Ama awakes playfully

Ama stretches herself on a bed of tatami mats, sprawls her arms and legs so wide that her body, for a moment, takes a shape of a starfish. She giggles under the thin cover which tickles her nose. Then, she begins to blow into the fabric. While it doesn’t make any difference the little girl throws away the cover with one fast movement of her legs which seem to return an invisible ball. Ama breathes deeply. Then she rises a little bit on her elbows and casts a glance at blueness of fusuma, radiant from within with light penetrating from the other part of the house. Ama looks with her eyes for the painted shapes of little yellow birds inhabiting twisted branches of a camphor tree. Now, they seem to blur into sparkling oneness. The little girl smiles and sits on her legs. Unexpectedly, out of one point in fusuma’s space there seem to flow out an increasing shadow. It spills and grows into a human shape.

“Uhhhhhhhhh” the little girl holds the breath for a while. She takes a closer look and recognizes uiwata of her grandma Miko who most probably drinks her morning cup of tea. Ama sees her back but imagines how her grandma sips the golden liquid with her eyes half-opened. Two bamboo hair-sticks piercing the round, shadowy outline of Miko’s head attract little girl’s glance.

‘Miko surely wears the velvety, black, cotton crepe with a fresh lavender flower of azalea fastened to it’ Ama speaks under her nose. Then, she decides to greet her grandma, but notices a shadowy, pointed shape, round at the end, sticking out from fusuma’s edge.

‘What is that?’ Ama starts to wonder. She places her eyes on minute, arched tentacles growing out of the pointed shape. They seem to shiver gently. Ama approaches fusuma, slowly gliding over the tatami mats.

‘Who are you?’ She addresses the shadowy creature. The sound of Ama’s voice brings a change.

The pointed shape aims at her. It touches fusuma on the other side.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” Ama produces a sound of surprise witnessing transformation. A little bit higher, above the pointed nose, there ascend two triangular towers of ears – shapely and fluffy. Ama’s mind devotes itself entirely to the process of associations. A few letters whirl chaotically in her thoughts, finally composing only one word.

“K-I-T-S-U-N-E”

Ama whispers that word and hides her lips under her hands as if she said something what shouldn’t have been said. The little girl heard about the magical foxes in Miko’s stories. According to legends, they have never succeeded in acquiring a good reputation.

Now, Ama stares into the most treacherous of eyes that hide on the other side of fusuma ready to cast their spells on her. She hears the pointed nose sniffs the air filled with her sweet, lemon-grass scent.