Chapter Text
"A star died so that I could be here, yet even knowing this, I cannot find myself. I wonder if stars have trouble getting out of bed, or if they ever wished they had never been born. We are kin after all, hiding during the day and contemplating each other through the night. They watch me now, pure and silver, waiting for the day we are finally reunited."
The nothingness in the mirror changed as she approached; puffy eyes, unruly hair, and a sullen face stared back at her. Next week’s exam had been draining her routine completely. Studying deep into the night had become the new norm over the last two weeks (not that it was common for her to fall asleep early anyway). The toll was starting to show, and Asa couldn’t ignore it anymore. Standing still for a few seconds, unable to fully recognize the girl watching her in the glass, she filled her hands with water, splashed her face, and continued to brush her teeth.
Outside her apartment, the sounds of the world began to drift through her window: children running across the street, calling out names, a car honking its horn beside them. Women, carrying bags their hands, were returning from the market. Scraps of turnip and lettuce mingled with the dust of the narrow street. And the sun, pale and distant, slowly peeked through the clouds.
She turns away bitterly, going back to her room, looks at the rumpled bed, so familiar after these sleepless nights. She walks slowly, dragging her legs, lifts the sheets, punches a large pillow, and covers herself with a sigh. She becomes so small standing in the lively street, against the indifference of the sun… In this bed, in that room, with her eyes fully closed, she is whole.
She snuggled deeply, as if it were raining outside, and some warm unnamed arms kept drawing her in, deep into something, without a judgment, turning her again into a small child.
She felt her solitude interrupted; small laughs resonated in the room as the sunlight streaming from the window gave them shapes and bodies. Tiny strands of her hair began to dance on top of her head, giving her haircuts she had only seen in some childhood cartoon. Her marshmallow bed grew large, so large it tore the entire apartment apart, allowing her to float far enough above everyone that when she opened her eyes, stars were studying her every move. Refusing to let anyone interrupt her sleep, she rolled out of bed and began to fall through outer space. Cotton candy clouds puffed up as she crossed them, until she finally reached one she could grab onto to complete her descent -like a leaf falling from the tallest tree on earth-. The golden rays emanating from the wheat fields where she awoke echoed her name, urging her to kiss them so they could go on living.
She woke again to her gut rumbling. She searched for her slippers under the bed, feeling for them with her feet. The damp sun casting a light onto her desk, reflecting the square-shaped window onto the floor. Her head felt stiff; her movements were difficult. Her toes were cold and impersonal.
In the living room, everything stood still, almost lifeless. Books, boxes of food, clothes, and dishes were all in the same spots they had been in for the last few days. The grayness of the day outside crept through the blinds, making it hard for her to distinguish anything. Footsteps and yawning filled the apartment as she made her way to the kitchen. She began to prepare breakfast. While the water began to boil, Asa drifted toward a pair of plants sitting full of life on her table, a first-place prize she had won at a poetry competition hosted by her local library, one she was very proud of.
The bowl of rice and eggs she had been eating for the last week was starting to get on her nerves. Not much she could do though; her fridge had been on the brink of emptiness just as long, she only occasionally bought items for specific meals, nothing meant to last. It was indifference, not much else; her appetite rarely demanded full meals, and the food always grew moldy before she realized it. She ate slowly, mechanically, accompanied only by the occasional sound of chopsticks hitting the bowl and sips of her coffee. It was warm and bitter. The faces she used to make when she first tasted a sip from her mother’s cup were almost gone now. She still didn't like the flavor much, only drinking it because it grounded her; that sudden feeling of being shaken by the shoulders was necessary to get her through the day.
This was how Asa usually began her mornings: filling her stomach, filling herself with caffeine, and a book of her liking. A few stolen minutes before the world demanded her attention. Snow Country, by Kawabata, lay open on the table, tiny cracks showing across the spine with light scribbles on the bottom of the page. She had picked it up from the library at the start of the week almost without thinking, wanting only something to keep her company.
The library stood conveniently along her route from school, and stopping there had become one of the small pleasures she allowed herself. Walking back home with a book tucked under her arm made her feel unthreatened, as though the world around her was losing its grip. Those quiet, unremarkable moments were often the ones she tried to hold onto for the longest.
After emptying the bowl and taking a last sip of coffee, she lingered for a few minutes, her eyes drifting through each letter on every page, until the chilly, heavy air of the room began surrounding her. The air felt heavier than usual, and every open door carried an eerie current that made it uncomfortable to stay there. She closed the book without marking the page and let the current guide her down the hall.
Back in her room, she was greeted by the mess on her desk. Notes were scattered in uneven piles, books settled over each other, some laying open with folded corners and loose pages of her own writing were stacked together, held in place by a couple of stubby journals bound by leather straps. Some of the books needed to be returned to the local library; their past-due dates had been looming over her for the last few days. Her plants were vibrant, but their soil would undoubtedly start to dry soon if she didn’t give them the fertilizer she had gotten them used to. Buying groceries would also help shorten the mental checklist she kept rewriting. And on top of all that, she knew that spending another day trapped inside that room, watching the light shift across the walls without moving herself, was something she could no longer allow.
Stepping out of the shower and into her room, she quickly began to get ready for her day out. A long black-and-white plaid skirt, a random T-shirt, and a black wool sweater sat in unison on her body; if she was to go out, she wanted to feel familiar enough to feel safe. Before leaving, she gathered what little she had prepared: a folded grocery list tucked into her pocket, the three books she had to return, and a pair of movie tickets that had come as a prize with the plants (an afterthought she still hadn’t decided how to use).
She gave one last look at her plants before stepping into the somberness of the day, greeting it with a frown but with every intention of making it hers. Before she could anticipate the events of it, she was quickly snapped out of her own head by the screaming of children just a few steps up the street. The local park, always packed with families, children of all ages were present: the smaller ones usually on the slides or playing in the sandboxes, while the older ones claimed the benches to talk to each other. All under the looming shadows of the adults.
Asa usually ignored it all; the sooner she returned to her apartment, the better. But today, she wanted to look. A flower bed of white camellias was being gently caressed by the breeze, capturing all of her attention. She crouched and gazed at them for a while, the almost rhythmic pattern of their movement reflected in her dark eyes, appearing and disappearing with every automatic blink. Controlling the urge to take the whole cluster for herself, she became aware of a gentle smile decorating her face, letting the soft sway of the flowers linger in her mind before getting up and making her way to the store.
Atop the building, the image of a colossal otter smiled down at the people scattering in and out of the supermarket; Asa decided to ignore it, not really liking the thing, and made her way inside. Just past the doors to her right, a stack of crimson baskets—each decorated with the same otter—stood waiting for a hand to claim them. Asa ran through a mental checklist of her essentials: eggs, milk, noodles, vegetables, and some bread. Grabbing the cold, plastic handle of the basket she stepped deeper into the aisles. The shadowless, artificial white light from above bouncing of the ceramic floor, the cellophane-wrapped meats, and all the polished cans of fruit shook with a clinical brightness, that made the world outside feel like the warmest painting she could imagine.
After her eyes adapted to that surgical table of shop, she started to move through the sections, with a forced urgency that defeated the welcomeness that the store tried to impose. Her hands reached for eggs and milk, her semi-black silhouette made it seem like a ghost was posing against every shelf, her thoughts were frantic, the only goal in mind was getting this done as quickly as possible. Until she reached the cleaning section. There, amidst passing through the sharp scent of bleach and synthetic pine, she stopped.
Her eyes were drawn to a specific bottle of laundry detergent. The label was one she recognized: a large bottle, filled to the brim with a deep blue, mucous liquid, decorated with some flowers on the front. “This is the one mom used to like,” she whispered to herself. Suddenly, the scent of damp sheets hanging in a garden she no longer played in appeared in front of her. For bout a moment, the sterile, clinical air of the supermarket was replaced by that ghostly domestic warmth. Without a second thought, she reached out, placed it in her basket, and made her way to whatever was missing on her list.
Whatever remained of that memory evaporated in an instant. The store’s background music -a tinny, upbeat melody that felt like nails on a chalkboard- was interrupted by the "Voice of the Otter." The mascot’s pre-recorded enthusiasm boomed from the ceiling speakers, chirping about discounts and limited time offers with a cheerfulness that felt almost threatening. That persistent buzzing, bouncing inside her skull plus the mechanical hum of the floor cleaners harmonized in a way that was driving her mad.
She rushed to the checkout. The line wasn't long, but every second spent standing still felt like an eternity, wasted time she could have spent in any other place that crossed her mind. That constant beep-beep-beep of the scanner became a reminder that her tortuous task was closer and closer to its end.
She paid in a hurry, likely leaving a few extra coins with the cashier in her desperation to escape, and finally, with quick, frantic steps, she bursted through the automatic doors. The natural light, although pale and somber, felt like a merciful new chance in life. After a quick, nervous check to ensure she had everything she went in for, she began the journey back to her apartment.