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May 2004.

It was a beautiful day of spring. Shinkuu was going back home from school with his mother, crossing the streets covered by colorful cherry trees. Japan has always been famous for their springs dyed in pink, and indeed in many places around the country people from all over the nation and also many foreigners gather all together to admire the cherry blossom. Shinkuu hoped for their family to have a Hanami as well, and she was so enthusiasm for the new spring that she forgot about her family’s situation. His father, a salaryman in his thirties, stressed by the hard work in his company, lost his work recently, and since then he has been drinking a lot, inside and outside the house. For almost a month, he kept slacking off at home, or continued to go out to drink with some friends, wasting the family resources little by little. Shinkuu’s mother, in the other side, used to work for a famous company in Japan, in the area of international communications, and thanks to her salary, they hadn’t economic problems for a while. The woman since quite some time grew sick of her husband, even before he had dropped his job. In secret for almost three months, she was having affairs with a foreigner, an Italian she met thanks to her work, and since then she was been thinking in a way to divorce from his ill husband, making he the only and fully responsible. Until that moment, she hadn’t a good reason to make a divorce in which she could have the upper hand in judgment, until that very day.

It was during dinner that one of the most frightening moments in Shinkuu’s life happened. Perhaps, the most terrible one. Shinkuu’s father was drunk, drinking all the afternoon, watching movies at home. As always, Shinkuu’s mother avoid contact with him until the calling for dinner, which was the only moment in when they had some sort of interaction to make think the little girl things weren’t so bad. As always, Shinkuu was happily telling her parents the great day she had a school, but this time the false smile of her mother and the false interest of her father were absent. Instead, his father was annoyed by her voice, while her mother couldn’t hide the disgust for her husband smell and appearance. Looking at her parents, even for the little girl was obvious they were not in their usual mood, but she though they were just a little sad. For that reason, she tried to light up their mood with a song she recently learnt at school. “This should be a secret since is for our spring festival, but I will sing it just for you!”, she said with her brightest smile. As soon as she ended her speech, a cup of hot sake flew over the table, without any warning, directly to the little girl’s face. The cup broke in her front, shattering in hundreds of pieces, and all the hot alcohol went directly to her right, burning a great amount of her face. “SHUT UP! You’re annoying me with your stupid song!”, was what his father had to say, after throwing the cup. There were some seconds of total silence in which both mother and daughter were speechless, then the little girl felt all the pain for the burns and the wounds to her right eye. An acute and horrible scream rose from her, then immediately the mother run towards her. “What have you done, you monster!” shout the woman, which if in appearance she seemed to be angry, she was not. That was the opportunity she was waiting for: with the violence on the girl, she had the perfect excuse to divorce and get the money to cover the damage and all the expenses for the divorce. The woman called the police, and soon their house became the scene of a crime. The neighbors were all upon their place attracted by the painful screams of the poor Shinkuu.

In the end, as Shinkuu’s mother planed, there was a divorce, in which she gain custody over the girl, and have all the economic benefits she expected to have. She openly started to go out with the Italian, which was also a man with a healthy income. Thanks to his support, Shinkuu had the necessary medical treatment and, soon afterwards, the three moved out to Italy. The little girl’s father was totally in ruin after the divorce, imprisoned as result of his actions. The girl never knew anything more about his father. Neither she tried to learn anything about him after the incident.

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Eight years have passed since then. The day I lost my eye, my home, my friends, the love of my family. No, that love was never there. Or perhaps, there was a time they really loved me, but it ended soon and I didn’t realize it. There were only lies, false smiles, false interest on me… That was the day I lost everything I thought I had. My happiness, my hopes, my dreams… Everything went black and painful when the cup of wine hit my eye, losing it forever. Since then, it has been always dark and painful. There is something as a meaning to one’s life? Did my life have one? Perhaps this walking through this gloom place is a way to understand such meaning. But again, what is the worth in knowing that meaning after being dead? All of this is pointless, as pointless as being alive in the world I lived in. At least it seems there is something I have to do here, so I guess I’ll continue through this path, towards anything that could lie at the end.