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She had once heard of the phrase ‘walk tall my friends…”. It was a baffling phrase. One whose origins she couldn’t remember, and whenever she did try to do so all that was garnered was a perilous sense of loss. But, like most things of torturous sadness, it had stayed with her all the same. The meaning chasing after her in a never-ending maze.
To Walk Tall.
What was it like? What was it like to be able to ‘walk tall’?
She was stubby, small, a midget. She couldn’t walk tall. Whatever god that had decided that didn’t allow her to. She slouched, was wobbly and couldn’t prance in heels. It was a permanent disadvantage to her life. It made it impossible for her to function in the society that had been thrust upon her.
Although, even if she weren’t stumpy and short and incapable of walking she still wouldn’t be able to ‘walk tall’. She was a leech, a parasite,‘an organism which lives in or on another organism and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other’s expense.’She took from him, Eisuke Ichinomiya. She was a negative force in his life that simply stole from and caused him trouble. He’d tell her not to worry, he always told her not to worry, but that never changed the fact that she attracted trouble. It never changed her being useless, and it never changed the fact that she could not walk tall because of her very nature.
Ahh, but dear, they’d cry,don’t worry. It’s just like how we kill our world slowly and how half the population is dying. We know it, oh it exists, but we just don’t worry about it. Ignore it, it shouldn’t matter to us. Instead of worrying, just let it grow, let it swell to a magnificent proportion that absorbs everything with it.
‘Become what you claim yourself to be, you can if you want to. I don’t mind.’Was what he had told her oh so many times.
And, he says that but: Would he really tear himself apart for something so selfless? Would he really allow her to become such a horrible leech on his life?
How could she walk tall then? How could she if she leapt into the arms of her failings? How could she when there would be nothing about her that would have a reason to? How could she when she was so useless? How could she if all she ever did was lean and prop herself up on another?
How could something so pitiful ever even breath?
‘Please. Please. Please just stop. Don’t exist for a minute. All of it, please, for one tiny moment as short as my worthiness, please just stop.’She screamed.
The window in front of her, it long and bearing her for all the world to see, was frosted with ice and snow to the point where it burned skin to a blazing heat. Inside out, her organs too were burnt to a crisp that would never fully heal. The white fire always so close that her tongue danced with its taste as if it were a crème brûlée flamed to perfection. It the best treat you could ever eat.
In the window pane itself, there was a girl. Now, the girl wasn’t there when she had first entered the lofty bathroom, there was nothing but the stillness of a frozen world. But once her toes touched the toasty waters of the tub, the girl appeared stark and bared for all the world to see.
And she, the girl, was a small thing. Pathetic you could say. Frame weak and fragile to the touch, she was almost like amber: easy to shatter and break into millions and million of teeny tiny itty bitty pieces. You could tell of her childish nature from how she carried herself. She slouched, shoulders bunched high and eyes downcast, almost afraid to look at the world as it was. There was nothing spectacular about her: body without any major curves with everything small, whatever beauty she sported not once ever captivated on.
She was, in short, a missed opportunity. Not quite a women in too many regards. A poor example of what a women should be.
She closed her eyes, head face up and did not look at the girl in the window. Her and the light reflecting a truth too vibrant to witness with open eyes. Too real to bear its consequence. She wouldn’t even peak a sneak.
Don’t think. Don’t give it a chance. Don’t give her room to breath.
Shoving it all away with hands and knees and elbows and anything she could use, she felt uncomfortable in the deep tub. The bathroom was too large, so much space completely useless for anything but walking. The marble floors cost an amount that would certainly make her head implode, with the bath itself able to fit too much.
In it she felt so tiny, like a rat scrounging for somewhere to live. To be truthful, she always felt like a rat and sometimes she even thought she had more in common with them than actual people.
It never used to be like that, however. Along the way she had devolved to such a pathetic way of existing. Where that had began she could pin point exactly however it was not like she could say it. To do so would admit a lot and neither of them could. She couldn’t face the fact and he couldn’t acknowledge her, and so it ended up as another shard of her reality that would chase after her like it were the hunt. Haunting her for all of eternity.
Ah~ But that was a bit dramatic, a bit of an exaggeration, a bit too much of a lie. There were moments where she forgot all about it, forget who she was and the way which the world she lived in worked and how vast it was. How poor of a person, a women, she was. It came in rough kisses and exposed breasts and tantalising touches that trailed up further and further along her thighs. Mewing like a kitten so hopeless in its ways.
Oh, how sweet those poisonous moments were~ Even now they brought a smile to her lips. The fact that drinking something that killed her made her happy too disgusting.
Although: was it better that there were times where all she knew was the man know as Ichinomiya?
Although: wasn’t that her life already?
…
…
…
Drawing in her legs, she tried to abandon that too. Yet, how could she when it was just her and them?
Then she couldn’t help but hope for there to be something else. For there to be the pattering of rain or even just a ringing hum. Just some noise so she wouldn’t be so alone.
Ahh, but that was all she ever was.
She chuckled.
No wonder she couldn’t stand tall. She was begging for things as simple as that.
Eisuke, on the other hand, stood tall. If anyone ever stood tall it was him. He was the tallest. And there she was trailing behind him, so insignificant and so small.
If anything he was untouchable.
If anything he was irreproachable.
She wasn’t worth him.
Wasn’t worth anything.
Her arm followed the dripping water, then the rest of her soon followed too, and then everything was clear. Or unclear. It wouldn’t matter much longer.
Instead, stay here for awhile, Don’t get up. Rest your pretty head, the watercalled.
Under neigh, everything was so blue and so beautiful. Was she too, for once, beautiful? A crown? A gem? Twenty million? Was she that?
And now, she could feel it. She could feel the water take her in its arms and it felt so good and so lovely and so right. Her breath was stolen and her checks became a blush red and her thighs dripped.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
More and more she cried.
More and more she wanted her vision to fade.
Body to fade.
World to fade.
Fade, fade away.
For there to be nothing but stardust.
Such pretty pretty stardust.