I’ve always wanted to be an author–not just a blogger, but a bona fide, writing-is-my-day-job and at the local Barnes and Noble there’s a few colorful books with my name on the spine.

I haven’t blogged much about my fiction. In fact, writing for Mind on Fire often leaches what little time and compulsion I have for any sort of composition. In the past six years, I’ve logged over 160,000 words on this site–that’s over a million characters. There’s a novel in there, if novels were measured solely on length. In the same period, I’ve only written a few short stories. I’ve tried a few experiments out in the past month or two, so here’s a new one: I’m going to blog fiction.

I’ll begin with a couple of short stories. They’re not new works. One was published in Sunstone, and the other won a little contest that the UCI Bookstore puts on every quarter. If they translate well to the format, then I’ll start posting new fiction, serialized.

So with that long introduction, here’s the first part of my first story, “Oj?Æchan’s Funeral”, which was first published in Sunstone Magazine. I’ll publish the rest of the story throughout the week.

“DeGraw Choro, I’m not going to sleep in here,” Christiansen said in a loud whisper.

“Then sleep in the other room.” I was in no mood for this now. Let him sleep with my Aunts and my Grandma‚Äîmy Ob?¢chan.

“You know what the Handbook says about companions sleeping in different rooms,” he said. “Besides, they’re women!” If they weren’t just a few feet away, Christiansen would be shouting right now. At least the sliding paper and wood door gave us the illusion of privacy.

“It’s her home, not mine‚Äîyou tell her,” I said.

“She’s your Grandmother.”

“I am sleeping here,” I said, clenching my fists. The muscles in my back tensed. “You do what you want.”

I turned away from him but I could still sense his angry stare. Then I heard him slump down onto his futon. I took a couple of measured breaths, then turned to my Grandpa.

“Goodnight, Oj?Æchan,” I said as I looked down on my Grandfather’s sleeping face underneath the glass.

He looked peaceful and calm, and unlike the animated man who was my Oj?Æchan, my Grampa. For a year, he had been my father. My parents sent me to live with him in my mother’s hometown of Sasebo in the subtropical island of Kyushu. We lived only twenty miles away from Nagasaki, where the second atomic bomb had been dropped. I had been sent there to learn Japanese and so that my Grampa could have a son. He was charismatic enough to persuade the stubborn principal of Hachiman Elementary to let me into one of the fourth grade classes, even though I spoke little Japanese at the time. He yelled at me when I threw tantrums and laughed loudly when I shared childish jokes with him. Together, we bought fresh fish right from the fishermen early every Sunday morning and cheered on Japanese pro-wrestlers on Sunday afternoons. With him, I was not gaijin, a foreigner, or even hafu, half-Japanese. I was his grandson; I was his son.

I had felt no sorrow since I learned of his death less than two days ago. Instead I felt a strange lack of emotion. I did not even feel surprised that I was in Sasebo, hundreds of miles away from the Japan Tokyo South mission, with my mission president’s permission and blessing. It was the first time I had stood in my childhood home since I’d joined the Church as a teenager.

My Grandmother had laid out futon for us in the small room of tatami mats that my Oj?Æchan and Christiansen and I were sharing tonight. Normally, two futon would be enough to fill up a six-tatami room, but somehow Ob?¢chan managed to squeeze the two of us in there and leave enough room for her husband and the stands for the incense, candles, flowers, white sheets and other Buddhist ornaments that surrounded the deceased during the Otsuya, which is to the Buddhist what a ‘wake’ is to a Christian. Ob?¢chan and my two aunts set up their futon in the neighboring room, although the four of us would be taking turns keeping vigil and replacing the dying incense and candles with freshly lit ones throughout the night.

I worked on a puzzle with my Aunt Tomoko for most of the night, trying to stay awake. Occasionally we would check to see if the smoking sticks of incense needed to be replaced. At 3:30 in the morning, my grandma hobbled into the room.

“Go to bed,” she said. “Oj?Æchan can light his own incense!”

I crawled into my futon. I was deathly tired, but woke up once to see Ob?¢chan lighting new candles and incense. I felt sad for her for a moment, then sleep drowned out any other thought or emotion.