“We’ve located the young girl… Yes, she appears to be very frightened…”
The man in black made contact with the “outside.” The girl didn’t understand. She didn’t know what they were talking about. One of them approached the girl. Her body stiffened with fear. They were going to kill her.
“Hey…” the man said.
“Kyaaaaaaa! Nooooooooo! Aaaaaaaggghhhh!”
The girl was in a panic. Her eyes lost focus and she screamed like a broken toy. Eventually, she stopped. Her mouth remained open, yet she didn’t make a sound.
“…It looks like she’s in bad shape…” Another man in black spoke up. “She’s terrified… It’s a miracle she’s even alive…”
“That’s true… but what’s with this place? It’s full of stuffed animals and toys. It’s crazy. Don’t you think it’s crazy?”
The man next to the girl sighed in response. “Are you kidding? We’re talking about a murderer here. It’s only normal that a guy like him acts crazy.”
“That’s for sure.”
“Yep.”
The man took another look around the room. The door had been solidly locked. The windows were locked from the outside as well. And the entire room was so filled with stuffed animals and toys the floor was hardly visible. It was, no matter how one looked at it, an extremely unusual sight.
Towa was simply frightened and sad. “Why, why, Daddy?” she asked herself. “Why, why? Please come and save me, Daddy.”
Towa’s father, or rather, the man pretending to be her father, was dead. Pursued by someone or something, he dashed into the street. He was hit and instantly killed by an oncoming truck.
He had been overwhelmed with paranoia and was unable to walk straight. A passing police officer called to him to watch out. Seeing the cop, the man ran. The officer gave chase.
The man was a criminal. His rap sheet listed him as a habitual thief, a killer, a kidnapper and a fugitive.
Five years ago, the man forcibly entered a house he had targeted. At the time, he had only begun the business of stealing. Things were going so laughably well he completely let his guard down.
The couple who owned the house came home while he was still there. He was caught. A struggle ensued and he inadvertently stabbed the husband in the chest. With his hands soaked in blood and panic welling up within him, he decided to stab the wife as well. But he could not bring himself to kill the other witness.
The baby’s cry brought him back to his senses. The wife had called the police before she was killed. Hearing the oncoming police sirens, the man ran, taking the baby with him.
He hadn’t intended to kill anyone. He had only wanted the money. But now he had murdered, and the blood on his hands was still warm. The baby he held also felt warm.
The man ran. He hid in a safe house, a European-style dwelling, used by the man who had taught him how to steal. He dressed himself in a suit and assumed the appearance of a salaried worker, but continued his trade as a thief.
He named the baby Towa, and raised her as his own. It was his way of atoning for his sins. But in the process, he came to love the baby very much. If he were ever to lose her, he would go mad. So he locked her up in a room and told her lies.
The baby eventually grew up. And the little girl would always see the man as her father.
“Ah, my sweet Towa. My cute little Towa. Please don’t go anywhere. This world means nothing to me without you. Without you, it would be the death of me. My loving Towa.” The man uttered these words just before he died.
The police did a background check on the man from the traffic accident. The man’s prints matched those of the suspect from a kidnapping case five years earlier. The case was finally solved.
The police had been investigating an area where the suspect was thought to be hiding out. Based on the testimonies of witnesses, they pinpointed the exact location of the house and moved in.
In this manner, they rescued the baby—now a little girl—who had been kidnapped five years ago. The girl, surrounded by toys, was terribly frightened and couldn’t even speak. Those involved in the case were saddened to tears, imagining what terrible things might have happened to the child.
But the truth was a lie, and the lie was the truth.
The little girl never let go of the rabbit doll she was clutching at the time of her discovery. She suffered extreme psychological shock and was unable to speak. The police concluded she was the victim of abuse and put her in a mental institution.
Although she couldn’t speak, as she sat on her hospital bed, she still tried very hard to communicate with the adults around her. By reading her lips, they discovered she was trying to say, “Where’s Daddy?”
Each and every day, she would look out the window at the sky. Those around her sadly assumed that she was searching for her murdered parents. Nobody had the heart to tell her that her parents were already dead.
Daddy, Towa is here… she thought. When are you coming back?
She didn’t know he would never return. And so she continued to look up at the sky. The lie was the truth, and the truth was a lie.
The little girl continued to wait for her “father” who would never come home again.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s going to happen to that girl, now that she’s been taken outside that little square room?” Daniel asked softly.
Neither Momo nor the lady shinigami knew the answer.
“A person’s end is predetermined, but their life is not,” Momo said. “There are an infinite number of roads on which a life can travel. They can lose their way, but still, in the end, they arrive at the place that was decided for them.”
Momo offered this explanation, but still, she didn’t know what fate awaited the little girl.
“Her world was a lie,” Momo continued. “But that room was her world, and to her, it was the truth. But… there are memories a person would want to erase. And there are memories that remain unknown. Though she’ll be forced to know them in time. If there are several possible fates, I wonder if there could have been a better fate for Towa?”
She had been named Towa[1] to symbolize “eternity,” but once she entered the outside world, she lost that designation.
“Well…” Daniel murmured. “If she had been left there, then her only future would have been inside that square room… Even if it was painful, at least she has a future now.”
“…Yes… that’s true… Yes…” Momo agreed.
But tears welled up in her eyes and looked ready to spill out at any moment.
“…In the end,” she said, “we couldn’t do anything for her… We couldn’t… I thought telling her the truth was the right thing to do… that’s what I thought… but is this world real for her now? Wouldn’t it have been better for her to stay where she was? What’s the right thing to do?”
Seeing Momo so dispirited, Daniel spoke to her with clarity and strength. “If we knew that,” he said, “then we’d never have to struggle. We struggle because we don’t know. And besides, we’re talking about humans! You’re trying your best, Momo. That’s why we’re here. Although you’re still a crybaby,” Daniel said, and smiled.
Momo brightened up as well. Just a little bit.
✦ ✦ ✦
ballad for innocence / momo — fin.