I awake with a start in my room.

It's night. I can see Shiori sitting at the round wooden table in the next room, a combined kitchen and dining room, arranging flowers in a vase. She has on a pink sweater that I've often seen her in, and khaki pants, and she's wearing the same slippers she always wears.

I sit up, feeling muddled. “Shiori?” I say in a voice blurred with sleep.

“You're awake?”

Shiori glances over at me, and her stern profile becomes a soft, smiling face. Dimples dot her cheeks. Seeing her, I can't help laughing.

“Hey, you know what? I was just dreaming about Mr. Iwanaga,” I say. “It was an incredibly real dream—we were sleeping together. We were lying next to each other in bed, right, and we were talking about you.”

“What! Who gave you permission to bring me into your dreams?” Without looking my way, Shiori grins.

“Somehow I just can't make these look any good.” She's trying to put a huge bunch of white tulips in the glass vase on the table. But the flowers’ heads keep twirling restlessly in all directions, refusing to come together. There are still several tulips lying on the table.

“What if you just cut the stems?” I say.

“I don't know . . . doesn't that seem kind of cruel?”

Once again the desperate battle begins. I can't stand to just sit and watch her, so I get up and walk over. Since I've only now woken up my arms and legs move sluggishly, and the air in the room feels fresh.

“Here, let me try.”

I take hold of the vase, my hands brushing lightly against Shiori's white fingers. But no matter what I do, the flowers always end up spinning around to face in whatever directions they like.

“Yeah, you're right. The tops just won't stop bending.”

“Hey Terako, didn't you have a slightly taller vase? I think it was black, and a bit wider than this one?”

“Oh, that's right! Get that one, bring that! I still have it!” I say. “I think it's up toward the top of the cabinet.”

“I'll bring a chair.”

Shiori runs into the room where I've just been sleeping and comes back carrying a chair. She has a kind of proud expression on her face, a big smile. And so without thinking I say, “You're always smiling, aren't you, Shiori?”

“Where did that come from? Besides, it only seems that way because my eyes are so narrow.” Now she's standing on the chair, and I'm gazing up at her throat from below. “This one?”

I'm gazing at her hand as it opens the cabinet.

“Right, it's in that box there, the really long one.” I point at the box.

“Could you take it?” she asks.

I open the long box she's handed me and take out a large round black vase. I rinse it out, wipe it with a cloth, and pour water inside. The gurgle of the water echoes powerfully through the night.