Hitomi stood thinking of her life as the city of Tokyo spread before her, the metropolis beautiful in its smog shawl. The people's longing reached out to her, seeking a kindred spirit as she walked along with her much-worn duffel bag. Boring little people in their boring little lives looked away as they chopped leeks for dinner, or sat down to balance a check book, feeling her wish to be away. Some people were actually happy in their lives, and she envied them. Two years ago had been the last touch of happiness, and it had been ripped away with half of her soul.
She looked up, her long hair, freshly washed and gleaming, swayed behind her, tickling the small of her back with its ends. Tokyo tower had never seemed so tall, or so foreboding.
"Because I would not stop for Death…" Hitomi whispered in slightly accented English. She then snorted in slight amusement at the cliché. What did Emily Dickonsen have to commit suicide over anyways? She never left the house. At most she lived a pale and emotionless life. Oh wait – reality check, you are leading a pale and emotionless life as well, dear heart. The self depreciating thoughts had brought her to the door.She was stopped by a guard in a garishly cheery uniform, clashing almost unbearably with her present mood. He looked at her strangely thinking of how much trouble he would be in if this thin woman collapsed while going up the stairs.
"Ma'am, if you want to see the tower, please come back in the morning. It is almost time for the lifts to stop working. And I wouldn't want you to be stuck up there." He was perfectly polite – the modern day gentleman not really paying attention to the girl in front of him. Hitomi swayed with a sudden vision of him at home with his wife. Perfect.
"I'm so sorry to disturb you, but I was here earlier and left a bracelet on the landing. I checked for it at the lost and found, but no one had turned it in. Please, I won't be a second, just let me look." She kept her eyes downcast so he wouldn't remember their startling color. She wanted no one to remember her, she just wanted to fade away from this sea of humanity.
After he nodded his assent she walked briskly over to the lift, got on and examined her surroundings. The glass was smooth and clear, painstakingly cleaned of the grimy fingerprints stains that accumulate during the day and her reflection showed clearly. She opened her bag to pull out a hairbrush, and began the arduous process of putting up her hair. Each lank she wound through with silver thread, and each braid with gold, finally pinning them all back into a bundle of curls on the back of hear head, high off the graceful nape of her neck.
She sighed in the long past still elevator. It was all she could do until she had more privacy. Her bag contained a single gown, forest green silk, with a simple cut outlining her trim (to emaciated) figure, and a flared skirt that swirled as she moved, like the wake of a boat through water. It was embroidered with silver and gold thread, in the designs of feathers falling.
Unrecalled, the elevator door opened, as if silently questioning its passenger.
She stood, looking like a queen stepping to the guillotine and put on the gown, shedding herself of everything in this world with her clothes. She placed them back into her bag though, that she would leave behind no evidence. She laughed quietly at herself. Of course they would find evidence. Her body on the ground.
She stepped up to the rail, and daintily placed one slipper on the wrought iron rail, and stood, balanced for one moment. And the she fell. As she plummeted she said one word, like a caress on the wind "Van…"
Because she was looking at the stars she never saw the air beneath her open, and as she fainted she never felt the slowing of her descent.