Michiru remembers the irony of the hospital. She remembers her grandfather's worried eyes and the reassuring pat on her head as they waited for the doctors to tell them the results. She remembers the kind nurse and the cold doctor who told them the news of the failures of medicine and the triumphs of age and death. She remembers how her grandfather cried into her hair while a happy family of three walked by - a mother cooing to her new-born. And she remembered, thinking why the words of supposed comfort and how she passed away in a peaceful sleep was not at all comforting to the living who could not sleep at all with such words at heart.
Michiru remembers the white-cloth over grandmother's face. It reminded her of the ceremonies she's attended when her great-grandmother had died, except that body had been placed on a futon and they had been surrounded by paper-screens, not white walls and metal-beds. There's a lot of contrast in the hospital, and Michiru remembered standing and looking, feeling uncertain about what death really was when healing succeeded in the one room over from their own. She was very sad that grandmother had died, but she didn't really understand what it meant or why grandfather had covered her eyes once he got a hold of himself in that room.
Michiru is older now and the person under the white sheet is someone she loved more fiercely than anyone else in all her young years. The body still seems very surreal and she wished it were wooden floors and a futon that she was looking at and not a metal-bed that supported this old body. The white walls are so cold and she trembles at the thought of such a person dying so alone.
This was not just a cold. Why did no one tell her the details earlier? Why did she have to learn the truth now that she could do nothing?
"Ojii-san," Michiru feels the strength leave her legs as she slid into a crouch. Her one hand clings to the metal railing as she sobs. Uncontrollable noises make their way from her belly, and she had no power to stop those horrid, whining noises. There's a crack in her heart and sorrow gushes from the wound, spreading into an ocean within her, and she has no power to mend that either at this moment in time. She had meant to write a letter earlier, to tell him about having tested into some of the best high schools around. She had wanted to show him the wonderful woman she was becoming - let him know of the wand that was able to turn her into a Sailor Senshi.
"It's always good to have a little magic in your life, Michi-chu," her grandfather had always told her that, and ironically it was something her life had never lacked. Was it that long ago when such phrases were said to her with his calming voice? When did such a brilliant life become no more than a memory?
"Ojii-san..."
Clutching the wand to her chest, Michiru could only feel the magic drain out of her with her tears. Even if she wanted to stop, she wouldn't have been able to. Miracles don't happen to everyone though... Isn't that right, Ojii-san? Michiru thought, lips trembling as she gasped and heaved for breath through her leaking tears. She was a heroine, but Death was neither a villain nor a being she could fight.
Behind the white sheet, her grandfather gave her no more wisdom or words of comfort. Those age worn hands that taught her to paint and fish could no longer cover her eyes from the truth of loss and mortality. In the room with a body without a soul, the unavoidable facts of the disappearing life, only made her cry harder.
