People sink your boat
When you cut a tragic figure.
--Stained Glass Eyes by Elliott Smith
Theme: Toys
Stained Glass Eyes
Izumi doesn't know this, but Meroko likes to collect toys. Odds and ends, some broken, some perfect, some old, some brand new. They are tucked away in a corner of her chambers, a menagerie of miniature cars and worn dolls with eyes as dead as those who they once belonged to. Everytime she leaves them for a mission, she returns with another friend for the group, complete with embroidered smile or chipped red paint. The collection is growing and though she is glad to have them, the fact that she is gaining more and more says something about the state of the world she haunts.
At first, Meroko would cry everytime she took one, her tears rolling over porcelain and plastic as she clutched the play thing to her chest. But as time progressed, she began taking them out of habit. Anything that glittered or caught her eye was plucked as she and Izumi left and tucked beneath the folds of her skirt until they returned to the underworld. She still labels each one but she doesn't sob anymore as she arranges them into whatever aesthetically pleasing order she decides on that day. It's becoming more and more of a chore, but she can't imagine stopping.
One day, when she retuns on some errand or another, she finds her door open. Izumi is standing in the middle of the room, blonde head bowed as he stares at the clump of toys in the corner. A furious blush rises in her cheeks and she is unable to enter, feeling unwelcome in her own room. Will he find her more foolish than he already thinks she is? Is he angry? She takes a few quiet steps backward in an effort to disappear into the walls. Of course, he hears her.
"Why do you have these?" He asks softly without turning to look at her. She is almost grateful for that.
"I...I take them."
"Obviously. But why?"
Why?
"Because..." She is not very eloquent, but she thinks the reason should be clear without her saying so.
Because they are keepsakes. Because some of these toys are thirty years old or older and if she doesn't keep these, then no one will remember these children. Then they will have never existed in the pages of time. They will be forgotten like she was, lost like her own memories.
On their next mission, he allows her to extract the soul from the little girl sprawled on the road, limbs broken and bruised from the car that has just collided into her. The driver of the car is vomiting his drink on the side of the road. Clutched in the girl's arms is a tiny doll with woolen hair and button eyes as piercing as Izumi's and though she feels the compulsion, she does not take it. When she returns to her room that night, she cries for a child for the first time in a long time, cries at the fact that already, she has forgotten the girl's name though she tried her best to hold onto it. Already, the image of her face has dissipated.
On hands and knees, she crawls toward her trinkets. At the very front is the doll she had abandoned, a smear of blood tarnishing its pale face. A label attached to her foot reads "Yuki" in handwriting that is not hers.