Now and Forever...Itsumademo... - Chapter 17B
Title: Now and Forever…いつまでも…
Author: Mayonaka no Taiyou/Unare Haineko
Pairing: [Juntoshi] Matsumoto Jun x Ohno Satoshi
Rating: R-ish
Summary: This story follows Ayumu, a more or less normal child born in 2012, three years after the ending of ‘Kodoku kara Umareta Ai’ (which you can read here). His parents, Jun and Ohno, are everything but ( Read more... )
In the original Perdix-Daedalus story, Athena transforms Perdix into a partridge. Here, ‘Athena’ transforms Aiba to a sparrow. A sparrow is significant in a biblical sense. Don’t get it? Fear not, I will explain.
Those of you who are familiar with Shakespearea’s Hamlet will know this quote from Act 5, scene v, lines 217-224 (in the New Arden edition which I favour):
Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The
readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows
what is't to leave betimes, let be.
At this point in the play, Hamlet is about to have his fencing match with Laertes in front of Claudius and Gertrude. Hamlet says those lines to Horatio because Hamlet has an inkling that he will die. In fact, what those lines are saying is this - even the most trivial death like the fall of a sparrow is part of some divine plan. Because there is always some divine plan beyond one’s control, the important thing is to be ready. Instead of raging against the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," he concludes with a simple "Let be.”
This is Aiba’s attitude when he sought to escape from the tower. He put his faith in the blessed Athena and knows that there is nothing occurring in life that has not the hand of providence in it. Hence, we are reminded of that line in Hamlet which goes, “There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
The bible says something about this in Luke 12:6 and Matthew 10:29. In those passages, Jesus informs his disciples that not even a sparrow can fall without God’s notice because their suffering is seen and forestalled by God. Someone must have been touched by Aiba’s ingenuity and his kind earnestness, that is why he/she played Athena and saved Aiba by turning him into a sparrow.
Of course, this throws up the question - who is Athena in this set up?
BY THE BLESSED GRACE OF ATHENA
Ah, we have a few candidates who know of Aiba’s ingenuity and who have received his kind earnestness. It could be Tiny. It could be Fa-nine (whom Tiny could have contacted at some point). It could be Miss Aoide in her lovely blue evening gown, or it could Aoide’s friend in the burgundy gown. I shall await to see which of these is Athena. Or Haineko could surprise us with someone else.
Aoide, is the woman in CH 16 in the blue evening gown who tells Aiba about the Icarus-Daedalus story. She touches the carved panel with Icarus on it and pities Icarus, much in the mode of the benevolent goddess. The characters for Aoide are 葵出, which are the characters for ‘sunflower’ and ‘way out’ respectively.
In the language of flowers, tall sunflowers stand for ‘haughtiness’.
In the language of flowers, dwarf sunflowers stand for ‘adoration’.
Potentially, that’s how Aiba escaped - using the haughtiness and/or adoration of someone.
Now, think about it. Aoide in her blue gown has the potential to be “Athena” since she’s telling Aiba all this and she actually touches the carving of the unfortunate Icarus. Blue in the “language of colours” conveys importance and importance without being sinister.
Then there’s the woman in the burgundy dress who appears to be Aoide’s friend. In the language of colours, burgundy indicates “vigour, elegance, leadership, and expensive refinement.” These qualities also put this woman in the running to play “Athena”, more so since she remarked on Aiba’s kindness to Aoide.
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Then Aiba come home dressed in black. That too is significant. In the language of colour, black means:
(i) void and emptiness,
(ii) wisdom - because black is believed to infinite,
(iii) unlooked for potential and possibility.
Because Aiba has seen the truth/light (having flown close to it and risking death to seek it), he is wise. He is wiser still because he chooses to return to the cave (the Sakuraiba flat) to educate others about the truth. The truth and wisdom are indeed infinite. But one must be careful with it as it can be like ultimate knowledge and drive you mad. Should the truth/light/knowledge drive you mad, you will find the abyss staring back at you and you will be swallowed up by the void.
Jun was almost at this state but he fortunately overcame it.
Nino was stuck for the longest time in this stage but the little truffle has overcome it.
Sho is finding himself sucked into the abyss (as he drinks dark lager and keeps himself in his ‘safe’ black bubble), and I suspect Aiba is aware of this. Hence, Aiba has taken it upon himself to show Sho the way out of the cave and into the light. Ah, but we knows Sho fears the light will burn him. So how Aiba goes about this delicate task of bringing Sho to the light remains to be seen and is something I look forward to.
Ironically, Iago himself uses the shadows to keep tabs on the Arashi men. Host Club Nozoki and its dodgy ‘peeping ghosts/demons’ in the shadows have already worked their evil ways on Nino (who has fortunately escaped). But HC Nozoki will shortly be extending its shadow iron grip around the neck of one NaSA!Ohno, use Ayu has a pressure point to get Jun out of the way. That would be in Iago’s MO. More on this when I come to the Jun section much, much later in the commentary to CH 17.
Still, When all the Arashi men have seen the truth that something is rotten in the state of Denmark JE and that Claudius Iago Kitagawa has crowned himself king even though he is not anointed monarch, there is much potential and possibility for the Arashi men to move around especially if they utilise the cloak of darkness and the shadows like Eris at the wedding feast where she threw that fatal gold apple. This then is the significance of the colour black on Aiba.
Let us move on to the significance of the ‘tower’ from which Aiba makes his remarkable escape.
THE TOWER
The ‘Tower’ from which Aiba escapes has a literally significance, especially since he falls from it, and flees INTO the flash of light from the streetlamp. This reminds the readers immediately of the tarot card ‘The Tower’. In tarot, ‘the tower’ symbolises the fall of earthly attachments and false structures of the egotistical mind. The escape from the tower means you leave these ‘earthly attachments and false structures of the egotistical mind’ in search for ‘wisdom within the Higher Self’.
In this case, it is extremely apropos for Aiba for that is what has happened to him upon his discovery of the ‘drugs-in-JE’ subplot.
In alternative readings of ‘the tower’ tarot card, it is believed that card indicates the destruction of artificial attempts to reach divinity. This interpretation is extremely relevant to that which will shortly happen to Iago. Iago does think he’s god; he does think he’s indestructible because he has won so many times. However, his attempted ascendance towards his own perceived divinity is artificial and will be his very downfall.
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Perhaps Aiba will wake up that Sho is hedging around him. This hedging is obvious from the manner in which the whole Sho section closes. Instead of telling Aiba how worried he were, Sho apologised as though he had done something wrong.
(08) Will Aiba ask Sho what Sho has done wrong that he’s apologising?
(09) If Aiba asks Sho, will it be revealed that Sho had indeed done something wrong by meeting up with Iris without Aiba’s knowledge?
For more information on the pomegranate, cf. my commentary on the Sho section in CH 17A.
I know Sho is still eager to keep things under wraps because the moment Aiba utters ‘Sho-chan’, our insincere cherry blossom silence him with a snog. I suspect that Sho’s motivations for that are less than pure. I suspect Sho did to silence Aiba before Ma-chan can ask any question. I suspect that Sho is worried that he would be deprived of dear Masaki when he is fully in Iris’s clutches and is now regretting (a little too late) his decision to keep Masaki in the dark about the ominai (sic). I shall wait for Haineko to reveal Sho’s motivations as well as the whole ‘escape from the tower’ business in her next instalment.
postscript: I forgot to add in the Sparrow section above that the sparrow may appear to be small and helpless but in some cultures, they are regarded as harbingers of the undead. That Sparrow!Aiba escapes from the tower of Iago's artificial divinity heralds the death of Iago. My, my all this fits in with the sudden death theory.
[Much more commentary on Jun, Miyazono, the 2009 Contract, Numerology, NaSA!Ohno &ca to come.]
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Ahh, Ma-chan, my little sparrow. Sing! SING, my little one! Sing to your winged lover, Sakurai (fu)Sho (櫻井（不）翔)! Tell him what you saw or are you afraid that he will use his wings and fly away from you? Or perhaps that he will not believe you?
Ooh, Iago could explode! First Nino escapes, now Aiba escapes! All these suddenly incompetent minions. Or perhaps it was less noticeable that they were incompetent when they didn't have our ingenious boys to deal with... Or perhaps someone Athena is watching over our Arashi men. If this keeps up, somebody gonna get a hurting real bad...
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Ah, Sho would not believe Aiba (naturally), they will have a fight (naturally). More chaos ensues (naturally). It was all the figs, lettuce, pomegranate, apples.
Iago explosion will be something that will cause an earthquake and a volcanic eruption. Take cover! Well, there's always Daisuke Iago can sacrifice. *snigger*
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