I come from. The story takes place on the island of Saipan, the island I was born and raised on. I hope you guys like it! Please feel free to leave some honest feedback; I am always open to new ideas that will help me become a better writer.
Katabasis
“You mustn’t die,” a voice said from far away. “It’s not your time yet…”
I looked around, but could see nothing but blackness. I was alone in this dark, desolate place. “Who are you? Where are you?” I demanded. Suddenly, a ball of bright whitish-yellow light appeared in the distance. As it started moving towards me, it began to grow in size. When it was within ten feet of me, the light exploded and illuminated the place. In the spot where the ball of light had been was what appeared to be a man with huge silvery wings growing out of his back.
He had a certain radiance to his figure, a slight glow that encompassed his whole body. He smiled at me and looked straight into my eyes. The sight of his deep blue eyes made me weep with joy. I wanted to look around to see where I was, but I didn’t dare avert my gaze. Before he even said it, I already knew. “I am an angel of the Lord, Masashi.” His voice was deep and vibrant, the kind of sound that penetrates into your very soul.
“Where am I?” I asked. “How did I get here?”
“You are in the realm between worlds. Look around you,” he answered.
I looked around and saw that we were standing in a forest. “This doesn’t make any sense,” I cried. “I was just on the road and it was night time, how am I in the forest in broad daylight now?”
“There was an accident, Masashi, and you’re slowly dying. But you must fight. Fight to survive! Your time is not now.”
“What do you mean, ‘my time is not now’?”
“You know what I mean. You’ve felt it your entire life, haven’t you?”
“Felt what?” I asked. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, though, I suddenly realized the only thing the angel could’ve possibly meant. “You mean I’ve been right all along? Am I truly destined to do great things for the world?” I could hardly contain my excitement over the implications if he said yes. It meant that I hadn’t just been suffering from delusions of grandeur all these years, that my life really was worth something.
The angel reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Yes, Masashi,” he said. “You are indeed destined for greatness. That is why you cannot die today. There is much left for you to accomplish on the Earth before you can pass away.”
“But what?” I asked. “I’ve been thinking about this for years, but I still don’t know what it is. I was starting to think that maybe I was just crazy!”
“Masashi,” he started.
I cringed at having heard my full name repeated so often in such a short period of time, and I told the angel, “Everyone calls me Masa, you know.”
“I cannot,” he said. “I can only address you by your true name, the name your parents gave you: Masashi.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never really liked it,” I said. “It’s just so…formal. It makes me feel ridiculous when people call me that.”
He looked me in the eye and said, “It is formal for a reason. Your name, written out in Kanji, means ‘righteous aspiration’. It is supposed to remind you about your path in life and where your destiny will take you.”
“Yes, I know what my name means,” I explained. “But you still haven’t told me what that destiny is.”
“That is something you must figure out for yourself,” the angel said. “I cannot tell you what your destiny is. I can only show you the things you need to see in order for you to finally realize your true purpose on the Earth.” He waved his arm to the side, and as my eyes followed it, I saw a big red door appear in the direction he waved. I turned back to ask him where it leads, but he was no longer there. “Open the door and walk through it, Masashi…” I heard his fading voice say. So I did just that, and as soon as I crossed the threshold, there was another flash of bright white light.
When the light subsided, I was greeted by a scene from my distant past. I was back on the playground of Saipan Community School, watching as my 10 year-old self was being pushed around and bullied by my classmates. Tears started flowing down my face as I witnessed little Joseph Cruz grab my lunchbox, open it, and scatter its contents across the playground before he threw it back on the ground and his friends kicked it away. Then they pushed me to the ground and started throwing sand on me. I clenched my fists as I watched my 10year-old self do nothing but sit there and take it, crying for them to stop. “What are you doing?!?” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Fight back! Do something, don’t just let them walk allover you! Stand up and fight!”
But it was no use. I couldn’t change the past. I already knew what was coming. This was the moment in my life where I stopped believing, or hoping, that “God” actually existed. I stood there, over my 10 year-old self, watching as he cried his eyes out, pounding on the ground, screaming for the whole world to hear, “I hate you, God! You don’t exist! You’re nothing but a lie!” After watching this scene play out, I suddenly realized that I never wanted anyone else to go through any of that; I never wanted to see anyone else get hurt like I did when I was a kid. That was one of the defining moments in my life.
Just as quickly as I had come to this realization, a big blue door appeared in the distance. I heard the angel’s voice once again, telling me to go through it. I walked across the playground to the towering door and opened it. Another flash. This time, I found myself watching as my 23year-old self was sitting down in Java Joe’s having a meeting with a few other people, trying to plan out the CNMI’s first ever May Day protest. “We’ve been silent for far too long,” he said to the others. “We’ve allowed our government to get away with everything so many times that they honestly believe nobody will rise up to stop them. It’s time to remind them who serves who! It’s time to stage the CNMI’s first general strike, and there’s no better day to do it than on May Day. The rest of the world will be protesting as well, and we can ride that wave to increase our chances for maximum success here.”
“How are we going to do that?” Stephanie asked.
“We’ve got to decide on a well-known place where everyone will meet up, and a time when we should all arrive at that point to start our march,” he replied. “And then we’re going to march right on the main road.” I smiled at the sight of myself just taking charge like that, much to everyone else’s surprise. They all looked at my 23 year-old self like he was crazy.
“But won’t that piss everyone else off?” Bobby asked. “We’d be blocking the road and interrupting their day!”
“Yes, Bobby! We would be blocking the road and interrupting people’s daily routine. That’s the whole point! If everyone’s given in to despair and are so despondent that they aren’t willing to do something about it, WE will give them something to get pissed off about! We will show and tell them exactly why we’re doing it: to strong-arm them into expressing their anger towards our corrupt and inept government.”
“Wow Masa, that’s a great plan!” Stephanie said as the others nodded in agreement. “It’s so great that you’re actually doing something about all this!”
“I am honored to call you my friend, Masa,” Bobby said. “I wish there were more people like you on Saipan. Nobody seems to want to do anything about the situation in the CNMI, except you. Everyone else just complains and complains but nobody actually ever does anything worthwhile. Thank you for being the one to stand up first.”
My 23 year-old self just smiled and accepted the compliment as if it were any other kind statement being offered to anyone else, but as I stood there and watched the exchange play out, it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. This was what the angel wanted me to realize. Every memory of every instance of injustice, abuse, and bullying that I had suffered through in my life came flooding back to me, and they all meshed with the memory that I was currently watching in front of me. I realized then what my destiny is, what it had always been from the moment all those years ago when I started to feel like there was much more to my life, like I was on the Earth for some greater purpose.
My destiny is to lead the people of the CNMI into the future, to become the first non-Chamorro or Carolinian governor of the CNMI, and to help create the paradise in the Pacific that we all wished our islands truly could be. All of the pain and suffering I had weathered throughout my life was an essential part of shaping me into the man I am destined to become. I had to experience the darker side of life in order for me to have this burning desire to rid the world of its darkness and make it a better place for everyone. “My name is Masashi,” I said to myself. “Righteous aspiration. Now I know what my name truly means. I understand my destiny.”
At that moment, everything faded to black again and the angel reappeared in front of me. “Yes, Masashi. This is why you cannot die just yet,” the angel said to me. “There is still much work for you to do. But you are not ready yet. I can still sense your conviction wavering. You still have doubts.”
“I…I….”I started to say, but I couldn’t quite put the right words together.
“You still have a demon to slay, Masashi. The one thing that’s been holding you back from believing in yourself all these years. You cannot return to the world of the living until you have overcome this obstacle. Slay your demon, Masashi! Fight for your life!” With that, the angel disappeared, and the world around me was plunged into darkness once more. I felt the ground beneath me disappear and I started to fall through the open air, shouting as I tumbled all the way down. After what seemed like an eternity of falling, I finally hit a solid surface.
“Ow!” I yelled. “What the hell was that, angel?” No response. “Hello?” Silence. The familiar smell of gin permeated the air. Suddenly, I heard a voice nearby that sent shivers down my spine. This voice was not the voice of the angel, but it was a voice that I knew all too well. And it terrified me. There was only one person whose voice it could’ve been, only one person whose gin I could’ve smelled. I slowly turned around in the direction of the voice, and my fears were confirmed.
“Hello, boy.” my father said menacingly.
“It…it can’t be!” I yelled, my voice shaking. “You’re dead, dad! You can’t be here!”
He laughed an evil laugh that made me freeze in place. “Can’t I? Aren’t you dying right now, too? Isn’t your worthless, pathetic life finally coming to an end?”
“NO!” I said as I shook my head violently. “This can’t be happening. You’re not really here!”
“Is this real enough for you, boy?” he asked as he struck me in the face with the back of his hand, just like he used to when I was a kid.
“Just leave me alone, dad! I’m done dealing with your abuse!” I screamed, tears rolling down my face. “You’ll never hurt me again!”
He struck me again. “What’s that, boy? You’re crying again?”
Smack! “That’s all you know how to do, is cry!”
Smack! “You were never good for anything but crying, boy!”
Smack! “You might as well just die now, boy! You’re never gonna amount to anything in this life!”
He raised his arm to strike me again, but this time, I was ready. With tears in my eyes, I looked up at him and grabbed his arm right before his hand connected with my face. “NO MORE!” I yelled at him. “You’re not going to abuse me any longer! You’re dead! You have no more power over me! And you’re wrong, dad,” I said as the last of my tears fell from my eyes. “I will amount to something in this life, something far greater than you could ever imagine. I have a destiny to fulfill! I’m going to prove you wrong!” I mustered my strength and channeled it into my right hand as I formed a fist and threw everything I had into one solid punch to his chest. The blow had so much force behind it that I punched a hole through his chest and he exploded into a billion particles of light.
The explosion jolted me to full consciousness, and I was back in the driver’s seat of my car. I raised my head, gasping for air, and it was night time again. I saw the steering wheel in front of me. I felt the tightness of my seat belt pressed against my chest. I raised my hand to my forehead and felt that it was wet. I looked at my fingers. Blood. Tangan-tangan trees surrounded my car, and each raindrop that fell onto it sounded like a never-ending barrage of bullets. I suddenly realized that there was a man standing next to my car shining a flashlight at me and tapping at my window. I rolled my window down.
“Hey man, I’m so sorry! Are you alright?” he asked.
“Yeah…yeah,I think so.” I said, my voice cracking.
“Come on, we need to get you out of there. Quickly, undo your seat belt!”
There was something about the urgency in his voice that compelled me into action immediately. I unbuckled my seat belt and opened my door. He extended his arms to me and I took them. He pulled me out of my car and helped me back up to the main road. Seconds later, my car slid in the muck and went over the cliff it had been teetering on, the sheer weight of it crushing the frail tangan-tangan trees in its way.
“Oh my god,” I said in shock. “Thank you, you just saved my life!”
“I also almost got you killed, and I’m sorry for that,” he replied.
“That doesn’t matter; you just saved me! What’s your name?”
“Joseph,” he said. “Joseph Cruz.”