[hai-neko]

Увидела я новое прибавление в творчестве и решила тоже чем-то поделиться. Dara, очень пришелся по душе твои "Дожди в Уэко Мундо". Правда, пишу я на английском сейчас. Вроде бы не выкладывала это тут еще.

Название: Déjà vécu
Автор: flying down
Фандом: Bleach
Рейтинг: T (>13)

Summary: This story is thought to be an experiment. The whole point is that the plot is planned to be realistic yet preternatural due to Bleach flashbacks. Déjà vécu (from French “lived before”) is the phenomenon of non-existent memories. But then why does Ranku (I have cut “gi” from the original name) Matsumoto remember her odd second life or, perhaps, it should be called the previous life? What sort of devilry is this? It reminds of a repetitive game. She has always acted like a ne'er-do-well woman. Lonesome and liberal, Matsumoto is caged in the social frame. For years she has been wasting herself in the routine jumble of days. But suddenly everything is embroiled in an inconceivable tangle when she meets a stranger with the smile of a buffoon…

Disclaimer: Actually, the author isn’t inclined to plagiarism so I can’t proclaim myself the owner of the whole idea. In fact, the overwhelming majority of characters belong to Bleach pantheon.

Déjà vécu

We forget because we don’t need to remember our future.

The past died off long ago…should we visit the graveyard?

Prologue

A woman in her late twenties was crawling on all fours, panting and mumbling round oaths at the same time. She was rummaging haphazard under a wooden bedstead with one hand while trying feverishly to remove a stubborn downy red lock of hair from her forehead with the help of the second one. The fight on two fronts soon turned out to be fruitless. The woman snorted loudly when the annoying strand landed yet again between her eyes. She straightened herself up and threw the messy chevelure (1) over the shoulders with one swift motion of the neck. Her Aurora (2) streamed in brazen cascades down her back and reached up to the waistline. She squatted down and embraced the head with the hands locking her fingers over the crown (3). Not only did Ranku Matsumoto attempt at exchanging eloquent remarks with the missing documentation but also threatened and urged the intractable papers to turn up at once or else…otherwise she would certainly track the papers down herself and then she would have them copied and sliced into tiny pieces…yes, she would pour petrol over those miserable sheets, burn the root of all evil and dance furioso (4) around the fire…

Ranku Matsumoto never had special guidelines. There were times when she desperately endeavored to observe the traditional instructions but it proved to be a failure. After all, she milled the wind (5). Unfortunately, Ranku had to bear with the fact that most likely she wouldn’t fit in the role of virtuous wife and mother. She never doubted her charms and could boast of the swarm of worshippers. Those susceptible to woman’s amenities gathered around her persona as though they were flies and she were a dainty lump of sugar. Yet the fate seemed to keep the men off her like a watchman of chastity. In her relationships there was neither commencement nor ending, only void in the midst.

Regarding climbing the ladder (6), at first Matsumoto pressed towards a decent position. As one Roman philosopher once remarked: we value nothing above the prosperity while we crave for it and nothing below when the last is obtained. And, certainly, Ranku Matsumoto didn’t really mind this kind of sinful cult. Matsumoto couldn’t be accused of commercialism, yet she possessed a spacious apartment to Tokyo measure and was quite fond of it. In her chase of promotion she realized that it was too wearisome for her sluggish personality. Matsumoto had moderated her appetites because she never pretended to the rank of an indefatigable workaholic even in her worst nightmares. It was perfectly convenient for Matsumoto to remain the first assistant in the 10nth bureau of innovations. Sometimes even her average position reminded Ranku about bothersome responsibilities. She could swear that every yen cost the very drop of her own blood. The documents, that were nowhere to be seen, were the evidence of that trial.

- Damn it, I guess I’ll have to make up a cogent reason for the lack of the documentation. Should I order myself a coffin or earplugs? Hataraki man (7) will bite my poor head off and won’t even choke…Where did I put those reports?

Matsumoto scanned the room once more and wasn’t really surprised to spot the above-mentioned papers lying peacefully under one of the flowerpots.

- Oh gods must have regarded pitiful me with favour. Thank…s…I just knew it! Why? What have I done to incur anger!? The boss won’t compliment for those round marks and dappled numbers…Mmm…think…I am a first-rate malingerer(8)…No, he would make me present that report even I were lying on my deathbed. You’re right, Bilberry (9), come what may…

Disheveled Matsumoto cast a look at the clock, hastily stuffed the papers in her bag and rushed outside. Bilberry, her favorite cat, meowed a little bit too late and lounged self-complacently on the shapeless pile of bed-shits.

Lexical decoder:

(1) chevelure (French) - shock (of hair), mop of hair

(2) Aurora – a type of hairstyle, thick strands of hair are cut in layers

(3) crown – the top (crest) of head

(4) furioso - furious

(5) mill the wind – an idiom, means to waste one's efforts

(6) climb the ladder - to make oneself a career

(7) Hataraki man (Japanese) – hard-working man, in other words, workaholic

(8) malingerer – a person who feigns illness

(9) bilberry (sin whortleberry ) – a sort of berry, almost black in color, grows on small bushes, mostly on foothills within the zone of the temperate climate

Haiku

Once remembered
Then forgotten .
The chrysanthemums on black silk

The bird returns.
A man forgets
So as to live once more

Blind twilight,
I probe the way
Though I traveled it before

A lonely blue bird
Is silent in the leafage,
But I hear its mute prayer

That stray cat
On the doorstep,
Leave it where it lies

Close them
The holes in your eyes,
They will see it

Lost memories
Shouldn’t be found.
Choking ashes

Scattered thoughts
Burn them.
Think of warm sake

The wind chime calls
For loneliness.
The drumming of raindrops

TBC