The Sound of Snow

Chapter Nine: "The Baker"

Months had gone by since the incident with the letters. But he wasn't out of the woods yet. If anything, this was the real year that set him up for his premature end.

. . .

The line in the lobby of the local museum of cultural influence dawdled painstakingly. The Boy flipped through the pages of the one dirty magazine he owned, frankly starting to get bored of it, and shuffling his feet as the queue inched forward. He had the booklet of course wrapped in a more publicly appropriate sleeve – not that he cared much at this point if anyone thought badly of him; he just didn't want it to get confiscated. Swinging his collection sack on his wrist impatiently, finally the security guard called him through the gates and he gave a couple coins for admission, sighing. That was two less coins he could have given his father

Stepping into the great hall of the museum he passed a young man staring at a painting with earphones in and wires winding down to a smart phone in his hand. There was a faint humming from the stranger's music blaring so loud.

"How nice it would be to plug in and tune out like that."

Jealousy pinched the teen but now without any hope. There was no sense in wishing for things he could never afford. With Dad's new found love of gambling away his son's collections it didn't look likely The Boy would have a chance to save his own money ever again.

Still, the thought of wandering the museum listening to music and thinking of something other than his self-pity sounded nice. But that would be impossible to do today anyway. As you know, Dad liked to send The Boy with reminders to stay in line everywhere he went; today it was a gross black eye so swollen he could hardly see out of it. Even if both eyes were swollen shut and he had music blaring loud in his ears he'd still feel the stares.

Jostling his way through a school of kindergarteners lead by their teacher, he turned his thoughts away from their pointing and gawking at his eye and instead asked himself again what kind of notes he was trying to fill this notepad with.

"Just find something to write about and get it over with. I only need a passing grade on Wednesday."

A couple weeks after the incident with the letters, The Boy's ranking at the top of his class slipped through his fingers and Ria Ryuuji quickly took his place. His grades only continued to plummet from there. If he didn't get back up to a passing average with this assignment Dad would confiscate his skateboard, and The Boy wasn't about to let that happen.

This board was his only taste of freedom and he clung to it with all his might. It was the only comfort to the contemplations in the far back of his mind about ditching this waste of a town.

Walking the main hall of the small museum he read each sign in front of each exhibit room. This essay was for his humanities class, and he was supposed to write about how religious culture has affected the history of the local area, specifically how it influenced the early settlers.

"What am I supposed to learn from this? That my ancestors carved all these statues and worshipped these gods? Why should I even care about stuff like that?"

He came to a room titled "Shintoism Through the Years."

"Besides, it's not like I have a reason to worship the gods. They've never done a thing for me... Not that I need anyone's help."

Either way he figured this was as good a place as any to start. The room wasn't too full and was dimly lit in a cold lighting to accentuate the lights inside the glass cases holding ancient woodcarvings, statues, and hand-made ceramics. There was a wide, flat pillar in the center of the room with several TV screens all around its surface so that the observer could walk around the long room while listening to documentaries. Watching one of the screens where a man read out of an old leather-bound book, he scribbled some ideas for topics to write about.