Disclaimer: "Gensomaden Saiyuki, Saiyuki: Reload, Saiyuki: Gaiden" and all of its characters were created by Kazuya Minekura. They belong to her and used without prior permission. I make no monetary profit in the writing of the story.  

Leaning by Zan

It was when you opened your eyes to find your self in a surreal light with epiphany looking down on you through a curtain of red. You started to lean or at least to begin learning about it. You were always about yourself. There was no one you could rely on for love or shelter. There was no space in your heart. I am not sure when, how or even why it happened. You had erased it from your mind’s eye for all time…it is not only our youngest companion whose memories are sealed. How did you come to be?

&

It was when he opened his eyes to find his self in a surreal light of gentle wisdom and a kind of depth of unassuming love. A child unaware, that he started to lean or at least to begin learning about it. He should not have started, because now there was no one he could rely on for love or shelter. There could be no space in his heart. That fateful night when he closed off his heart imprinted in his mind’s eye forever. He wished it were his memories that were sealed. He envied the boy’s lack of recollection.

&

It was when I opened my eyes and found my self in a surreal light of slate grey rain and boredom like life drained away. Into the mud was mortality discarded. Uncertain if the brown of the earth was blood soaking into it or it was that colour already. Maybe there were gaps in those in-between spaces of my heart. Left behind by a nameless woman, a faceless man, a broken Mother and a brother I was sure I loved. Things rewound in my mind like a bad film I ought to have forgotten. How did I know all this? 

Because… I started to lean about the same time you started learning about it. I stopped leaning at the time he stopped leaning. In between those times, I was all about myself for there was no one I wanted to rely on for love or shelter. I had no idea what love was and I still have no clue. I could just be guessing though. There are things in my mind just out of reach like a faded photograph. The boy binds us, reminds us and helps us forget. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we lean on each other.

&

I lean over the side, and rap the green metal with my knuckles. I do not forget the one who really puts up with all of us. The constant threat of being a monkey’s meal, a target for ricocheting bullets and being an ashtray is a hard life to live. The red eyes look like they know, keeping a constant guard. There is a sense of familiarity in that. The feeling that this is what it does best. If it could speak for a day, what would it say I wonder? Is it looking for answers too? Just like us.