The Numbers The Materials The Spirit The Singularity
an excerpt

Let us rejoin the family visiting the shrine in Japan. Let’s review a couple of facts: the day was sunny, warm; good Spring weather. It was Farther, Mother, Son (4), Daughter (5) and Grandma and Grandpa. The mother and grandmother had carefully packed a bento lunch of cold rice and katsuo that morning. The mother paused before leaving; would it be wise to pack pickles too, or would that be extravagant not knowing how long the power would be out. In a sign of hope, the pickles wrapped in plastic were placed in the bag containing the bento boxes.

The family left their home late morning, the father and mother and children knew where the old temple lay, but the grandfather remember the temple from his youth. He was intimately connected to the structure. He could never forget the location of the temple. It was still early spring and the screams of cicadas could not yet be heard. The bird calls were wonderful against the background of a silence city. The grandfather slowly led the group up the path, hunched over, but seemingly leading them back in time. They crossed several empty roads, through abandoned lots, until they came to the side of the mountain on which whose lower slopes was placed the old temple.
The path broaden here after passing under the reddish/orange tori gates. At the end of probably 300 hundred meters sat the squat Shinto shrine. It was a beautiful view no matter how narrow or wide the lens. The positively golden light streaming through the trees. The thick foliage on the ground of bamboo and ferns, surviving knee-high, under the canopy. As always, the path existed rising slightly to the shrine, sitting perfectly in a small open space showered with rays of the sun.

Here the grandpa fell to the back of the group as the children sprang forward to explore the new place. Look at this plant. Look at this bug. Carefree. Curious. The grandma, like a proud mother hen, walked after them closely, to answering their questions but also to protect. Father took Mother’s arm in a single movement of friendship and love and took a big step forward. Grandfather however, turned around, his eyes peering sharply into the dark woods on either side of the path. He strained to listen. He stopped, his body tense, the birds had stopped singing. Slowly, deliberately, unrushed, relaxed, nonchalantly, he leaned down and picked up a stick lying on the forest floor. He tested its strength by putting his full weight on hit, then he moved forward again after his family.

Up the path there was a series of very old stone lanterns on either side, maybe 10m apart. The tops of the speculated grey granite lanterns was the home to various mosses. The lanterns, about 3 meters tall, had once been lit at the shrine’s yearly festival but it seemed now as though no one cared enough for a long time to organize a festival. There were inspiring works, balancing the forest pushing in on both sides; but they had also been neglected and thus nature had come right up to them. Mother and Father stopped at each and pondered them for a moment, noticing the differences between each caused by their craftsmanship by different hands in a slightly different order.

The approached the shrine. Some of the paint had come off the lower levels, revealing the grayish brown cedar underneath. The main side boards stayed white, the two main pillars before the entrance stayed red. The roof had never been any other colour than the natural colour of the cedar singles, but was now coated in decades of leaves. It was a testament to Japanese architecture the structure was standing despite its neglect. One hundred years ago the temple had been raised to shelter the Kami of the mountain on which it was perched as a location to leave offerings.

The family came to the clearing around the shrine. Sometimes holes punched in a forest can occur if the hole is their previously. Nature self-perpetuates. Small tree saplings cannot root because of the viciousness of short grasses. Thus a circle of soft grass surrounded the shrine. Three things happened the moment they stepped from the darkness of the canopy into the brightness of the opening, they were temporarily disoriented, a whistling could be heard, which struck Father in the back, and Grandpa, with a burst of energy and life hereto with unseen by his family, fled into the bush. Father limped to the steps of the temple, as another whistling could be heard from a different direction. This poisonous dart struck Mother the upper leg. She pulled it out quickly but not before it’s deadly package could be delivered. She swallowed her fear, teared up at the rising burn in her leg, and threw herself over her children. Grandma swiftly turned to face the forest. She had lost her stoop that most elderly Japanese have and raised herself up, tense, arms forward, a grimace on her face. She watched as the forest seemed to become alive around her by ghosts. Coming from the rustling forest was only the odd scream of pain, even of last screams, screams of death, weak screams. There were loud snaps. Blunt strikes. Silent rustling like the wind and then a resurgences of loud snaps. The sounds continued around Grandma in a circle from left to right, quickly and furiously. Death was working very efficiently today.

The final ninja, face covered, in black, makes for the clearing. I guess the grandmother on the steps of the shrine was better than facing the beast in the forest. Grandmother glances back at her dead son, her step daughter slumped over her scared grandchildren. Grandmother and Grandfather attack from the front and behind at the same time. Among assassins every advantage is used. Lightening quick as Grandmas eyes and the ninja’s lock, Grandpa, with a different stick now, strikes the high shoulder of the ninja from behind and before the ninja’s body has time to react strikes again at the soft part of the back under the rips. Momentarily frozen from the blow the ninja does not know he is dead, the grandmother does a clean round house kick to the cheek of the ninja. His jaw breaks with a satisfying snap, blood and teeth exit his mouth with a last murmur for his mother. He drops to the ground and his eye on the side in which he received the blow fills with blood.

With causalities on both sides - with new orphans - the Kogo ninjas left alive retreat to tell their Shogun of their defeat. Right there, the grandparents decide to teach their grandchildren the lost art of the ninja and so they may seek their own vengeance of the Shogun and create whatever they want to in this new world.