Anymore- So... - Seta Ichika - I Don-t Have A Mother

Ichika’s fingers hover over the strings of her bass guitar. They don’t press down. They just hover, trembling slightly. The instrument is not plugged into an amp. In the silence, the only sound is the hum of the city below.

A late autumn evening. The sky above Tokyo is a bruised purple, fading to black. Seta Ichika sits alone in her room at the rooftop flat she once shared with her mother. The window is open a crack, letting in the cold air and the distant sound of a train. Seta Ichika - I Don-t Have A Mother Anymore- So...

“I don’t have a mother anymore.”

She wipes her face with the back of her hand and looks at the blank permission slip. Ichika’s fingers hover over the strings of her bass guitar

She hasn’t cried in three weeks. That, she thinks, is the strangest part. The crying stopped, but the absence didn’t fill in. It hollowed out. The instrument is not plugged into an amp

Optional Coda (if this were a musical or animated short):

A small, broken laugh escapes her. It’s the first laugh since October.