ISSUE #10 | Excerpt, "A Thousand Cranes of Blood and Steel"
AS SEEN IN PLANET SCUMM ISSUE #10
WRITTEN BY ASHLEY NAFTULE
Illustration by Camille Villanueva
“Pens and swords. Nobody ever talks about paper.”
Okada ran the bolt of burgundy cloth through his fingers, nodding with approval. He didn’t need to see the machine that printed it to know it was high-quality work. After 35 years working as a combat tailor, his fingertips could tease out the potential of anything that crossed his worktable.
“I’m not following,” Thorne said. Okada had a habit of blurting out non sequiturs while they worked. The hardest lesson Quinlan Thorne learned during his apprenticeship with The Iron Dressmaker was to not even try and guess what his master was talking about. In three years, he’d never guessed right.
“That old bullshit about the pen and the sword,” Okada said, folding the cloth in half. He ran a worn bone folder down the length of the cloth, creating a crease sharp enough to cut through glass. Most tailors switched out their folders every five years or so; Okada still used the same one his mother passed down to him when he graduated from finishing school.
“Right, the one where the pen is mightier,” Thorne murmured, patting down the length of his tool-corset for a pair of tweezers.
Okada grunted. “If the pen’s mightier than the sword, where does that leave paper?”
Thorne hated riddles; trying to solve them felt like folding his brain into shapes it was never meant to take on. “In the same state as flesh?”
The Iron Dressmaker reached out and pulled a ribbon of Vantablack silk across the table, layering it on top of the burgundy fold. “The fuck are you on about?” A quick drag of the bone folder and the Vantablack was seared into the middle of the burgundy, creating a perfect black void in its midsection.
“Well, I mean... flesh and paper are at the mercy of sword and pen, right? Canvases to be written on?” Thorne knew it wasn’t the right thing to say, but it felt as good an answer as any.
Okada shook his head. “They’re the same thing. Paper and the sword. In my culture, we treat them the same.”
Before Thorne could say anything, Okada’s hands moved like a blur across the cloth. His hands twisted and folded it into a sleeve.
“To make a sword out of jewel steel, you have to fold the metal. Many times. The steel gets folded over and over again until its true strength, its true form, emerges."
Okada rose from the table and walked over to the sword hanging on the wall. “Quinlan, the sleeve.”
Thorne set his work aside and reached for the testing smock. Slipping the smock over his body and fixing the mask to his face, he went to pick up the burgundy and Vantablack sleeve. It felt as light and insubstantial as cobwebs.
“The same with paper,” Okada said. “To make origami, we fold the kami until it becomes what it’s supposed to be. A single compressed line, like the steel. Folded and folded until it becomes something sharp and beautiful.”
Okada unsheathed the sword with a flick of his wrist. In one smooth motion he swung the blade down onto the fabric and the katana shattered. Gleaming fragments of steel rained down onto the floor. Thorne could see himself reflected in the shards, still holding the intact sleeve.
The master ran his thumb across the cloth, shaking his head with disapproval. Thorne knew that look well—when he first started learning from the master, Okada had him fold a thousand paper cranes. The Iron Dressmaker inspected every single one of them; the only ones he’d accept were the ones sharp enough to draw blood. Thorne never forgot the cruel smile that flickered across Okada’s face after he finished his 800th bloody crane and asked his master why it had to be a thousand.
“There’s a legend in my culture that says anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted a wish by the gods,” Okada said, admiring the blood staining a crane’s beak. “If you really want to learn from me, boy, you better wish for it.”
The sour grimace on Okada’s face migrated to his brow as he let go of the sleeve, his forehead creasing into a deep frown. “The fold on this one is flawed. The sword should have snapped at least two seconds earlier. I must be losing my touch.”
Another important lesson Thorne learned in his apprenticeship: No one could live up to the standards of the master. Not even the master himself.
“Fuck it. The next one will be better.” The Iron Dressmaker tossed the sleeve into the recycler. “Quinlan, before I forget: we’re out of swords. Have them print us another two dozen.”
***
“Whiskey sour, dirty. I like to see my drinks.”
It was Thorne’s first night off in a month. Okada’s shop had been working on the winter line for six months straight to finish outfits for the Martial Ball. The Pacific Coalition’s Defense Secretary had offered Okada a five-year exclusive contract after last year’s Ball, and the master was working everyone ragged to make sure this year’s ballistic fashion was up to snuff. He wasn’t about to give Secretary Kalatozovl buyer’s remorse.
The bartender slipped a smoke cartridge into Thorne’s hookah. Vaporized whiskey sour, blended together with a potent strain of Europa kush. Most people ordered their inhales clean, but Thorne liked being able to breath out smoke like a dragon. He even liked the ragged coughing fits that shook his body after a few deep hits.
“I like your sarong. Is that panther?”
It was the woman three chairs down. Thorne saw her when he walked in, a short redhead in a cowboy shirt and blue jeans. She had cat’s eyes and an animated tattoo of a yellow circle that drifted around her neck. Sneaking glances at her throughout the night, Thorne saw the circle eat little white dots as it chased after a multicolored group of ghosts. Sometimes the ghosts would eat the circle and it would turn into a dot, too.
“You’ve got a good eye,” Thorne said. “I skinned it two years ago. Sewed and folded it myself.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, letting a small plume of smoke pass through her lips. Thorne breathed it in: gin and tonic.
“Was the cat vat-grown, or original flavor?”
Thorne laughed so hard it rattled his earrings. “I don’t know anyone with a credit rating good enough to see a natural panther, let alone kill one.”
They both smiled, breathing in each other’s smoke.
“Monica,” she said. The yellow circle had come back to life, gobbling up a cherry that was drifting around her neck. She held her hand out and nodded twice, signaling her consent.
“Quinlan,” he said, bending low to plant a kiss on her knuckles.
Monica pointed to the sewing needle pierced above Thorne’s collarbone. “You’re a tailor.”
He scanned her body, searching for signs of guild affiliation. Nothing. “You’re a freelancer.”
Monica nodded. “I’m a journalist by day.” She gestured to the bartender. “Gimme an old man drink. I want to smell like my grandfather.”
“And what are you by night?” Thorne asked. He looked at her jeans and noticed a stiffness to the cut. He wondered if they were bulletproof.
“Just a regular old busybody,” she said. “You any good at what you do?”
Thorne shrugged. “Show me a landmine and I can show you a pair of heels I’ve made that can tango on top of it without losing a toe.”
The bartender switched out their cartridges. Monica took a long pull from her hookah and coughed out whiskey sour as Thorne breathed in a gin and tonic. She lifted her left leg and let her pump hit the floor. Thorne could see three chrome toes wiggling in the bar sign’s neon light.
“I wish they carried your shoes in Cambodia.”
***
ASHLEY NAFTULE (they/them) is a writer & performer based in Phoenix, AZ. A playwright and Associate Artistic Director at Space55 theatre, they’ve written and produced four plays: Ear, The First Annual Bookburners Convention, The Canterbury Tarot, and Radio Free Europa. A fifth play, The Hidden Sea, will premiere via YouTube in April 2021.