Story: The Ninja of Health, I

It took nine hours, including all the foodcraft, talking and eating, and still not everything got done. Mass cookery is not for the faint hearted. Still, overall a success, with turkey dishes the clear winner. What else can people expect after only two hours sleep thanks to fireworks? Again, I’ll never understand the appeal of fireworks! Another new year arrives, the old one departs, and thoughts struggle to avoid the implications of all such things. So, instead, let us indulge.
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Story: The Ninja of Health, I

( Part II )

The man was stealthy in his work. He walked down the street, not passing particularly closely to anyone. Occasionally you would see his hands blue or his feet move differently for a moment, and then he would move on. His aftermath was littered with suddenly straightened hunches, vanished aches and pains, and even one person looking at the back of her hand in utter amazement. It was nine o’clock in the morning in that shopping street.

He reached the end of the street, bowed to a small statue of a hippopotamus at the entrance to a discreet garden, and opened the gate. The garden inside was precise and orderly, with stepping stone steps leading in two different directions into the foliage. The man breathed in deeply, and stepped inside, closing the gate behind him silently.

It was a lovely place to roam, and roam he did, seeming to vanish and reappear as he popped in and out of the shadows. Finally, after pausing at the little pond, he stepped through another gate into the grounds of a small chapel. The chapel, unmarked by cross or symbol, was apparently in disuse, but the grounds were in good repair. The steps up to the main doors were clean, as the man stepped up and turned the doorknobs, opening both the doors. He stepped inside.

The inside of the chapel was serene, and the decor pristine and simple. It was empty in the nicest way, the pews long since having been removed and replaced with patterned carpeting. The pattern swirled around calligraphically, condensing into balls of solid colour in some places and thinning into white patches of void in others. The man settled down and sat cross-legged in one of the balls. He closed his eyes. Half an hour later silent footsteps entered the chapel and and lingered slightly at the door before walking toward the front of the room, where the altar would once have been.

"Welcome, my friend." It was a friendly voice. Feminine.

The man replied, "Thank you, my friend."

"Have you been here long?"

"Not long, 29 minutes approximately." The man opened his eyes. "I missed you."

"You always miss me, but away you go anyway, every time." The woman mock admonished him.

"That's why you trained me, milady." The man reminded her. "You needed a warrior of peace, a ninja of health."

"Yes, and it left me alone here. Oh, the loneliness." Green eyes wrinkled humorously.

"You're out there more than I am!"

"Yes, twinned ninjas of health, out in the wilds of the British countryside."

And so we have begun...