A FORTUNATE FATE
Hana Takate was nineteen years old, a courtesan in old Edo. When she appeared in public, men’s eyes turned like sunflowers to her sun.
Lovely Hana had bones like melted butter and skin shaped from powder. She was a creature so luminous a flower of purest jade could not compare. When she rose from a nap, wearing a simple gauze robe, free of makeup and perfumes, she floated like a spider’s web. A vision of culture and desire, her laugh was a tinkling bell, her hair of bo silk, and her movements like cool water.
One day during cherry blossom time, she was entertaining, her robes folded open like gossamer wings, her rouged nipples suckled by another. A young daimyo was admitted to her rooms by mistake. This new lover was so angered he cut off the head of his rival with his katana in one swift blow.
Hana knelt before him, head down, exposing her swan neck, awaiting death. Seeing her trembling fragility, her obedient meekness, he could not take her life and disappeared to write some bad verse.
She became known as “The Immortal Flower”, a courtesan of first rank. She prospered and became fat.
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2017, “A Fortunate Fate” is from the second edition of “A Seasoning of Lust”, Amazon.com, 2016
Tags: "A Fortunate Fate, "A Seasoning of Lust", Amazon.com, very short Japanese inspired stories
Lady Nyo's Weblog 
February 13, 2018 at 7:06 pm
Such is the fate of fortunate courtesans! 😄
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February 13, 2018 at 8:55 pm
This is one of my favorite stories from that collection. I like how he went off to write bad verse and she became fat and also the sensitivity of how you developed these characters especially the phrase “men’s eyes turned like sunflowers to her sun”.
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February 13, 2018 at 9:29 pm
Yes, the great majority lived their lives in isolation and poverty and disease. I believe you wrote a poem about this, Toni. I would love to read it again. Hugs….
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February 13, 2018 at 9:36 pm
LOL! Thank you, Frank. I love humor and I think a bit of it is generally good in any poem or story. Even Death Tanka. LOL! I remember a few death tanka that were akin to ‘whistling in the dark’. Dark humor, satire, etc. in these pieces. Horrifying because these men were facing immediate death, probably with their seconds (the beheaders after they cut up their guts…) standing behind them….and they with brush and paper, are writing their final words.
I believe that setting words that show a description of a character gives something for readers to grasp and see the commonality (hopefully) with your characters…or something like this. Still learning.
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February 14, 2018 at 12:14 am
Hugs back. Yrs. I wrote about women in a harem.
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