Book One In The Ahh-Ness Of Things Series: April & Donnie were once inseparable, but now almost six years have passed since she left NYC. What if April O'Neil could set the record straight, once & for all! The only girl down enough to chill with the...
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The warm twinkle of Christmas lights, everything was still kicking on in the all too familiar smaller front room & the electricity sparkling against old stone made the room come alive. I stepped down from the stoop where it opened into the grand living room; an old train station reaching high into great arches. The sunken platform filled with couches, the TV & arcade machines, the sound of running water from the cistern "pool", the buzz of neon lights. The smell was like that of your best friend's basement or your dad's garage. It was home, it was my home and all the memories came flooding as they do. Sitting on the couch, reading with Raph, watching TV with my brother's. Mikey cooking in the kitchen, chasing Ice Cream Kitty across the floor, swimming in the cistern, and the Dojo off in the distance across the the far side of the room. All I have; these memories. The air so crisp and cool yet cozy and the clean warm smell of wood lacquer. I was home, it was still here. I turned and smiled at Donnie but once again I was met with only an emotionless gaze as I tugged my shoes off with my feet.
"I really need to use the bathroom"; it was all I could muster.
"It's where it always was." he mumbled as he rudely dropped my bags at my feet and then turned and walked away.
"Thank You" I exaggerated my response, hands up, looking down at the pile which was my things. In the time it took for me to pick them up, he was gone like a ghost into the back bedrooms. I looked around almost uncomfortable, ok where could I put this stuff, everything is soaking wet. I hated this, it was like I was in someone else's home and not my own. This is not what I expected at all. Maybe a little uncomfortable tension you know, with me just showing up after all these years, but not this. Not Donnie walking off. I watched for a moment to see where he retreated away into the dark hall at the far end of of the open room, around the corner behind the brick slab that created a sort of partition wall, slipping his hood back from his head as he walked. I heard the familiar sound of his o-naginata being slid from his back, as it scratched against his shell; & the gentle thud of it being placed against the brick.
Once he was gone I was left reminiscing miserably as I moved across the sunken space & up the steps. I headed to the bathroom down the hall. I gently bowed to acknowledge the Tokonoma. It had been neglected for a while; the scroll of silk with hand painted Japanese characters read Hamato Yoshi in black ink with Hamato red sakura blossoms, was dusty. The vase of cream carnations wilting. I looked up at the shoji panes, darkened from the inside of the dojo, longing to see Master Splinter. Our Father was dead. This whole place seemed as if it were slowly dying, like the wilted flowers. Not nearly as bright & full of life as it had once been.
"Mono no aware"; the words passed in a whisper across my lips. Only a den of yokai now.
