glass figurines

When Himawari was seven she had a collection of glass figurines, all animals, shining and perfect, which she kept on a shelf in her room. She named them all and gave them personalities, imagining dialogues between them. After a while she'd acquired a pretty good number and they were her prize possessions,

and when one day that earthquake made the house shake just enough for the shelf to get knocked over and bring all the figurines shattering to the floor, she cried for half an hour.

"It's okay," her mother had said, soothing. "It's all right. You can get some others."

"No," Himawari had said tearfully, shaking her head, "no, I won't, I won't, they'll just break again—"

"Shhh. Shhh. Calm down. They're just figurines, Himawari-chan. They're not real. It was just glass breaking, that's all, it'll be all right, don't worry, no real harm done."

It wasn't like they'd been people.

(Later,

--amongst the shards of glass and, and, and (oh God) there were echoes of limbs and paws and wings and heads and jagged edges of fragile creatures all in grotesque disarray, destroyed in a second, one, two, mischance, and they—

he—

No—)

ribbons
Himawari was six years old the day that her parents found she'd tied all her hair ribbons together, blue and green and yellow and white and purple, each knotted to the other in a fantastically long rope. Disassembling it would be quite the task. They called her in from playing outside and asked why she'd done it.

"Because I wanted a long rope, of course." She looked a little guilty. "Sorry. I looked for something but I couldn't find anything but my ribbons."

"But what did you want a rope for, honey?"

Himawari glanced up at them seriously. "So I can get out my window if I have to."

the colour of life
In art class the professor asks, What is the colour of life? and Himawari takes two seconds with her answer.

Ms. Ito looks at her curiously, but that's okay—it's the color of the sheltering night sky, of your shadow that always follows behind you; of Watanuki's and Dômeki's hair; of ink flashing across paper in firm, decisive strokes.