Remembrance
Kesshou Uryou
i: chimera
It should be remembered well, that quaint, dreary, and pleadingly quiet scene. It humbled any visitor of the room indiscriminately, clamped an opened mouth shut, and he or she stood still for any given amount of time, preferably staring at his or her own feet, or the open window, or simply anything but the sole other occupant of that room. Anyone but her.
They say it was a tragically early winter for such a flower in such apparent bloom. It was an unfortunate onset of frost nipping at that green stem, slackening the hold of the diligent roots. And now the flower was withering away as nature dictated it so.
That was what they said in their vain attempts of sounding gentle-like and comforting to one another, becoming metaphorical and speaking in undertones lacking affection. Sure the room had been littered with still sparkling bouquets of flowers twirling around and swimming in a sea of water-filled vases. Certainly the room had accumulated copious volumes of massed produced "get well soon" cards. Surely those were a sign of indisputable kindness.
It might have been if only that sort of behavior wasn't what was expected of society in such a situation.
And they thought reality was easy to forget about. It could be avoided at will by any meek speaker or simply one who didn't want to voice it at all. It was an easy task and one would think that he or she could be triumphant against it in that way. But death is something you can't escape. You can't escape it, you just can't.
And Chihiro Ogino was dying.
She was dying.
Maybe that's why there was a discordant melody, a horrible cacophony of music made of gossiping and terrible mutters that played on and on continuously in that room. Maybe that's why everyone just liked to pay their required dues before striding out into safety once more. No one ever liked to look death in the eye. And no one ever wanted to dwell and idle in it when they hardly knew the one that's approaching their expiration date.
The only two people who really did care must have been her parents, for why else would a parent exist at all? And now her mother came in with a quiet step and a gentle look as she took a small seat on the edge on the bed, applying a hand to her daughter's forehead and smiling melancholy. It was never mean to be like this. To not outlive your parents is a very sad occurrence and sometimes the burden is hard to bear. No, that's wrong. It always is. Death always is hard. It doesn't discriminate. Death just kills and then you're left with nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Yuuko tried harder now than ever to forget this fact for the moment and tried to smile even just a little bit in face of the pain. She wanted to pretend that there wasn't anything wrong. And it was kind of working too.
"Here, honey. You've been drawing every spare moment lately. And it's usually of just one thing so I went out and got something special to put in your room. Do you like it? I thought you might."
Chihiro was currently on the borderline between sleep and consciousness and now forced the sleep out of her eyes to glance upon the object in question with a dulling set of eyes. She let the flicker of a smile reach her mouth before she nodded a tired nod. Her mother looked very well pleased with herself and proceeded to put the object on a shelf across the room by the open window that was adorned with pale yellow curtains, a compliment to her pastel yellow room.
Her father entered then and he gave her hand a squeeze and whispered reassurances. "You'll get better soon, don't you worry. The doctor is working on it as we speak. So you just close your eyes and go back to sleep and rest if you want. Don't worry."
Yuuko seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown now, however, and she was muttering things indistinguishable as Chihiro's father, Akio, hesitantly led her from the room. "It's going to be alright. Don't worry." Whether that was directed to just one of the female occupants of the room or both of them was left to interpretation. Chihiro just blinked once they had left her room and became transfixed with her newest required item. She reached desperately towards her beside table and found her sketchbook and avoided the pencil.
Now she was not inspired to create. She only wanted to examine. She leafed through her pages, all the same hazy outlining of the same thing, different styles, some more successful than others. Then she came to the last entry and she smiled for a long time and knew this was the closet yet she had come. The closest ever. She didn't really know why she had drawn it. She didn't know why. But she was proud of this drawing, proud of all the others.
Maybe that had something to do with her standing up unsteadily and lightly tapping her way across the floor in the obvious state of an invalid. She reached her new possession and reached out for it and held it comfortingly to her chest and smiled. She returned to her sketchbook and tore out her latest drawing and held both items together and never felt more complete.
Then she saw the window and things deteriorated from there, depending on your perspective.
Because a few moments later found Chihiro standing on that second story window sill without a moment's thought, feeling she could fly. No other thought abounding in her head. She just wanted to fly, and she knew she wasn't crazy. She wasn't crazy, she just couldn't clear her mind lately. She couldn't. There were things haunting her, things weighing her down more than ever with her approaching death. She wanted to be free, wanted to fly.
A few seconds without deliberation and she jumped. Because she believed she could fly. Maybe she believed all those drawings of dragons could come to life. Maybe it was that statue of one that gave her the inspiration. Maybe it really was because of all the dragons.
Or maybe just one.
But Chihiro did jump, and she did hit the ground.
Cue the ambulance.
don't own -Just something that came to mind. Like to see it continued eventually? Then please review.