Mimiko
Mimiko flipped mindlessly through the sticky photos. What was it about unpacking that always made you go through nostalgic nick nacks? It was getting late into the evening and her energy was wearing thin. Sure half past nine was when everyone was getting ready for a night out - or enjoying one that they have already started - but not Mimiko. In fact, it was more likely that she was in bed already before the twen-teenagers began cackling and shouting in the streets.
A picture of her eighth birthday party had a picture stuck to the back of it. She pulled it apart with a crack and inspected the one in the back. A copy of her parents' wedding photo. She put it in the 'to hang up' pile. Mimiko was glad that there is a bit of freedom to hang things on the wall if she wanted. She always liked hanging up good memories, but there were perhaps just a few people who did not.
Ryoki had worried her to the core. Even if Mimiko could never revive her sister there was a chance she could help revive the pieces left in the broken girl. She was not sure if Ryoki would take her words to heart but they seemed to pull her out of the moment enough to look at it from another perspective.
@Delta44 Mimiko had slipped her number into the pocket in the back of the girl's pants. She hoped Ryoki would find it if she ever needed help.
Mimiko looked up to find Pip leaning on the table and drinking her tea. She shooed the cat away before sighing. It must have been the milk he was after.
'Thanks a lot, at least you like it,' She sat the cup back down, lacking the energy to get a new up, boil the water, add the tea and sugar, wait for it to steep and cool before even having a sip. She would have to survive without.
She began flipping through the photos again. Ballet practice. Solstice cookout. A trip to the beach. She felt the tattered paper edges of the photo behind as she was about to pick up the sun-warmed face of nine-year-old Mimi. Her stomach sank into the cushion under her and dragged the corners of her mouth along with it. There were only a few pictures that she had ripped and none of them made her happy. She wished she would have packed this box herself, perhaps she would have left these behind instead of dragging them around to her new life.
She sat the top photo to the side and looked at a teenage version of herself with her arm wrapped around the blankness and a stray hand with blue nail polish on her hip. Her ex-best friend Rachel - she had joined a bitch clique and told them some of her deepest secrets. She flipped it toward the cold, tinder-less fireplace and it bounced off to the stone in front of it. A birthday party with half of the guests missing - laid up against the brick backing. A creepy clown from Halloween and a missing bunny - wedged strait between the fake logs that held the propane elements.
She looked down with a lump in her throat. A group photo with the top half missing. From a Christmas party. Her parents' bottom halves with looped arms. Both family and work friends mixed together with red hats, wine glasses and big goofy grins. Mimiko standing with her hands folded in front of her, shoulders shrugged and large hands resting on them. She still felt them like a ghost resting on her shoulders. She flipped the card away and it spun, hitting the wall in front of her. She leapt up and crunched it in her hand and cast it in the fireplace, then slamming it down after it bounced away. She gathered the others then went to the wall and manically pressed the button. It fruitlessly clicked. She heldd down the button and gritted her teeth.
With hot tears in the corner of her eyes, she kicked the fake logs with a swallowed scream. Her shin trickled blood from the sharp corner and she shoved a pillow off the couch as she walked by. She doubled back and grabbed everything from the silent sofa and slung them across the room. Pip scattered her way into the kitchen and hid on a chair under the table.
Mimiko sat with her knees pressed to her chest as the hot water hit her back. No matter how far she took herself away she felt hopelessly cursed. Followed. Weighed down. She let it go and moved ahead but it just grabbed onto her ankles as she walked past. She hoped she had a band aid because most stores were closed now.
She lay curled on her side with her hair twisted in a towel still and nothing but a large sweater and knitted socks on. Her apartment suddenly felt gapingly empty. Nothing but her and the cat at her back in this echoey room. She turned to look out the window again. Nobody. She needed to remember to be asleep while it was still light out.
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Bozo