The Crane by the Shore
By Michelle Zhong
Mother doesn’t want to get up today. She can tell by the gray clouds trudging sluggishly outside her dilapidated window that today’s no different. Before Mother can close her eyes and slip back into her sleep, Akio comes into her bedroom wielding a crooked ladle and a pan that’s still slightly oiled from last night’s dinner.
“Ok, ok, I’ll get up. Just don’t . . . you know,” Mother says to Akio while flimsily waving him away. Mother isn’t in the mood to listen to one of Akio’s unmusical concerts. Not since she started living by the coast.
Mother barely manages to bring herself to the kitchen table. She looks at the washed-out ceramic bowl sitting at the center of the table. Mother could tell it was Akio’s. Akio had wanted the bowl because there were little blue cranes whimsically dancing in it. It had cost Akio’s father three of his fish. If Akio didn’t have to leave for school in the mornings, he likely would’ve pestered Mother to eat well so she could get strong and go on long walks with him and Dad, like old times. This thought sits dormant in the back of Mother’s mind before she decides she isn’t in the mood to eat.
Mother heads to the front porch where her face is pelted with cold, stale winds from the uninviting shore up in the distance. Mother never liked the shore. The sight of the dismally bleak and barren water always fills her with a somber feeling. It’s as if the water had washed up into her mouth and left her with nothing but a salty distaste for the shore. It’s not like she had a choice in coming here.
Mother squints her eyes and sees a bent crane dawdling in the distant waters. The way the crane stood there in perfect calmness, armed in its rough coat of feathers, reminds Mother of Akio’s father. Well, what’s left of Akio’s father, anyway.
—
The clouds dragged themselves across the lifeless sky on that day too. Akio bumbled around the house like a blind, wingless bird. Mother remembers the great big smile Akio had flashed her before leaving for his first day of school, and how she tried her best to return the smile. Everyone who knew Mother knew she was born with a face that wasn’t meant to smile, but she wanted to be a good mother to Akio, and mothers smile for their children. But that smile faded away as quickly as it
appeared when she first saw the crane. Mother hasn’t smiled since.
—
Mother can’t help but think her conscience has been primed to replay these thoughts every time she’s on the porch. The shore must’ve shown up uninvited into Mother’s head and let itself in, filling her head with thoughts as sullen as the water. Mother only blames herself for having these thoughts. She should’ve noticed the shore at her doorstep.
To distract herself from these thoughts, Mother shifts her attention to the crane that was now striding in the small tides along the shore, the familiarity of which makes it feel like an arm’s reach away. As she had done many times before, Mother reaffirms to herself that this crane must be Akio’s father. Akio’s father would exaggerate the subtlest of movements, as if he wanted to showcase to the world the great treasures that he was about to unearth from the waters.
In a way, the crane reminded Mother that Akio’s father might come back to her and Akio. He will come back to them. Mother would always imagine Akio’s father returning home with a gap-toothed smile accompanied by his incessant flaunting of his prized catches. But recently, Mother can’t help but feel that it would be easier for her and Akio to stop holding onto something that won’t happen in the end. Letting go seemed like such a simple thing to do, but Mother would always talk herself out of it.
The crane moves closer to the shoreline, giving Mother a better view of the bird. Its long, serpentine neck sways back and forth as it scans the water hitting against its legs. Akio’s father always hunted like this. He would enter a trance-like state and no one, no matter how hard they cried or yelled, could wake him up from his world.
Akio’s father first began acting like this when Akio was playing by the wave-beaten rocks a jump away from the shoreline one day. These were the same rocks that Mother had warned Akio many, many, many times over again not to go near. But Mother had forgotten that when you tell a kid to do something, their tiny brain interprets it as a challenge to defy all those that stand in their way.
Mother remembers being in the kitchen when Akio decided to defiantly head towards the rocks. She finished plating the food before wiping up and walking to the porch. Now that she thinks about it, the clouds weren’t acting like their white, puffy selves that day.The clouds were broken into meaningless clumps, strung together against their will. Mother tried to shake off the uneasy feeling she received from the clouds, but the feeling soon returned when she saw Akio by the rocks.
“Akio, get back here!”
Akio rolled his head back and yelled, “Shaddap, shaddap, shaddap!”
“You better or else!”
“Shaddap! You’re scaring them!”
“Akio!” Mother could feel the air squeezing out of her lungs.
Akio didn’t budge. “Daddy would’ve let me do this!”
“Daddy wants you to be safe! The rocks aren’t safe!”
“You don’t understand! A king can’t leave his people behind!”
At that moment, Mother wished she could break herself up into little cloud clumps and drift away from her problems. Mother always tried her hardest, but she felt more lost with each passing day she spent at the shore.
What Mother saw next had haunted her in the back of her head every night. Akio had tried to reach for something in the water with his right arm, but his body instantly caved under his own weight. The water quickly engulfed Akio, seemingly satisfied with the sacrifice. Thankfully, Akio knew how to swim.
Mother waited for Akio’s father to notice his son, who was a spear throw away from him and trying his hardest to protest the waters. In the end, Akio’s father didn’t even look up; his gaze was steadfastly fixed on the fish pierced at the end of his spear. Then, without ever once letting his eyes leave his new prize, Akio’s father made his way back to the house where Mother was.
“Look, look,” Akio’s father says to Mother while dangling his prize in his salt-weathered hands. “This will surely last us a couple days. I’m sure it will . . . ”
—
This memory often wakes Mother from her dreams , but the sound of violent knocking on her bedroom window wakes her instead. She heads to the porch and begins to feel a strong gust picking up. The wind notices the crane and begins to burrow under the warmth of its feathers. The crane didn’t seem to mind the company. After all, it can get lonely in the waters.
Seeing the wind take comfort in the crane reminds Mother of the way Akio’s father used to comfort her whenever she felt like a mess of a mother. He knew to hold her in his warm arms. He knew all the right words to cheer Mother up again. You’re a fantastic mother. Akio is lucky to have you. I’m lucky to have you. He knew all there was to bring back Mother’s smile. Mother didn’t know it at the time, but she envies the wind.
Before the crane could distract her attention any further, Mother returns to the kitchen. It’s Akio’s birthday today, so Mother wants to prepare something that all the mothers in the world would applaud her for. But it doesn’t take long for Mother’s ideas to jump out the window and get swooped away by the wind.
“This can’t be it,” Mother says after opening the fridge.
Akio’s father had left them a whole koi fish. Mother doesn’t know what to tell her head to do next, but Akio is expected to wake up soon, and she doesn’t want him to start his special day with an empty stomach.
A while passed before Akio comes stumbling into the kitchen, which smells of some violent experiment. “Happy birthday to my very special little Akio!”
“Mom. Please.” Akio crumbles into his little kitchen chair.
“I made you something!”
Akio cranes his neck to get a better view of the pot’s contents, but the pot had breathed a plume of steam that engulfed his face.
“It’s koi fish,” Mother says, anticipating Akio’s question.
“What happened to all the good fish?” Akio says bitterly. The thought of biting into the koi fish must’ve soured his speech.
“I wish I knew, oh Great Sea King.”
“Mom. Please.”
“You used to love it when I called you that,” Mother says with a breath of nostalgia.
“Mom.”
Mother throws her hands up in defeat. When did Akio grow up so much?
“Go get your dad,” Mother says while whimsically stirring the soup in front of her. Akio lets out a grunt. “Akio. Please.”
Akio begrudgingly drags his feet to the shore. Luckily, the water looks tame today. This means the little fishies are feeling lazy and don’t want to get out of bed. That was the first advice Akio’s father had given him when he took Akio out to hunt.
The crane must’ve noticed how tame the water was, too. It is standing along the shore, staring mindlessly at the water that was futilely trying to climb up its legs. Akio watches as the crane starts to stomp on the water, sending ripples that would’ve woken up the fishies from their slumber.
“Dad!” Akio yells.
The crane ignores Akio. Its attention is being diverted to the water, which is now returning the ripples that the crane made.
Frustrated, Akio marches through the sand and brings his face in front of the crane’s. The crane clatters its bill in irritation. It was having a pleasant conversation with the water, but Akio had to interrupt it, didn’t he?
“Dad, do you remember? It’s my fourteenth birthday today. Please, come home just this once. For my sake,” Akio says, expecting the crane to protest. But the crane just looks at Akio and nods, and they silently return to the kitchen together.
The crane stands silently as it stares plainly at the small chip five-year-old Akio had made in the kitchen table when he recklessly flailed his father’s spear—the same shabby table that should’ve been replaced years ago. It doesn’t seem to notice the food in front of it.
Mother speaks first. “I just wanted to say that I’m very lucky to have Akio—”
Akio feels a wave of embarrassment engulf him. “Mom. Please. Can we just eat?”
“ . . . Alright,” Mother says without putting up a fight.
Mother looks down at her bowl of koi fish. She tries not to think about the vibrant chunks of koi that were floating ominously in her bowl. She glances at Akio, who was practically devouring the entire bowl.
“Is it . . . how is it?” Mother says hesitantly.
Akio’s stomach grumbles with savory satisfaction, giving Mother an unexpected but welcomed answer. The crane, on the other hand, hasn’t touched its food. It’s still concentrated on the chip in the table. Mother lays her chopsticks down over the bowl and sighs.
“Please, dear,” Mother pleads.
The crane finally tilts its head up, allowing Mother to get a closer look at the crane’s face. Its eyes are swollen from the generous gifts of salt left behind by the wind, and its thin neck looks like it’s about to collapse at the slightest shore breeze. Mother feels like she’s examining the reconstructed skeleton of an ancient bird, hollow and withered from all the days it had spent at the shore.
Upon feeling Mother’s scrutinizing gaze, the crane crooks its head to a side. But Mother keeps her eyes on the crane as if she were scolding it, demanding of it why it never comes home.
The crane couldn’t stand the insistent interrogation anymore. It clattered its bills, telling Mother to put an end to her constant barrage of questions. Did it want Mother to say something? What did it want her to say? Please, please, please say something. If Mother hadn’t already drowned herself with somber thoughts, the lingering silence would’ve certainly suffocated her.
“I think Dad wants you to stop giving him that look,” Akio says, breaking the silence. “It’s kinda creeping me out too.”
Hurt and disappointed by Akio’s betrayal, Mother picks up her chopsticks and frustratingly stirs the little koi fish chunks in the bowl. Mother could’ve sworn the fish chunks were laughing at her desperate attempts to communicate with the crane.
Mother screams into her bowl, “You don’t have to rub it in my face!”
“Rub what into your face? Mom, who are you talking to?” Akio asks with a palpable look of worry on his face. “What—no, never mind. Just—please,” Mother whimpers while burying her head into her arms.
The crane seems all too content with this turn of events. It silently thanks the koi fish, then fixates its gaze back on the chip in the table.
—
“Are you gonna eat that?” Akio garbles, pointing at Mother’s bowl with his chopsticks. Akio’s voice snaps Mother awake from whatever trance she was in. She looks up at Akio, whose mouth was stuffed with fish, then glances to the right, half expecting the crane to still be concentrated on the chip in the table. But the crane isn’t there, and its bowl is untouched.
“Where’s your father, Akio?”
“Dad says he’s going to the shore, but he promises he’ll be back,” Akio answers.
Mother shakes her head in rejection of the words that just spilled out of Akio’s lips, causing shore water to collide against the inside of her head. She can feel her shoulders and hands begin to tremor.
“Liar!” Mother yells with water rimming her eyes.
Akio asks in a worried whisper, “Mom?” He grabs Mother’s hands and squeezes them, hoping the trembling would stop. It wasn’t working.
“Mom. Please,” Akio says with a cracked voice.
All the trembling made Mother restless. She pulls her hand away from Akio’s small ones, leaving her only source of warmth, and wills herself to the porch. The crane is rapidly shrinking from Mother’s view.
“Honey! Please!” Mother chokes out. The crane didn’t even look up. It was like the wind carried her words away. Mother no longer knew if she was screaming at the crane or inside her head as the sullen waters swept away the crane.
Michelle Zhong
5/30/23
Michelle is a UC Davis alumni (c/o '22) with a B.S. in Biological Sciences. She discovered her passion for fiction writing after enrolling in a creative writing course at UC Davis. Currently, Michelle writes fiction to relax from her research as a lab assistant. Her favorite genre to write is fantasy because she enjoys creating worlds and characters from scratch. When she is not writing fiction, Michelle can be found messing around with her pet chickens, traveling to the middle of nowhere to go birding, and forgetting to drink tea before it gets cold.
