Japan
October 15, 1997
Light sprinkles fall from above in a stream of tranquility. Heaven's tears plummet to Earth onto a small hilltop with scratched stones scattered about. Encircling the stones were bare bushes naked from the leaves that were shifted from the persistent breeze. The gray and black skies facade a desolate impoverished wooden cabin, echoing steady cracks from the lacerated screen door.
Beneath the clouds an adolescent child strides herself ascensional on the hilltop as quick as possible while clutching her diminutive fists firmly against the unbranded gallons of water in each grasp. With almost every step her slightly oversized boots sunk in natures fresh thick mud, discoloring the modernity black velcro sealed boots protecting her feet. Before the trip she had garnished herself in a black trench coat that would find its way to frequently drag against the ground depending on the angle from which she stood. A brown scarf once consummated the integral part of her head, revealing minimum portions of her eyes and nose. The chilling wind overtook that. Few strands of her aphotic lengthy hair coils against her creamy face. It slapped her a few times, but she ignored the annoyance. She finally made it to the top. What seemed to be almost an everlasting journey is finally over.
Everything remained the same inside since her departure. Hollow, dusky, reserved. If the weather was completely reversed it would seem almost peaceful. She sealed the door shut, but the floorboards creak after every other step. Exhausted, the young girl release the water jugs against the splintered wall, stretching her bare fingers excessively to remove the tingling sensation from pure numbness. Her shoulders shake moderately as she peers around the arm of the poorly preserved couch.
A sudden flash of buoyancy from the venerable television radiates against her lightly misted face, the only source of lighting in the vastness. Surprisingly so, at a dim volume her favorite cinema plays on the screen. Despite the release decades prior to her birth it would remain at the top of the renaissance genre. She stands hesitant, mesmerized by the curiosity of the rosey-red cheeked blonde female protagonist. A few more minutes of this and she would be lost in the film herself and although she would've loved to sit and day-dream the voyage alongside the twelve year old girl, her attention directed to the shadow of the hermetic body reflecting against the wood confining them.
"Mẹ?" Her gentle voice quivers, lowering herself on her knees to the level of her mother.
"Con...con của tôi." The weakened voice responds from underneath the woven blankets.
Her daughter shuffles closer to the inclement body, sliding several loose strands of her hair behind both ears with her fingertips. Those same fingers tiptoe along the ends of the fabric, removing it from concealing her mother's face as gently as possible without causing any discomfort. There was no need to examine the misfortune. She can muster the scorching heat vibrating through the thickness of the material with beads sweat drenching the cushions and scatter veering down her mother's face.
"Tôi đã trở lại." She signifies, forcing a tender grimace lacking hope. "Hôm nay thị trường hết bánh mì." There was a short pause as she reaches into her coat pockets for the macerated rice balls. "Tôi đã quản lý để lấy một số gạo và nước từ một nông dân khi ông không nhìn."
A wave of violent coughs expel from beneath the surface. Her mother clenches on the blanket for her dear life as her inflamed throat gasps for air. Her lungs seemingly sounding perforated, wheezing desperately to catch her breath. Her exhausted eyes cut to her daughter. Any aspiration of good fortune was already diminished. She only wished her child stopped pretending. This wasn't supposed to be the fate for the two of them. The roles were supposed to be switched and for success, but she can only envy.
Her daughter reaches for the wooden bucket filled with luke warm water at the end of the sectional, pulling it closer to the both of them. "Mẹ nó là gì Bạn có cần khăn khác không?"
From the deck beneath her she recovers the damp towel that once rested above her mother's brows hours earlier. She soaks the overused cloth in the bucket. The numbness of her frigid hands do the work on diluting the saturated water. She reaches for her mother's forehead, but with little strength mustered from the opposing end, she's blocked by a frail palm.
It was almost as if she were touching a mere skeleton. A jolt of discomfort scurries down her spine with the rise of bumps on the surface of her arms. Her travels to the market and back nearly cleansed the memory on the agonizing effects of her parent's frame. Her bones weren't too far away from being blanketed by the layers of her tissue and skin. This is what the lack of professional medical care will do, but with living a life in poverty, what other options do you have? Warmth seemed to be nonexistent in her body now. This was no time for distress. Her mother's illness had overcame her. Her daughter is all she has left in this world. Instead she rests her mother's palm on top of her own, encompassing it with the other, pulling their faces closer to one another despite the coating dividing them. It doesn't take a doctor to catch beats of the weary steamboat chugging inside her mother's chest. Traces of sweat had disappeared, withered from the linen as she grew colder
Her parched lips separate, though scarcely, assembling whatever energy remaining in her physique to speak. "Đi vào phòng của tôi. Bên dưới nệm có một hộp lưu trữ bằng gỗ. Mang nó tới đây. Mang nó lại cho tôi." She halts her firm instructions, hacking more blood-based mucus coughs trapped in her throat.
It didn't take long for her daughter to leave her side as she raced down the hallway toward her mother's bedroom to retrieve this called for item. Time is in essence. She needed to hurry. All of the signs point to the inevitable. The continuous pain that periodically surges throughout her body culminated. Visceral insensitivity surmounts. Breathing became more difficult for her efforts already were almost impossible.
She groans, panting to breath. The echos of her child's footsteps fade from her eardrums. She knew long ago this wasn't fair, but how selfish would she be to wish this on another so she could be given another chance to watch her tiny erected shrub blossom into a rose she's destined to become. The only failure that mounts is her inability to witness this.
Fading into to the noise from the television and the commotion from the weather outside, she hopelessly sighs once again. Her eyes remotely gaze at the wooden ceiling from above. Her tiresome lids caging within moments. She watches a piece of dust descend from the wooden boards, fluttering like the quivering wings of a butterfly beginning to fly for the first time. With this final image in her mind, she finally closes her brown eyes and her breath turns smooth marble, dying away like the breeze.
There's never enough time
The child had accomplished the task, rushing back into the living room to see her mother lying silently on the couch. The wooden box clenched in her fist, she gradually re-positions herself against her mother's side while trying to catch her breath. A polished grin of success winces across her cheeks.
"Đây có phải là điều bạn đang nói không?" She asks proudly.
The thought of her mother merely falling asleep crept her mind, but something was off. She lays still, motionless as a boulder rooted to its environment.
The child's knees cave in as she hunches over the body with a sense of loss so powerful her muscles wouldn't respond to her simple commands. Her eyes stare into the blankets in a far distance, uneasy, but fixed into the seems of some imagery future of a life without her mother.
"Mẹ à?" She asks for her mother once again with a raspy voice.
A tightening of her throat and a short intake of breath forecasts the explosion of emotions she has kept buried deep inside for so long. The tearing at her soul is too compelling and energetic to be contained. The vision she once had, her and her mother making it out of this impoverished lifestyle through hope and faith had been all consumed by the wicked. Her tears well altogether, silently coursing down her cheeks.
"Thức dậy mẹ..." She weeps.
Her shaky fingers collapse the linen over her mothers head entirely. The pen-up hysteria and dread of loss from the child loosens in a paroxysm of choking and sobbing, so powerful in its intensely that her body shakes till she could barely breathe. Her face buried into her mother's chest all while life persists to continue from beyond.
The reverberation of her cries dwindle in the darkness as the film continues to showcase its most memorable and mysterious scene...
"...Thank you." The blue-eyed blonde replies graciously to the critter. "I-I...I think I should visit him."
"Of course, he's mad too."
"But I don't want to go among mad people." She retorts, filled with impatience.
"Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here."
The devious cat's chuckles sounds behind her, yet the cacophony of his laugh surrounds her yet again.