Akai Ito
There’s an urban Asian myth that had originated in Chinese folklore and also used in Japanese legends called “The red string of fate”, or “Akai Ito” in Japanese.
According to this legend, each end of an invisible red string is tied on the ankles or pinky fingers of people who were meant for each other or just fated to cross paths. No matter how tangled that string gets or how much it has to endure, it never breaks. Regardless of time, place or circumstance, it keeps on being the sturdy string the stars had created until both ends meet.
An old folklore story speaks of a little boy in a small Chinese village who was walking along a path and was stopped by an elderly man who tells him that there is a string attached to his little finger and the little finger of that little girl standing by the lake. One day, that little girl is destined to be his wife. Being the little boy that he is, not interested in love or girls, the boy throws a rock at the girl and runs away. Many years later, he was to be wed to a girl in a marriage arranged by his parents. Upon removing the veil from his new wife, he sees a scar on her forehead. He then discovers she's the same girl he threw the rock at many years ago.
We all have dreams about who could be on the other end of our red string. Who we’re truly meant to be with or if that person actually exists. How are they like? What’s their favorite color? Have they eaten well today? Are they happy? Is there even another person tied to the other end of this sting or is it just drifting around with the wind, getting tangled on tree branches and dragged in the mud.
Sometimes we even forget about the red string and go on with our lives, doing our normal daily activities. We go to work, we meet up with friends, we eat, we tidy up our living spaces, we watch movies, we read books, and we wake up in the morning and do it all over again. Then again… we start thinking about it again. The thought keeps us up at night. Nothing is tugging at our string. The stillness bothers us. We want to tie a small bell on it just in case someone tugs at it while we’re fast asleep and we miss it. Eventually we fall asleep and soon enough we forget all about it again.
Days go by and the cycle of life keeps us distracted from our string. Then, when we least expect it, a tug. We think it was just a figment of our imagination, like hearing your phone ringing when it’s not. A small tug turns into a hard pull and before we know it, we are face to face with the person on the other end. We trace the string just to be sure it didn’t just get tangled with this other person’s string. The trace softly leads to that person’s pinky finger. No tangles to be seen. The string gets a great deal shorter till there’s barely room to move away. Then you know. That’s your person. The one you’ve always dreamed of being on the other end of your red string. You can’t move away from how short the string has gotten but it’s ok, because you don’t want to. You’re happy right where you are. You intertwine your pinky finger with theirs and the red string ties you both together.
