reworking amphibous from the beginning

“The road is long
with many a winding turn
that leads us to who knows where
who knows when.
But I am strong
strong enough to carry him.
He ain’t heavy,
he’s my brother.”
-the Hollies, “He Ain’t Heavy”

When the rains come to Mililani Town, the waters pull the red dust off houses and cars and streets and sidewalks, until they gather and flow like tired streams of blood into the gutters. With an angry hiss, the waters disappear into a black place that no one sees.
It is there that the kappa Yagoro lives. There, in a hidden lair formed of rusted copper pennies, he feasts on abundant toads (and the occasional corpse of a cat or a dog), and eavesdrops on conversations that echo down from the world above.
All in all, he is content, as content as an exile like himself can be. But sometimes, he feels an emptiness that he cannot satiate with food alone. Sometimes he creeps to the edges of his wet and shadowed world, and watches, and waits. On most such days, nothing comes, nothing happens, and he skulks back to his lair, unhappy.
But on this day, in the damp aftermath of a short rainstorm, he finds what he was looking for…

Randy never wanted to play the game.
But Dean, his older brother, had insisted that they have a “sword fight” with a couple of metal reinforcement bars he’d found, and that they hold their duel in the rain drainage canal behind their house. And Randy knew that there was no refusing his older brother.
So here he is, eight years old and gripping the rebar for dear life, knuckles blanching. The criss-cross pattern of the rusted metal bites deep into his soft palms. Before him stands his older eleven year old brother Dean, holding the same sort of rebar, angled and preparing to strike.
Around them, lichens and slick silt lay low on the rain-drainage canal floor; the sloping concrete sides of the canal part as wide as the Red Sea to stay out of their way. The darkness of the tunnel at the end of the canal hangs suspended, the shallow waters at its mouth still and ripple-less. Everything seems to lie in wait for something to happen.
Finally, Dean moves to strike. With a grunt bordering relief and exertion, Randy heaves his rebar up to meet his brother’s. The two “swords” meet with a dull clang. The reverberation is strong, and Randy feels his teeth rattle in their sockets. Before those reverberations can settle, Dean strikes again, this time from a different angle. Randy desperately twists his rebar up to defend himself once more. Clang. Again and again and again Dean attacks, and each time, Randy blocks, just barely.
Dean’s onslaught is relentless, with barely a pause between strikes for Randy to breathe. When it is finally over, Randy’s chest is heaving, and despite his best efforts, the tip of his rebar kisses the floor.
“Now it’s your turn,” Dean says, with no break in his voice to betray the least bit of exertion. “You attack me.”
Randy hesitates, only partly because he needs a break. If there is anything worse than being attacked by his brother, it is attacking him. At least if his brother hit him, it wouldn’t be Randy’s fault. If Randy hit his brother? Well, there’d be hell to pay.
But again, there is no refusing his brother.
Randy makes a limp swing in his brother’s general direction. Dean doesn’t even have to lift his sword to avoid it.
“Oh come on,” Dean chides. “You have to do better than that.”
Randy puts a bit more effort into his next attack, enough to produce a grunt.
Dean deftly brushes his attack aside. He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “Harder!”
After a few incrementally stronger swings, Dean glares at his younger brother. “What are you, a girl? Swing harder!”
Finally, Randy closes his eyes, wraps the rebar back behind himself like a baseball bat, and unwinds. The rebar whistles through the air. But instead of the sound and feel of metal ringing on metal, there is a sickening crunch, then a dull clattering, and then Dean’s angry cry:
“Randy, you little shit!”
Randy hesitantly opens his eyes. He sees Dean rubbing the knuckles of his left hand, his rebar on the canal floor.
“I’m sorry,” whimpers Randy.
Dean’s thin eyes widen with rage. He closes the distance to his younger brother instantly, and with a shove, pushes Randy down into the wet floor of the canal. Randy collapses, stirring the dark silt, his rebar clattering noisily beside him.
“You little shit,” Dean repeats, turning his attention back to his left hand. “You hit my knuckles!”
“I’m sorry,” Randy mumbles again, his voice breaking. Tears begin to well in his limpid eyes.
Dean glares at his younger brother in disgust. “Oh, not again,” he mutters. “I’m hurt, and you’re going to cry?” His eyes flash, and for a moment, Randy thinks Dean is going to push him again. But instead, he stomps off, scaling the sloped walls of the canal, up to the hole in the chain-link face.
“I’m going home,” he calls out, as he steps through the hole, out the rain drainage canal, and back to the weedelia field behind their house, leaving Randy alone.

Yagoro watches.
The boy sits on the dirty canal floor for long minutes, sobbing quietly. The Sunday afternoon sun glides slow across the washed out, after-storm sky, incrementally growing his shadow.
What is it about the boy that intrigues Yagoro so much? He cannot say for certain. Perhaps it is that he reminds him of himself, or who he could have been. Perhaps this is why he wants to help him.
Yagoro decides to reveal himself, something he has not done in more than three centuries…

At first, Randy doesn’t hear the sound. It is so very soft, on the verge of imagination. It sounds like water sliding through hidden pipes, occasionally punctuated by high trickles, or the ploip! of a raindrop.
It is coming from the dark tunnel at the end of the canal.
Randy stops crying as the sound grows louder and more distinct. Curiosity piqued, he rises off the canal floor, his clothes damp, and walks towards the tunnel mouth.
About ten feet before the tunnel entrance, the floor of the canal suddenly drops about half a foot, and water, the stubborn remnant of many rainstorms, sits and stagnates. Randy creeps to the distinct shoreline, the concrete lip at the water’s edge, and glances into the glassy green-black pool. Within the shallow water, he sees a thick carpet of emerald-colored algae interspersed with silver pearls of air. Squiggling within and between the algae fronds like little question-marks, countless black tadpoles disperse hither and thither, disturbed by his shadow.
Randy peers into the solid blackness of the tunnel, as though he could hear with his eyes. The sound is more distinct at this proximity. In fact, he realizes with fascination that the sound is composed of half-foreign words, like the lyrics of some tinny, distant radio. He struggles to make out those words, his lips making exaggerated shapes.
“Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare…”
Even though Randy’s father is from Japan, and Randy attends Japanese school every weekday afternoon, he only knows enough to recognize that it is Japanese. He doesn’t have a clue what it means.
Suddenly, a large, slow ripple fans out across the water’s surface, pushing towards Randy. He skitters away from the concrete lip as the ripple crests, breaks, and reaches for his sneakered toes.
“Don’t be afraid,” comes a voice that sounds like a river.
Far from reassured, Randy turns and begins to bolt away.
“Please. I promise, I promise not to harm you.”
Randy reaches the place where he and his brother had just had their “sword” fight. He grabs one of the rebars, and spins around, swinging it wildly.
But there is nothing behind him. The canal up to the tunnel remains empty.
The voice continues. “I promise,” it repeats, somehow carrying just as clearly across the increased distance. “I promise not to harm you. And a kappa’s promise is always honored.”
“What,” Randy calls out, his voice a tight squeak. “What is a kappa? What are you?”
There is a sound like the rush of water from a faucet being turned on and off in rapid succession. Randy realizes dimly that the sound is meant to be laughter. “What is a kappa?” calls the voice. “That is a good question. I could show you what I am- but given the tenuous state of our relationship, I think that would be a bad idea. A bad idea, indeed.”
Randy’s brow furrows. The voice may as well have spoken in Japanese. Most of the words flew above his eight year old head.
“I can at least give you a name,” says the voice. “My name is Yagoro. Tell me, what is your name?”
Randy grasps the rebar tightly. “I don’t talk to strangers,” he says warily, half aware that he already is talking to a stranger.
The laughing sound begins again. “But we’re not strangers, you and I,” says Yagoro. “I watched your little chanbara match. And from that, I would hazard a guess. Your name is either Randy. Or it is little shit.”
Randy dips his head, reminded of his brother’s recent remonstration. “It’s Randy,” he mumbles, although from the way he said it, it might as well have been the other name.
“Did you hear that, Little One?” whispers Yagoro, apparently to someone nearby. “His name is Randy. Ranidae. Just like you! No, this cannot be a mere coincidence.” There is a sound of settling water as Yagoro calms itself. “And the older one with you, the one who forced you to hurt him? What is his name?”
Randy is silent. It was one thing to give up your own name, but another to betray the name of your brother.
Yagoro sighs. “Ah, you needn’t tell me his name. But I can guess your relationship to him. Do you know any Japanese? Did you know that older brother in Japanese is onii-san?”
Randy nods. He knows this.
“Good,” acknowledges Yagoro. “And oniisan, why, it is very close, very close to oni-san. Mr. Devil. An apt description of older brothers, eh? Hahahaha!”
Despite himself, Randy begins to laugh shakily.
“Tell me,” Yagoro continues, “do you love your brother?”
Randy is at first taken aback by the question. Then, he is taken aback by his hesitancy to answer. Finally, he replies with a light nod, “Yes.”
“Why?” Yagoro asked. “Why do you love your brother?”
Conflicting feelings surge within Randy, feelings that he doesn’t have a name for yet. Finally, he shrugs his shoulders. “Because.”
Yagoro clucks, its voice sounding like drips from a leaky faucet. “That is no answer. That is no answer at all.” The voice grows soft, reflective, like the still waters of a bottomless pool. “I once had a brother, a long long time ago. And I loved him dearly. How could I not? He was perfect, in every way, whereas I, I was not. I would spend my days watching him from the shadows, wishing that I were more like him, wishing that I could walk in the sunlight, so unaware and unashamed of myself.”
There is a sigh, like the buildup of a wave that disappoints once reaching the shore. “And one day, I revealed myself to him, to my brother. But do you know what he did to me? He pretended to respect me. But it was all a lie. He had somehow discovered my one weakness, a certain belief in decorum and custom, and had taken advantage of it, to best me. And after he defeated me, he called me a monster, and cast me down the river, and out to sea, far away from him, so that I would never see him again. Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare…”
Yagoro’s words return to the present. “Randy, you must never trust older brothers. They only seek to keep the younger ones down, bury them in the forgotten places. I have long lost my chance to win against my elder. But you- you must find a way to best him, to best your brother.”
There is an almost hypnotic quality to Yagoro’s next persuasive words. “Randy,” he says, softly, gently, like lapping waves. “Randy, I can help you. I can be the advocate that I never had. Return here, late in the night, when the rest of the world, when your brother sleeps. And bring a single copper penny. Hold it in your hand, and it will grant you safe passage to me. Farewell, Randy, Ranidae, until next time.”
The waters stir once again, but from the decreasing sound of its voice, Randy can tell that Yagoro is disappearing into the depths of the tunnel. “Farewell, Ranidae. Until next time.” And, after but a few moments, the canal returns to stillness and silence.
Randy exhales, and realizes that he hasn’t been breathing freely for many minutes. He allows his arms to fall limp, and the rebar to clatter from numb hands.