The man wrote to the woman down by the river Yo. He had finished in the fields and his brother was calling from the high hill.

"Young!" he screamed "the soldiers are here!"

The man dropped his pen. The notepaper, pink and full of tiny perforations the man had made in the shape of a lotus flower, flew in the direction of a crane's nest. A young bird who was wading blinked at it. Soon, it began to rain.

The soldiers carried out the brother and left behind the others. A girl ran to the river for the pen as they were very destitute and the family had no other. She found a tiny bird struggling to get onto dry land. She picked up the bird and carried him home forgetting the pen.

"Sister, you have to find the paper, it is to Yoko Suku, and I want to finish it. Go for the paper and the pen, go back at once."

"Brother, she does not love you. She will marry another with more money. When this bird grows wings, you will forget her and marry another in the village. Nothing you can write can save you. You are blind."