mizrayim, the narrow place & shisui uchiha.
hebrew words & jewish stories that this drabble references are here.
time moves agonizingly slowly, yet often without shisui’s notice. he finds no use in marking the days on a calendar he cannot read and, he suspects, sasuke cares only for time-keeping in terms of hours spent training and progress made. the stretch of months following the massacre ( and he winces at the word. shisui refuses to say it aloud, but he can’t stop from thinking it entirely when it is what the village has taken to calling his clan’s tragedy ) are a blur of numbness and grief. he isn’t able to differentiate the days, yet perhaps he doesn’t try all that hard, as he binds himself to the house and recovers from injury, retrains his senses in near-solitude.
this is better, shisui thinks, than risking an encounter with the man who’s face haunts the sightless space where his eyes used to be. he won’t ever forget the feel of danzo’s chakra, utterly constricting as it was. too close as the man loomed over him, held him down to take from and let die ( shisui has only felt it once since and the memory makes him verge on panic. a mass of malice so strong he could feel it prickling against his skin, waiting for him at home the day of his release from the hospital. so horribly familiar as danzo leaned in, just as he’d done before, to utter threats and demand his silence, his complete obedience and compliance. shisui had retched after his departure, unable to stomach it ).
the little he knows of days passing he owes to those whose motions keep him tethered to the world outside; sasuke’s coming and going from the academy marking each morning and afternoon and kakashi’s visits, which bring meals and conversation, but also idle news from the village and its festivals. his own clan’s customs mean these celebration have always had little to do with him, but they help orient him in time. the year is passing, moving forward around shisui, even if he only ever has the vaguest awareness of it. konoha is temperate and the weather gives him little information, but when he sits on the porch and smells cherry blossoms in the air, he knows it is april on the common calendar once again.
oh. that means it is nisan, nearly time for pesach. funny, he thinks, that this aviv, this springtime, brings him nothing close to the promised renewal.
yet, the time of year does bring memories, phantoms that play tricks on his remaining senses. the sweetness in the air intermingles somewhere in his recollection with the smell of rich bone broth soup and matzah balls in mikoto’s kitchen. if he strains, he can feel the warmth of her hand on his back as she directed him, along with her own sons, away from the cooking when they tried to steal a taste. shisui remembers more; growing impatient during the seder, entertaining himself by flicking salt water from prepared bowls at itachi to watch his reaction. he had laughed so often then.
he wishes he’d paid more attention to the story, to the symbol behind each component of the ritual. he was a child, preoccupied with the promise of the meal at the ritual’s end and aggravating his younger cousins for pure amusement. now, the box of old, leather-bound haggadot sits abandoned in a place too haunted for shisui to return. but he does remember a word, one that had crossed his mind not too long ago, when the feeling of danzo’s chakra had choked him in his own home. mizrayim, the narrow place.
shisui sits alone on the eve of pesach, recalling this word that his ancestors had once used to describe the place that kept them imprisoned, and his chest aches in quiet resonance. yes, he thinks he understands now, why recounting the story of their liberation and exodus was so fervently observed by his clan, their victory and freedom so joyously celebrated. for the uchiha, this village has long been mizrayim, and shisui feels the full weight of it now, as it constricts him, presses against his body and soul.
he thinks of sasuke, who he’s sworn to protect and kakashi, to whom he’s dared voice the thought of liberation from the weight of this narrow place. perhaps there will be renewal this spring after all, as they meet under the guise of the observance of an old holiday to plan their escape, just as his ancestors had done thousands of years ago.
he spares a thought to itachi, too, who he’s sworn to find and demand answers from. shisui speaks a quiet prayer, a promise that, once, their voices had said together with the rest of their clan: l’shanah ha-ba’ah b’yerushalayim.
now we are separate, next year may we be together. now we are oppressed, next year may we be free.
