IDN own Bleach.

Night Mode.

This tense and person will ring oddly at first. But I hope you'll give it a chance to change your mind, or rather, I hope you will read it with an open mind.

*Musical Accompaniment: "The Last Man" by Clint Mansell

Soon, an hour from now perhaps, you will test the air, feeling life pulse—ebb and flow—around you. You will barely tilt your head in the direction of the second girl's house, waiting for a sign, an invitation that will never come.

Abandoning hopeless expectation, you might take the scenic route, ambling with your hands in your pockets. At war with yourself because you are creepy.

The moon will be bright, turning your hair too white, your eyes too blue. The silver will disappear, the green slipping away in night's stark contrast.

Wishing ineffectually that your feet would find some safer place to roam, you will know they won't. Your life is too dangerous, too volatile, to traverse the high ground.

You're too far gone; the dream is dead. Everyone is pretty sure you killed her.

Not intentionally. But you don't see it that way. You will not ever see it that way.

So, you are not a pure soul anymore, forever tainted, more than shredded. Nearly dead if only a soul could die.

You will never be whole. Perhaps healing will one day be in sight. A cruel tease, never within reach. No. Certainly not ever.

There will always be a little black hole in the landscape, the gravity left behind when the dream imploded.

The world will always be empty without the first girl, the universe void of an essential feature.

So soon enough, your feet—your traitorous feet—will defeat your conscious mind. While lost in blackness, buffeted by unfriendly winds, you will travel mindlessly—as though your feet have sprouted tiny wings.

You will find yourself under a street lamp, gazing up at heedless stars. But the only thing you will really see is a nightlight casting an insubstantial glow on a window pane, soft light spilling out through the second girl's window.

For another hour—but what is time to demigods—you will waste away on the sidewalk, winged feet impatiently shifting your weight.

Your war, the one raping your big brain, will wear you down, will wear you out. The hole in your vision growing larger with each passing second: a dark space cage. The gravity left behind when the dream imploded will suck you in, suck you up to the second girl's window.

Will bend the softly spilling light. The effect warbling the punctured landscape, for a second—just one eternal second—the gold tone light will remind you of the afternoon sun dancing in the first girl's hair. Only one second will undo you. Resistance swallowed by the black hole; never to be seen again.

The tiny wings on your feet will raise you up, alighting on the thin sill with too much ease. You will peer inside this second girl's bedroom, both of your sweaty palms pressed against the pane. Your breath—if you were not so cold—would surely fog the glass.

The second girl, so like the first, will be sleeping. Her tiny nose twitching, a lock of hair tickling her dreams. Her hands will lay as though in prayer, back to back below her sleepy head. In the fetal position, she will sleep, nestled in her covers, the sheets tucked up under her chin.

For moments uncounted, you will wonder what sort of fantastical things exist only in her dreamland. What color are the fairies' wings. If, perhaps, the sky rains ice cream. Does she curl up next to tigers or tell the dinosaurs to behave.

You will wish her dreams are always happy, filled with awe you will never feel. Something precious and rare should never touched with dirty hands, with your sweaty palms.

Thus, the glass—the unfogged glass—will separate she and you forever. You will only ever steal glimpses of her wholesome dreams, her seamless world. Her dreamland and wakingdream which remind you of Momo.

Smiling virgin laughing princess sleeping angel.

But—there will be another girl, a third of which you are unaware, watching you while you stalk the traces of Momo in Yuzu's heart shaped face.

Smirking widow snapping dragon wide-awake warrior.

The third girl will peer at you through the glass, wondering how you're coping. Asking silent questions. How is your health. Do you still wear only black shirts. How are they treating you up there in that place she cannot understand.

Her eyes will trace the lines of your face, counting time passing by the changes she finds there. Years have passed she will conclude. Too many years judging by the way the nightlight illuminates your frown, the lines cut too deep, the shadow too defined. She will scrutinize the sparkle—nearly imperceptible—pooling in your eyes.

Idly, she might think of handkerchiefs, perhaps a tissue. To wipe it all away.

All of it, but mostly the tears you will not let fall. Never let fall.

She will pine away in silence, neither jealous nor unkind.

Because Yuzu is her first girl. Her dream princess.

Karin cannot love her less than you, if what you feel is really love at all.

Not wanting to hurt you, the thought of hurting Yuzu never crossing her mind, the wide-awake warrior will not rise out of bed. She will not approach. She will not intrude upon your creepy vigil.

Instead, while you are busy trying to resurrect a dream, to fashion a patch for the hole with a similar face, Karin will surrender gracefully, closing her eyes.

Tempting her kind of dreams.

Her silver winged fairies will start a game of football, kicking around mint chocolate chip raindrops. Her fierce tigers will rub against her shins like housecats. It's inevitable; she will have to do something about her mischievous dinosaurs.

But before she disappears beneath the warm blanket of her seamless dreams, Karin will count herself lucky to have no black holes, no leftover gravity to suck her awe away.

Eternally blessed to be on Momo and Yuzu's side of the unfogged glass.

Dedication: Phil. "Art is a personal and sacred thing, inseparable from self. I give away pieces of my soul everyday, written in clever turns of phrase."

Mare