The Wanderer
For my whole life, I've written nothing but novels. I never really thought of trying my hand at a short story. I get so caught up in the worlds that I create that I wind up digging deeply into things, so that I can understand how the people in them live and work. I also enjoy interweaving a character's story with that of the world, and of other characters, like threads in a tapestry. Maybe it's inevitable that my stories end up so long.
Publishers have approached me with the idea, saying that they'd like to read a short story by me, but I always told them that writing one was darned near impossible for me. I didn't so much reject their idea as run away from it.
But then, one day, I planted the seed of a story—and it was a short one. That surprised me as much as anyone else. It came to me in a moment of pure inspiration. It would be a new short story set in the Guardian of the Spirit world!
I'd rejected the idea of a short story for so long that my publishers convinced me to write an essay about the series instead. The essay's due date was fast approaching, but I hadn't written it. I was far more interested in the new story. I was running out of time to write that, too. Just when I thought I would have to make a few regrettable calls, the image of a Rotan tavern appeared inside my mind.
There was no one in the tavern. It was just past noon. I tried looking around and caught sight of an old woman sitting at a table by herself, playing a game with dice. And then, Balsa was there, standing in the corner, watching the woman's precise hands movements with rapt attention.
I still remember the moment when that story came to me very clearly. There's a pain associated with it that's difficult to describe. I wasn't sure what kind of story I'd planted when I first started writing the tale of Lahura the gambler. It took shape during the spare moments I had from field work and teaching. All told, I think it took me three days to write it. I spent a few additional days on edits, and then it was ready to submit.
The other two stories in this collection followed in rapid succession. “Floating Rice Husks” came first, followed by “The Gambler.” I felt like I was being fenced in my them. I, who was not a writer of short stories, suddenly had written three.
I wasn't excited by these stories. I didn't really want to write them, at first. It's like that whenever I get a new story idea: it's work to create it, and it's hard, and I feel like I'm constantly getting knocked down and forcing myself up again. I had so many things to do, and at the time it felt like I didn't have time for all these new stories.
But I do know why I accepted the challenge of writing them. The first reason is that I've always been interested in the earlier history of Guardian of the Spirit's world. I wanted to see more of Balsa, Tanda and Jiguro. There were so many things I'd written for the characters in the main series that got cut or was never added, but I knew it all: everything about them. They felt alive to me.
In 2010, the Beast Slayer series came to a close—with another collection of short stories, no less!—and I didn't yet feel the need to start working on a long story. I still don't. I don't know why.
There's one other thing I should mention about “The Gambler” and “The Wanderer,” which are working cooperatively in a thematic way. All the stories are, though “Floating Rice Husks” is a bit more arguable from a thematic standpoint. There are people in the world without homes, who leave their families behind, who wander the world alone—that's why this collection is called The Wanderer. I wanted to interrogate what being a wanderer actually meant to the people who'd lived that life. When I read over the stories now, their loneliness and resilience still haunt me long after I close the book.
The stories in this collection and the short stories written for Beast Player weren't written for a child audience. It's possible that a thirteen-year-old won't be able to understand all of the inner workings going on beneath the surface. But a child who reads these now will understand them, on some level, and they will grow up, like Balsa does, and understand even more. I'm glad that books and stories are like that. People can be like that, too, if they keep their minds and hearts open.
Uehashi Nahoko
January 17, 2011
Abiko
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