Yardwork

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A vast field of grass and weeds sprawled across Yamato's front lawn. A suburban jungle grew completely unhindered in front of his house and the time for apathy was no more. With a sigh, Yamato resigned himself to spending the morning bringing order to his chaotic lawn.

Opening the door to his garage, Yamato found his way to his home improvement tools. There lay a standard pull cord lawnmower, the red exterior covered in dust from months of lacking any sort of use. Yamato took a nearby rag and wiped the dust off of the handle, coughing as the particles entered his lungs.

Returning to the daunting task before him, Yamato made up his mind that there was no going back. He allowed the lawn to grow unkempt for this long, so it was his job to eliminate it. Bending down, Yamato gripped the handle of the pull cord tight, braced his core, legs, and back, and, with the mightiest burst of strength he could muster, pulled back on the cord to start the engine.

Nothing.

He tried again and again, made sure the gas was full and the cord wasn't stuck, but to no avail. Yamato was defeated. The grass would continue to grow, and he was helpless to oppose it.

As Yamato dejectedly dragged the lawnmower back to its home in the corner of the garage, he noticed a glimmer out of the corner of his eye. There, perched upon nothing but air, floated a mighty sword. He was shocked, as he never owned a sword nor knew how to even use one! Yet here was such a fine piece of craftsmanship, somehow magically levitating in his garage. There could only be one purpose for his fateful meeting with the blade.

Grasping the spectral weapon's rugged handle, Yamato plucked it from its perch and brought it outside. He once again stood face to face with the scraggly, weed-infested lawn. However, this time he felt no fear nor apprehension towards the vast expanse of ugliness in front of him. He took a step to widen his stance, loaded up the sword behind him like a baseball bat, and swung perpendicular to the ground with all his might.

In one fell swoop, the sword sliced through grass, weeds, roots, and anything in its way to level the whole lawn. Leaving everything else unscathed, the lawn was reduced to a perfect one-inch tall layer of grass, with any unwanted growths completely eradicated. In fact, the blade had even trimmed the bushes between Yamato's house and his neighbor's house, cleaned the leaves from clogging his gutter, and whitened the stone steps in front of his door!

Yamato was shocked, but before he could completely appreciate the sword's work, it vanished from his hand into thin air. He grasped for it all around him and searched his whole property, but could not find the blade. So many questions ran through his mind, as was to be expected when dealing with a magical sword. However, after some thinking, Yamato decided to just accept it and appreciate his freshly-cut lawn.

Author's Note:

When reading about The Labors of Yamato in the Japanese Mythology unit, I just couldn't get out of my head the strange name of his sword. His sword is one of the Three Imperial Regalia, a very powerful and important item in Japanese mythology. However, the name is the Sacred Grass-Cleaving Sword. My first thought was that it must be great at mowing lawns, and that was the inspiration for this story! I kept Yamato's name the same, but placed him in what I imagine to be a modern-ish day suburban neighborhood. I imagined a really plain guy when writing this story, even though the Yamato in the stories is anything but ordinary.

The reason that it is called the Grass-Cutter Sword comes from when Yamato is surrounded by enemies who light the grass around him on fire. He uses his sword to cut the grass that is allowing the fire to burn. Yamato then swings the sword to cause the wind to carry the fire towards his enemies. I like that he was able to use his sword in such a clever way to turn the enemy's attack against them, showing that simply having a powerful sword isn't the only thing that matters. It takes the wielder of the sword to use the blade to its greatest abilities.

Bibliography:

Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917)

The Grass-Cleaving Sword