Yokozuna Dreams with Rats and Mutts

By Martin Jones

Another collection of short stories that range from the silly to the serious - plenty of humour thrown in! Beware - you may see yourself in some of these!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Jones
• Release date: Jun 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301987801

Martin Jones

Martin is an award-winning photographer. His interest in wildlife photography led him to the Isle of Mull, beginning a love affair with the island, where he retired with his wife, Stella. Their interest in biodiversity resulted in a huge catalogue of photographs of Mull's unique scenery, fauna, flora and fungi.

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YOKOZUNA DREAMS WITH RATS AND MUTTS

By Martin Jones

Published by Martin Jones at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Martin Jones

Discover these other titles by Martin Jones at Smashwords.com

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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CONTENTS

YOKOZUNA DREAMS

OBATARIAN

MUTTS I’VE MET

BILL AND JONAH

RATS

AUSTRALIAN ARMY

DON’T DO AS I DO

JUST A SOCIAL TEAM

TAPU

KOREAN BARBECUE

SELF-IMAGE

SNOW BOUND

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YOKOZUNA DREAMS

Saru had always dreamed of being a sumo wrestler. Of wearing the mawashi (large nappy-like belt thingummy that wraps around the wrestler’s girth and between his legs and up under his, er, you-know-what); of tossing salt high in the air to the approving roar of the crowd; of raising each leg in turn high into the air and bringing it crashing down as the spectators cheered his excellent shiko (pre-fight stamping ritual); of facing off against larger opponents and gaining the mental advantage of intimidating them with his cool gaze – again, to the approving chuckling of the thousands of fans admiring his every move.

And now, at last, here he was, standing in the entrance to the arena, thousands of people crammed in to see him ….. OK, hundreds of people filling most of the arena ….. Oh, I see, a stickler for accuracy, are we? All right then, dozens of people scattered about the arena, mostly up in the cheap seats somewhat remote from the dohyo (raised clay platform on which sumo bouts take place. See? Some of these definitions can be straight out of a dictionary). There. Satisfied? On with the tale.

He stood absorbing the atmosphere. It was all here: the sacred dohyo surrounded by the – admittedly largely vacant – cushioned areas (those were the very cushions the crowd – both of them – would throw into the ring in approval if he should bring about an upset victory); the four judges seated below the four sides of the dohyo; the great overhead lighting roof, symbolising and mimicking the roof of a Shinto shrine; the referee dressed in a colourful costume reminiscent of the ancient Shinto priests’ attire; the wrestlers’ names being called out by people in the crowd by way of encouragement ….. oh, Saru loved it all.

He took a deep breath and walked a little unsteadily towards the dohyo.

He had entered the Mizushita stable of sumo wrestlers at 15, and had served his apprenticeship diligently, getting up every morning at 4am to start his training, before sweeping out the training rooms and dining room, then making huge quantities of chanko (a high-protein, high-carbohydrate, high-everything, really – hotpot of vegetables, tofu, rice, eggs, meat, fish and anything else that’s handy – short of actual cement – designed to be tasty and nutritious while piling on the pounds) for the esteemed professional wrestlers. They were long days filled with hard work, but the scrawny Saru knew he had to endure them to fulfil his dream.

The months went by and he studied the art and history of sumo, and trained hard every morning and every evening, but it was soon clear than he was gifted neither intellectually nor physically. As the other apprentices showed an aptitude for their studies, and rapidly filled out on their diet of chanko, Saru remained much the same as he had been at the start: dim and slim.

During sparring sessions with his fellow trainees, he was being flung out of the ring with greater and greater ease by his opponents, at times making helplessly airborne exits. Saru became desperate. Study had never been his strong point, but he was able to muddle along in mediocrity, but his weight problem was fast becoming a matter of survival. His angular bony adolescent frame lacked the fleshy padding his stablemates had attained, and he was afraid that it was only a matter of time before his sparsely covered bones were broken.

Saru resolved to go on a crash diet. He began to power-eat chanko, deciding to consume double the usual quantities. After his first breakfast under the new get-fat-quick regime he felt stuffed to bursting. After lunch he could hardly stand, and his whole body felt tight. After dinner – predictably – he vomited, and developed galloping diarrhoea as his body rebelled at the brutal overstuffing he was subjecting it to.

But Saru was no quitter. He was determined to persevere, especially when he discovered on weighing himself that evening that due to his body’s energetic purging, he now weighed two kilograms less than he had done the day before. The following day he ate chanko as though his life depended on it. Again he stuffed himself to bursting point. Again his body retaliated, this time with the same unpleasant side effects as before, as well as breaking out in a nasty itchy rash all over his back and legs. It seemed that Saru, through overdoing it, was developing an allergy to chanko, the sumo wrestlers’ staple diet.

He realised that he would have to change his tactics, and resorted instead to easing back on the chanko and eating doughnuts and bread at every opportunity. He ate buns and cakes, loaves and muffins, anything baked with flour. And it worked. He gradually began to lose his sharp angles and grow fleshier, although somewhat pastier.

Saru’s other physical source of frustration was his hair. A sumo wrestler’s hair needs to grow luxuriantly, so that it can be styled into the correct shape. It involves growing the hair long enough to be swept from the back up onto the crown, and the ends splayed in a semicircular fan shape – not unlike a rooster’s comb, some cynics might say. This is called the chonmage, the style that only the highest ranking wrestlers could aspire to wear. But of course, all young wrestlers dreamed of making it to yokozuna status one day, so all grew their hair to a healthy length in readiness.

Saru’s hair, unfortunately, refused to grow much at all, and six months after entering the stable it was almost the same length as it had been at the beginning. He tried taking vitamin tablets, he rubbed hair-growth oils and creams into his scalp, he tried ancient Japanese follicle-stimulating remedies involving seaweed and raw eels, he even tied little bits of lead to the ends of his hair, hoping that gravity would pull his hair longer. Sadly, gravity and lead pulled some of his hair out, so he was left with little bald patches and a very uneven growth. The vitamins worked, but selectively, so the hair at the front of his head grew longer and longer, while the hair at the back of his head remained sluggish. He didn’t want to cut his hair at all, as it seemed so much trouble to acquire, so as a result he often found his fringe flopping over his eyes and obscuring his vision. He looked like he’d put a Beatles wig on backwards.

In the meantime, he started putting on weight – the all-bread-and-bakery diet was paying off! In fact, Saru started to gain weight at such a rate that his legs and sense of balance were often overtaxed, and from time to time he would begin to wobble and overbalance. For instance, if he walked up a