Vignette: Water
vi·gnette (n.): A short, usually descriptive literary sketch.
The muted sighing of water filled her ears. The ceiling danced as an air bubble rose and popped on the thin, clear surface, causing the smallest of ripples to spread outward. Her eyes – large and luminous – were open under the cool water and her hair was just long enough to drift gracefully into the edge of her vision, fanning out around her with all the serenity of a still, clear morning.
When her lungs started to burn and ache, she moved with slow deliberation, pushing herself up and into a sitting position before gasping at the alarming noise of sluicing water. The bath water was just cooler than the air around her, a feat achieved because of the record-breaking heat wave moving its sluggish way across Japan.
Ami Mizuno sat straight-backed in the middle of her bathtub, on the far left side of her apartment, on the fifth floor of her building, somewhere in Tokyo, Japan, and reached for a book.