Unbeliever (F1, ASMS)
Jun. 13th, 2008 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fatimaDisclaimer: The first part of this story never happened, as far as I can fathom. The second part is all facts though.
Pairing: Ayrton Senna/Michael Schumacher (if you look closely enough). Guest appearance by Mr. Akikawa Masafumi.
Note: Written for 5/1/08, fourteen years later.
Unbeliever
by Renata Lord
(1)
The Suzuka circuit was a familiar place for Michael Schumacher. After all, he had won there five times, and the last run he had there was particularly memorable. He knew the tracks intimately, and had briefly lamented the relocation of the Japanese GP race to Fuji when the issue first surfaced.
Japan itself, however, was a different matter. Despite the numerous trips he had made to this country, he had never really grown accustomed to being in Japan. It was, he mused, a place caught somewhere inbetween Asia and Europe, much like that strange piece of hamburger sushi he once tried in Ginza.
Here and now, sitting at the top of the Marunouchi Building at the heart of Tokyo, that vague uneasiness had vanished at last.
Outside of the gigantic glass windows, a blazing, glorious sunset engulfed the skyline of this metropolis. The last rays of the day poured into every inch of space, filling it up with magnificant shades of gold and crimson. Even the sake on the table looked like mellow red wine, so powerful was that color. It seemed as if the world was ending and being reborn in the same moment, like a phoenix consuming itself in the beautiful and terrible flame.
"Wonderful, isn't it?" his host Mr. Ikeda beamed with obvious pride, "That's why as soon as I heard that you were coming with Ralf, I told my assistant, 'get us an early dinner reservation at Breeze, the one in Marubiru'!"
*
The dinner itself went rather uneventfully, and they were nearly finished when the topic of harmless conversation somehow turned to old Japanese beliefs in the supernatural.
"....really, I think, Westerners are not so averse to the idea either," Ikeda offered thoughtfully, cutting on his last remaining piece of salmon steak. After a short pause his eyes suddenly lit up, as if two strands of ideas had connected in his head to form a perfect whole. "Ah! We have this song in Japan, very popular right now. It's sung by a guy called Akikawa Masafumi, about how the dead become spirits all around us and watching over us. And guess what? The words are from a poem by an American."
Looking at the newly lighted candle on the table, he mused further.
"But I suppose with the Japanese it's more of a day to day thing. Actually, right now, this time of the day is call 'ouma no toki', meaning 'the time of meeting spirits'. It's when you are never sure if the person coming your way on the street is a real human being or a spirit. It's the transition between daylight and nighttime, when the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead gets...blurred."
Michael smiled politely and said nothing. Ralf chirped up, however: "So that's like Halloween everyday?"
Their host laughed, "Yes, I suppose so. But do American and European children really believe in the story about Halloween?"
Sitting across the table, Ralf cocked his head and Michael could tell there was a mischievous glint in those eyes. He knew then that a potentially embarassing story was coming. Younger brothers are sometimes inconvinent like that.
"Well, not this one...you see, when he was little..."
Fortunately for Michael, at this point a hostess showed up at their table and softly informed Mr. Ikeda that he had a business call waiting for him at the front desk. In turn Ikeda apologized to the brothers profusely, then quickly took his temporary leave.
*
With Ikeda well out of earshot, Michael looked at his brother in the eyes and pretended to frown.
"You were gonna tell him that story about Felix, weren't you."
"Aww, of course I was. C'mon, you gotta admit it was funny. The way you dragged the poor kid out there, in the middle of the night, even though he was scared shitless," Ralf grinned like a cheshire cat, "I've got to hand it to you though. You were always so calm about those things, even when we were little. You were just so, well, sure. Remember? You used to yell at the other kids for saying they were scared of ghosts."
For a moment Michael could say nothing. Instead he turned his head to the windows again: the light was fading fast, and a gentle dusk was finally settling down on the land of the rising sun. His eyes seached for something in the departing light, even though he had no idea what was he looking for.
"You wanna know a secret, Ralf?"
"...huh?"
"Now that I think about it, it wasn't that I didn't believe in ghosts. Actually, I was really scared of them," he saw the incredulous look on Ralf's face and couldn't stop himself from smiling. "See, that's why I kept telling myself and everybody else that they didn't exist."
Ralf appeared to be to shocked to say anything, so he continued on.
"You know what's the irony in this? I don't believe in ghosts anymore, of course. But sometimes...sometimes I think, how great it would be if they really existed. That way, we'd be able to see the ones we lost again...."
His voice trailed off into the thin air. The sentence hung there, unfinished.
Outside the window, the sunset dissipated completely. The phoenix had flown away, and only ashes remained.
(2)
[This is a true story.]
The famed Japanese tenor Akikawa Masafumi spent some years of his youth in Parma, Italy to further his musical training.
The young Mr. Akikawa, it was said, had a vivacious and outgoing personality. Like many Japanese overseas, however, sometimes the cultural difference between his homeland and host country was such that even him felt the weight of loneliness and sorrow.
It was during this period that Mr. Akikawa took an avid interest in Formula One races. There was one man he idolized and adored in particular, a Brazillian called Ayrton Senna. As later himself put it, this man became his spiritual pillar during his stay at Italy, a time when he battled both illness and personal pain.
He was present at Imola's spectator stand, on that fateful day of May 1st, 1994.
Twelve and a half years later, Akikawa Masafumi became a household name in Japan due to his delivery of the song "Sen no Kaze ni Natte" during the 57th Kouhaku New Year Party. This mournful but ultimately uplifting song became the first classical song ever to top the Japanese popular music chart Oricon, and has remained a part of the Japanese national ethos ever since.
Mr. Akikawa, now at age thirty-nine, confessed during interviews that he would see Ayrton Senna's face whenever he performed this song. "It's Senna who gave me the power to sing this," he was quoted as saying in the esteemed magazine Yomiburi Weekly.
As for the song itself, its lyrics were taken from an American poem named "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep". Translated back into English, the beginning loosely goes something like this:
Do not stand stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I am not asleep.
A thousand winds, I have became a thousand winds,
Flying through the boundless skies.
*
[The End]
Author's Note: The part about Mr. Akikawa Masafumi is completely true. (As a sidenote, I highly recommend the song "Sen no Kaze ni Natte". The youtube is here if you are interested.)
Writing this story brought me back to Japan, specifically Tokyo, where myself had lived at length. One day, I would like to return there and listen to Mr. Akikawa myself.
Pairing: Ayrton Senna/Michael Schumacher (if you look closely enough). Guest appearance by Mr. Akikawa Masafumi.
Note: Written for 5/1/08, fourteen years later.
Unbeliever
by Renata Lord
(1)
The Suzuka circuit was a familiar place for Michael Schumacher. After all, he had won there five times, and the last run he had there was particularly memorable. He knew the tracks intimately, and had briefly lamented the relocation of the Japanese GP race to Fuji when the issue first surfaced.
Japan itself, however, was a different matter. Despite the numerous trips he had made to this country, he had never really grown accustomed to being in Japan. It was, he mused, a place caught somewhere inbetween Asia and Europe, much like that strange piece of hamburger sushi he once tried in Ginza.
Here and now, sitting at the top of the Marunouchi Building at the heart of Tokyo, that vague uneasiness had vanished at last.
Outside of the gigantic glass windows, a blazing, glorious sunset engulfed the skyline of this metropolis. The last rays of the day poured into every inch of space, filling it up with magnificant shades of gold and crimson. Even the sake on the table looked like mellow red wine, so powerful was that color. It seemed as if the world was ending and being reborn in the same moment, like a phoenix consuming itself in the beautiful and terrible flame.
"Wonderful, isn't it?" his host Mr. Ikeda beamed with obvious pride, "That's why as soon as I heard that you were coming with Ralf, I told my assistant, 'get us an early dinner reservation at Breeze, the one in Marubiru'!"
*
The dinner itself went rather uneventfully, and they were nearly finished when the topic of harmless conversation somehow turned to old Japanese beliefs in the supernatural.
"....really, I think, Westerners are not so averse to the idea either," Ikeda offered thoughtfully, cutting on his last remaining piece of salmon steak. After a short pause his eyes suddenly lit up, as if two strands of ideas had connected in his head to form a perfect whole. "Ah! We have this song in Japan, very popular right now. It's sung by a guy called Akikawa Masafumi, about how the dead become spirits all around us and watching over us. And guess what? The words are from a poem by an American."
Looking at the newly lighted candle on the table, he mused further.
"But I suppose with the Japanese it's more of a day to day thing. Actually, right now, this time of the day is call 'ouma no toki', meaning 'the time of meeting spirits'. It's when you are never sure if the person coming your way on the street is a real human being or a spirit. It's the transition between daylight and nighttime, when the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead gets...blurred."
Michael smiled politely and said nothing. Ralf chirped up, however: "So that's like Halloween everyday?"
Their host laughed, "Yes, I suppose so. But do American and European children really believe in the story about Halloween?"
Sitting across the table, Ralf cocked his head and Michael could tell there was a mischievous glint in those eyes. He knew then that a potentially embarassing story was coming. Younger brothers are sometimes inconvinent like that.
"Well, not this one...you see, when he was little..."
Fortunately for Michael, at this point a hostess showed up at their table and softly informed Mr. Ikeda that he had a business call waiting for him at the front desk. In turn Ikeda apologized to the brothers profusely, then quickly took his temporary leave.
*
With Ikeda well out of earshot, Michael looked at his brother in the eyes and pretended to frown.
"You were gonna tell him that story about Felix, weren't you."
"Aww, of course I was. C'mon, you gotta admit it was funny. The way you dragged the poor kid out there, in the middle of the night, even though he was scared shitless," Ralf grinned like a cheshire cat, "I've got to hand it to you though. You were always so calm about those things, even when we were little. You were just so, well, sure. Remember? You used to yell at the other kids for saying they were scared of ghosts."
For a moment Michael could say nothing. Instead he turned his head to the windows again: the light was fading fast, and a gentle dusk was finally settling down on the land of the rising sun. His eyes seached for something in the departing light, even though he had no idea what was he looking for.
"You wanna know a secret, Ralf?"
"...huh?"
"Now that I think about it, it wasn't that I didn't believe in ghosts. Actually, I was really scared of them," he saw the incredulous look on Ralf's face and couldn't stop himself from smiling. "See, that's why I kept telling myself and everybody else that they didn't exist."
Ralf appeared to be to shocked to say anything, so he continued on.
"You know what's the irony in this? I don't believe in ghosts anymore, of course. But sometimes...sometimes I think, how great it would be if they really existed. That way, we'd be able to see the ones we lost again...."
His voice trailed off into the thin air. The sentence hung there, unfinished.
Outside the window, the sunset dissipated completely. The phoenix had flown away, and only ashes remained.
(2)
[This is a true story.]
The famed Japanese tenor Akikawa Masafumi spent some years of his youth in Parma, Italy to further his musical training.
The young Mr. Akikawa, it was said, had a vivacious and outgoing personality. Like many Japanese overseas, however, sometimes the cultural difference between his homeland and host country was such that even him felt the weight of loneliness and sorrow.
It was during this period that Mr. Akikawa took an avid interest in Formula One races. There was one man he idolized and adored in particular, a Brazillian called Ayrton Senna. As later himself put it, this man became his spiritual pillar during his stay at Italy, a time when he battled both illness and personal pain.
He was present at Imola's spectator stand, on that fateful day of May 1st, 1994.
Twelve and a half years later, Akikawa Masafumi became a household name in Japan due to his delivery of the song "Sen no Kaze ni Natte" during the 57th Kouhaku New Year Party. This mournful but ultimately uplifting song became the first classical song ever to top the Japanese popular music chart Oricon, and has remained a part of the Japanese national ethos ever since.
Mr. Akikawa, now at age thirty-nine, confessed during interviews that he would see Ayrton Senna's face whenever he performed this song. "It's Senna who gave me the power to sing this," he was quoted as saying in the esteemed magazine Yomiburi Weekly.
As for the song itself, its lyrics were taken from an American poem named "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep". Translated back into English, the beginning loosely goes something like this:
Do not stand stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I am not asleep.
A thousand winds, I have became a thousand winds,
Flying through the boundless skies.
*
[The End]
Author's Note: The part about Mr. Akikawa Masafumi is completely true. (As a sidenote, I highly recommend the song "Sen no Kaze ni Natte". The youtube is here if you are interested.)
Writing this story brought me back to Japan, specifically Tokyo, where myself had lived at length. One day, I would like to return there and listen to Mr. Akikawa myself.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 01:32 am (UTC)There should be more Ayrton fics :(
Brilliant piece of writing!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 04:30 am (UTC)I love your Ayrton icon!! Mind if I borrow it? I'll credit tinini of course.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 02:35 am (UTC)But I love that poem deeply, and I like your fic a lot too.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 02:38 am (UTC)Thanks for pointing out the mistake. I shall fix it pronto!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 10:57 am (UTC)Lovely writing as always, I like the backdrop of the story and the faintest hint of the relationship between Ayrton and Michael rounds up the whole story really well.
Really enjoyed this - and eventhough I don't understand a single word, I enjoyed the song also :).
Though it might sound pretentious...
Date: 2008-08-02 12:25 am (UTC)Thank you for the reply. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2008-07-14 03:07 pm (UTC)Outside of the gigantic glass windows, a blazing, glorious sunset engulfed the skyline of this metropolis. The last rays of the day poured into every inch of space, filling it up with magnificant shades of gold and crimson.
The song is wonderful too.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 12:21 am (UTC)