Simon’s interest in the martial arts of Japan began, and largely ended, when he was at school. Being small and weedy, but intellectually head and shoulders above most of his classmates, he was an obvious target for the bully boys and he regularly found himself having to exchange bruises for his pocket money or packet of sweets. Not surprisingly, he decided to do something about it.
A search of his local library took him to a section that
covered the ancient arts of Japan, many of which involved self-defence. He
wondered which would be most appropriate to his current situation.
Some of them looked like complete non-starters. He simply
wasn’t built for sumo, and he didn’t see how he was going to get any of his
tormentors to strip down to a body belt before grappling with him in a ring
made from rice-straw bales.
Several of the arts involved weapons, notably swords and big
sticks, and again Simon was not absolutely sure that the school rules allowed
potentially lethal weapons to be taken onto the premises during school hours.
He reckoned that, on balance, they probably did not.
That left unarmed combat, such as karate, judo and aikido.
These looked promising, especially as they involved techniques for surprising
an opponent and turning an aggressor’s attack upon himself so that he ended up
as the loser.
There was only one drawback as far as Simon was concerned.
That was that they all involved a certain degree of physical effort and, to be
frank, Simon was at heart a lazy sod who would much prefer to spend his
evenings playing computer games or reading a book than being trained in martial
arts at the local gym, with all the jumping about that was bound to be involved.
That was why he was delighted to find a book on the same
library shelf that covered origami. At first he imagined that this was yet
another Japanese martial art, although he did not see how turning a square of
paper into a model swan or elephant was going to be much use when he was
confronted with the threatening behaviour of Jason Morrison during break. There
was a page in the book on making waterbombs, but that was as far as it went.
However, this Japanese artform was much more to his liking
than those that involved real physical effort. Before long he had made all the
models in the book and his pocket money was then spent on buying all the books
on origami that he could lay his hands on.
In a way, this also solved the bullying problem, because the
bullies were only interested in petty theft and Simon without cash or sweets
about his person was far less of a target than Simon with. Other victims were
available for such attention.
For Simon, origami became an obsession that lasted him long
after he had left school. His focus turned from making the models that were
described in the books on his shelves to creating new designs and challenging
himself to greater complexity in what could be produced from squares of paper.
He devised paper-folded models of just about every major
member of the animal and bird kingdom and many minor ones. His attention to
detail was such that he could produce a model of the black-bellied sandgrouse
that was entirely distinguishable from that of the pin-tailed sandgrouse. He
also had his paper squares printed in colour patterns that matched exactly the
markings on his birds and animals when the paper was folded correctly.
He also became a paper sculptor of people, so that he could
turn a single paper sheet into a perfect image of just about any celebrity or
historical character one could name.
He did portraits. His clients sitting before him, his
fingers would work their magic in double quick time and a three-dimensional
model would appear in minutes, perfect in every detail.
Needless to say, his fame spread and he became able to
command high prices for his work when Russian oligarchs, crowned heads and
world leaders commissioned him for origami portrayals. Because he worked with
such speed he was able to fulfil every request he received, flying across the
world in his private jet at only a few days’ notice and flying back with a
large cheque in his pocket, which was usually folded into a model three-toed
sloth before being presented to the bank.
But did all this fame and fortune bring Simon true
happiness? It is often the case that obsessive people are less adequate when it
comes to personal relationships, and that was certainly the case with Simon.
Women may have fallen at his feet and walked down the aisle with him, but these
marriages, like his sheets of paper, soon folded.
It was while he was flying from Rome to Moscow, between
commissions to make models of the Pope and Vladimir Putin, that he received the
message that his fourth wife had left him for a paper recycling magnate. There
and then he decided that he would give up having women in his life and buy a
kitten instead.
So it was that he found himself sitting at a lonely
breakfast table one morning with only the Times quick crossword and a young
kitten for company. However, completing the crossword was made more difficult
than usual thanks to the kitten deciding that she was much more worthy of
attention than a silly newspaper crossword. Whenever he looked for a clue he
found that a paw or a tail was just where he wanted to look, and when he tried
to write in an answer the pen was knocked sideways as the kitten rubbed her
face against it.
“OK”, Simon said. “Have it your way. I won’t do the
crossword, I’ll make a model of you instead.”
So saying, he started to fold the newspaper into an image of
the kitten, but that didn’t work either. Every time he picked up an edge of the
paper the kitten either pounced on it or dived underneath it. Simon could do
nothing. The kitten insisted on playing with the paper and Simon was rendered
completely helpless. He had no choice but to give in and entertain the kitten.
It had taken him half a lifetime to master origami, but it
only took the kitten a minute to master Simon.
© John Welford
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