Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 14:27:21 EST
Subject: REV:  A Thousand Paper Cranes  (1/1)
Source: revision

Category:    V
Rating:      G
Keywords:    None
Spoilers:    Fifth season 
Summary:     Scully and origami. 
 
Author's notes are at the end. 
 
 
A Thousand Paper Cranes 
by Martha  
marthalgm@yahoo.com 
 
**************** 
According to Japanese legend, if one creates a thousand paper cranes,   
one is granted a wish.   
**************** 
 
Fold. 
 
Smooth. 
 
Lilac tissue.  Delicate.  I must be careful not to tear it in half.   
 
Missy would love this one.  It was her favorite color. 
 
One more for Melissa. 
 
One for my sister.  Who believed in the spiritual.  Who believed in   
the good of man.  Who would still believe in the hope of the future. 
 
She might scoff at me for doing this, for thinking that a mere act of   
creasing paper could change a person's fortune. 
 
I don't care.  I've seen stranger things happen. 
 
Fold. 
 
I hold this one up to the lamp and note the shading of lilac to purple   
where the folds meet.  Where the layering adds body and strength.  A   
single tissue can be effortlessly destroyed;  a thousand tissues,   
while not that much of a challenge, would take more time.   
 
That is all I need - just a little more time. 
 
One more day.  To warn her of the assassins following me.  They killed   
her, thinking that it was me.  My wish is for one more day.  To give   
her back the rest of her life taken in my name.  
 
I pick up another square and fold. 
 
Smooth. 
 
White linen.  Like stationery.  Blank paper not yet written upon.    
With no past and only its future to be foretold.  Faultless, pure,   
untainted.   
 
Like Emily.     
 
Only she wasn't untainted.  They had experimented on her.  With her.    
Created her only to be used to their own miserable ends.   
 
Fold. 
 
Turn. 
 
A child so young.  To have suffered so much.  Who only wished for her   
mother and another day to play.   
 
I wipe away the tear that has fallen on this one.  Good, no damage   
done.  The paper is strong, thick - as resilient as a child's   
innocence.     
 
One more for Emily.  I had watched that innocence wash away with her   
increasing fear.  I lost the rest of mine, what little I had left, in   
that flood.   
 
What if I hadn't have interfered?  What if I had ignored those strange   
phone calls?  Emily would still be at play and receiving her   
treatment.  She could still have been protected by her father. 
 
But to what cost?  And to what future? 
 
I let her go.  Twice.  I allowed her suffering to end.  And then I put   
an end to mine.  I was too damn selfish both times.  I had not   
suffered;  that was only a manifestation of my guilt, of having   
hastened her death.  How can I make amends?     
 
I want another thousand days to play.  And then another thousand.  An   
unending stream of thousands of days.  To play and to be free of the   
pain.  To have a normal childhood and grow old naturally.   
 
I pick up another paper and fold. 
 
Grey construction paper.   
 
How appropriate.  Grey for his little grey men.  The impossible search   
for the improbable solution to his nightmares.   
 
No, only one nightmare.  The taking of Samantha.  The horror of not   
knowing.  The dismay of not being able to remember.   
 
Smooth. 
 
What does he remember?  That depends - what is it today?  Aliens stole   
her away in the night.  She was grabbed by a serial killer.  She was   
traded, taken as insurance for her father's cooperation in a secret   
government project. 
 
Or was she sacrificed for that project?  To ensure her safety.    
 
One more for Mulder.  Grey.  Bland.  Not a bright color nor one to   
inspire action.   
 
But I do not want that for my partner.  He has had enough turbulence.    
There is too much turmoil in his life, too much confusion about the   
pivotal incident in his life that has led him to the present day.   
 
For what could I wish? 
 
A thousand peaceful nights.  To rest and dream.  To dream and not to   
suffer.  To make sense of yesterday and today.   
 
To learn the truth.    
 
And while I'm at it . . . 
 
I pick up another paper and fold. 
 
Smooth. 
 
One more for me. 
 
end 
*********************************** 
In the Peace Park in Hiroshima, Japan, there is a statue commemorating   
the memory of Sadako Sasaki, who survived the bombing in 1945 only to   
contract leukemia ten years later.  She believed that if she could   
fashion a thousand paper cranes, then, according to legend, she would   
be granted her wish to become well. 
 
She only made it to 644 before dying at age 12.  Her classmates   
finished the project for her, and she was buried with her thousand   
cranes. 
 
The statue is continually adorned with paper cranes sent by   
schoolchildren from around the world. 
 
I chose not to believe that it is coincidence that I researched and   
wrote this on the anniversary of Sadako's death, October 25th.   
**********************************