But she would have her dolls to play with. They would not die and leave her alone.

It was the kind of dolls made from scraps of rag and tree barks. But she was good at sewing and had a creative mind. Her dolls were beautiful.

She had one with long gold coloured hair which she named Yoshiki. Yoshiki perpetually wore a long white gown and a bright red lipstick marked his face. It was her favourite doll.

She had another doll, which she didn’t like too much. Maybe it was because she had wrongly sewn on pink for its hair. She named the doll Hide. She would dress him in bright coloured cloth that didn’t go with any of her dolls simply because he looked weird to her so it didn’t matter if she made ugly clothes for him.

She spent her time in the garden of the small little cottage, playing with her dolls, making scripts for them with her own words. She was a young child but she saw the world through clear unfazed eyes unlike adults.

One day, she decided she would do an act or was it called a play? She didn’t know. Tenderly she untangled Yoshiki’s hair which seemed unusually softer than the other dolls she had. She kissed its forehead before placing it down in a sitting position. She took another look at it, wondering why she had drawn its eyes with such sorrow and pain. She did not understand this feelings.

Next she brought Hide out. She did not know why either. She normally left it under her bed when she took her dolls out to play. On that day, she made a hat for him to wear and found that it suited him quite well.

Then she placed both of them together, Yoshiki and Hide. She spoke the sentences for them, carefully aligning her speech with her manipulation of the dolls.

Hide: We have not seen each other in a long time!

Yoshiki: Yes, it’s so pleasant a meeting!

Hide: Why not we go for a picnic together?

Yoshiki: That’s a good idea.

She began packing leaves and flowers as food for her dolls’ picnic. She put them in a small thatch basket.

Yoshiki: The sun is beautiful…Here have some sandwiches!

Hide: Thank you!

Yoshiki: Isn’t it nice? The smell of the wet earth and the dewy grass…the rays of the sun and the fluttering of butterflies?

Hide: We can watch it everyday!

Yoshiki: We can?

Hide: Sure, I’ll accompany you!

She made the dolls hold the leaves as if they were food and began imagining how the world would look like through their eyes.

The day soon faded into dusk. She made Yoshiki and Hide bid farewell to each other.

She went home, with her two dolls under one arm and her small hands clutching to her thatch basket. When she entered the cottage, she found her father breathing heavily with his eyes closed.

" Child…" he called out to her.

She went to him, looked at him quietly as he stroked her auburn hair.

Then his hand limply fell from her hair to his sides. And he was gone.

The girl stood there, watching her lifeless father.

She did not cry, she did not shed a tear.