Act I Scene iv
To people who still heed time, three months pass. And these people tell Karin it is time to move on. Even her brother and father, who can no longer look at Karin properly, tell her to let Yuzu go.
But she won't because she can't. Can't look at herself in the mirror either.
And one unremarkable night, Karin doesn't sleep. Instead, she leans back against the beaten wall, knees bent and arms hanging to either side pathetically, and her shoulder length knotted hair obscures vacant eyes.
These restless hours plague Karin, suffocating her with the masking tape line she's laid to bisect the room — her discarded half in the present and Yuzu's dusty half in the past. And the white tape glows dully in the moonlight, trapping Karin's absent stare, killing her but never permitting her to die.
She can only stare opaquely at that merciless divide until it begins to blur with tears.
A line of masking tape she will not cross.
Because if Karin does, her twin will really be dead — Yuzu won't be there. So instead, she lives on the line between the present and the past and refuses to breathe, pretending Yuzu's half of the room is reality and her own half is just a nightmare.
Pretends Yuzu's sleeping on the empty bed across the room, thankful her eyes are closed to the tears Karin hides in the dark.
This is her ritual, penance for failing to save her sister and an apology for surviving. A line on which to suffer through the night until the tears become dry heaves, and she genuflects, face pressed into the covers and fists beating the mattress, screaming soundlessly.
No words, just a low keen because there is no absolution for failure, no forgiveness for survival.
And then…
Absolutely nothing.
Nothingness: the nightly climax of her shame, the stillness after self mortification. It's all contained in a single moment when Karin tries desperately to remember the weight of Yuzu's hand in her own, but she can't remember; the second when she tries to recall the secrets they've shared, only to realize those secrets aren't secrets anymore.
Because Yuzu is dead, and so she knows nothing. These once-were-secrets between the living and the dead are now only bits of Karin no one knows.
For hours, she stays there, sinking and waiting patiently for the sunlight to creep across the floor and eat her. The beginning of another day to mock Karin, May 6, one year older than Yuzu…