Yuri

Reiko had had severe psychiatric problems for the last twenty years of her life before she committed suicide at the age of fifty-four, having been in and out of hospitals during that time. She ran a hot bath, slashed open her wrists, and bled to death.

Since she started having these problems around the time that Japan went into its economic tailspin at the start of the 1990s, people assumed that she was anxious about the uncertainty that the difficult times entailed for middle-class people like her and her husband and daughter; you just couldn't be certain about anything anymore.

However, the causes of Reiko's malaise were far more private. Twenty-years before her death, her twelve-year-old daughter, Sachiko, brought home a friend from school named Midori. There was something about this girl that impressed Reiko very much. She was very tall, probably five centimetres taller than her daughter. Unlike her daughter, who was very pretty, Midori was only average in appearance, but this girl had not internalized the shyness and anxiety that adolescent girls in Japan around her age already started to internalize. Rather, she seemed centred, self-confident, even brazenly self-confident. She smiled often and spoke in a calm, low voice, often making eye-contact rather than bowing her head low when in the presence of authority figures.

When Sachiko introduced Midori to her mother, Midori made the ceremonious bow fitting to the social rank of someone like Reiko, but Midori gazed into Reiko's eyes afterwards and held her gaze for what seemed like several seconds. Then Midori smiled a secret little smile and bowed again. Reiko found it very disconcerting.

Sachiko and Midori went into the living room of the small apartments to do some studying while Reiko went back to preparing dinner. About twenty minutes later, Sachiko came back into the kitchen with Midori to ask if her friend could stay for dinner.

Reiko felt somewhat put out with the prospects of having to cook for another person, but she decided to let Midori stay for dinner, since it was likely that her husband wouldn't be home for dinner anyway.

It seemed that her husband was never home for dinner anymore. The last time that Sachiko had seen her father, a few weeks earlier, Reiko had to arrange an appointment with her husband's secretary beforehand.

While making dinner, Reiko began to muse about her daughter's friend. She visualized herself at a hidden cove somewhere by the ocean as she heard Midori call her name.

Then, as she stood before the kitchen sink to wash off a long knife in some soapy water, she felt somebody put her arms around her from behind. The girl kissed her gently on the cheek, and then she rested her head head on her shoulder and sighed with contentment.

Reiko was surprised by this display of affection. Thinking that it was her daughter standing behind her, Reiko dropped the knife into the sink, turned around, and saw Midori instead. She couldn't believe it!

Reiko was about to speak when Midori silenced her with a kiss. For some minutes, or so it seemed, the girl aggressively probed her mouth with her lips and mouth before thrusting her tongue into her mouth.

It seemed that Reiko was about to give into the girl's advances when she felt a hand on her breast. That was when Reiko seized control of the situation and ordered the girl to stop. Silently, the girl obeyed. Midori merely bowed her head without shame and went back to the living room. However, Midori stopped at the entrance to the living room and turned around and smiled knowingly at Reiko before entering the living room.

For some minutes, Reiko stood at the centre of the kitchen, visibly shaken, trying to collect herself. Then, as if still in a daze, she went to the kitchen sink and thrust her arm into the water. The water in the sink immediately turned a blood red as her arm jumped out of the water as if of it's own accord.

As Reiko held her arm, she had what the Zen Buddhists call a sartori experience; she felt completely outside of herself. It was like it wasn't her holding onto her arm at all but somebody else. Only when she realized that she was bleeding profusely did she call for help.

Both Sachiko and Midori came running into the kitchen, where they saw Reiko holding her arm, unable to stop the bleeding. When it was apparent that Sachiko didn't know what to do, Reiko shouted at her to call for an ambulance. While Sachiko telephoned for the ambulance, Midori tightly wrapped a dish towel tightly around Reiko's lower arm as a tourniquet, before calmly telling the woman to lie down on the kitchen floor.

When Sachiko came back into the kitchen, Midori told her to get a pillow from the sofa in the living room for Reiko's head while she applied a wet dish rag as a compress to Reiko's forehead, which was now clammy from shock.

The ambulance crew found Reiko lying on the kitchen floor with Midori alternatingly stroking her hand or her forehead to keep her calm while Sachiko sobbed uncontrollably.

Of course, Reiko survived that suicide attempt (if suicide had subconsciously been her intention), but there were other attempts at suicide before she eventually succeeded.

Through all of this, her husband was usually as remote as the Japanese emperor: seldom seen, though his existence was dutifully acknowledged and respected. He was always spoken of in reverent tones, almost like he was divine, though he was away on a business trip to South America when Reiko successfully committed suicide.

They found Reiko's body in the bathtub, blue and discoloured, having been lifeless for some days. The water looked like a sheet of red ice, with blood spattered on the tiled walls of the bathtub enclosure behind her.

They say that people who die like Reiko experience a relatively painless death, once the endorphins start to kick in, but the police and crew from the mortuary couldn't have told from her features because she had been dead for too long. It was one of those suicides where a neighbour calls the police when he or she smells something rotten coming from underneath the door to the apartment.