03

thunderstruck

‘We don’t have biscuits today.’

If there was one thing that managed to turn Mijin grumpy – apart from what happened a few days ago at the park, which was a rare, startling sight – it was when her mother had forgotten to buy her sweet treats.

It took me a while to learn where she and her mother lived. It was an especially decrepit area not far from Mijin’s play school, in an average-sized building with sodden walls and crumbly staircases. Surrounding the building were equally dreary constructions and a massive steel bridge that was directly outside the girl’s bedroom window. I always felt a flush of embarrassment whenever I speculated asking her just what it was, and instead took to wondering curiously.

‘Did you ask your mom?’

I questioned, resting my cheek in my palm as we sat on the floor of her incredibly small, narrow room. The details of Mijin’s bedroom had never occurred to me before. Then again, as I said, it was only very recently that I had become particularly mindful of my surroundings.

Every interior wall was the colour of damp gray pebble stones. This was accented with stark white doors and architraves, and patterned mocha floors made from pine.

Mijin’s room consisted of a single bed that was far too large for her little body. She often sunk into the covers and seemingly disappeared into her pillows whenever she fell into deep spells of sleep. Directly on her left was a painted wall, and directly on her right were shuttered windows that offered a view of the rusty, perpetually empty highway I couldn’t make sense of.

At the foot of her bed was a small white rug big enough for her to sit on, and I often took my place on the wooden floor in front of her. We were currently seated like this – with the exception of Mijin’s colourful school items scattered between us – when she sighed, snorting up a string of snot with her arms folded.

‘Uh-huh.’

She didn’t seem particularly chirpy because of the biscuit dilemma, so I took to my own devices. I stared at the pink mechanical pencil closest to me, placed the palm of my free hand a few centimeters above it, and watched as it shuddered against the floor.

Mijin watched the action with unmasked surprise and delight. Ever since discovering touch was dangerous and that I could pass through things as I pleased – which was something Mijin could not do, after some testing – we held experiments