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Akira’s parents were Japanese immigrants who moved to the US in the 80’s. They came to start a joint Japanese-American think tank that dealt with with the politics of Asia. The think tank’s goals ranged from improving relations between North and South Korea to the isolationism of Japanese society. Her parents were both started off their careers off in the Asia political studies department at Tokyo University. They were scholars in the time after WWII and were some of among the first Japanese thinkers to collaborate with their peers in other countries. After they had immigrated to the US, they settled in Palo Alto. In their work at Stanford, they came up with the idea of launching a think tank dedicated to the study of Asia. Akira's childhood was intensely intellectual. Her parents made sure that she achieved her full potential. This meant that she was cut off from social events with her peers in lower and middle school. Instead, her parents had her reading works by Kierkegaard on existentialism. If she attempted to make connections with other students, her parents would stop her, saying that “ friends only cause distractions.” As she progressed through middles school, she emotionally withdrew. Instead of socially engaging with her peers she read Michel Foucault's work on the panopticon. Her parents likened their parenting methodology to that of a correctional officer. This modus operandi meant that Akira had next to no personal freedom. Once she made it high school, as the Valedictorian of her 8th-grade class, her parents lessened their tight control. Even in the absence of strong parental oversight, Akira still chose to isolate herself from her peers. Her sole focus was on the academic. She pushed herself academically harder than her parents ever had in middle school. The idea of interacting with other humans terrified her, so she chose to isolate herself from the rest of humanity. With her fragile mental state, her anxiety exacerbated her other mental health issues. She slipped more and more frequently into depressed states which in turn caused her academic performance to worsen. She felt as if she were drowning.
“ I don’t think you are capable of completing your current academic track.” Akira’s academic counselor stated flatly.602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHPWQkT7SPA
“N-no I have to. There’s no other way I can make a competitive enough college application.” Akira stated 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCrddbOxAXZ
“Look, until you get your mental state under control, I’m going to bar you from all AP classes. You're not currently fit for them. Your unweighted GPA is a 3.4. And from teacher reports it looks like that might drop down to a 3.0 if you don’t turn in your outstanding assignments. Why don’t you go talk to the psychological counselor and sort out what’s going on?” 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡktILO3Khij
“I-I can't.”602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBjsKVVlQma
With that Akira left the left the academic advisor’s small dark office. She paced around the modern upscale campus of her high school. Students surrounding her were her chatting about all the incredible places that they would get to go to after high school. The places that she was too mentally weak to ever attended. The feeling of hopelessness engulfed her entire being. She thought about tracing the razor blade she stole from her mother’s shaving kit across her radial and ulnar arteries. Watching as the blood poured out of her arm. And about the sweet embrace of darkness that would end her never ending suffering. She looked up to find herself in the bathroom. With a rush, she entered the handicapped stall locking the door behind her. Without thinking she kneeled in front of the toilet. She supinated her left wrist exposing her radial and ulnar artery. She retrieved the razor she had stored in her pocket. She dug the sharpest point of the stainless steel razor blade into the middle point of her wrist. An intense pain shot through her entire left arm but Akira was past the point of care about physical pain. Akira pressed into the blade and dragged it slowly drag the blade towards her palm. Her radial and ulnar arteries spewed a river of blood that coated the toilet seat and spilled over into toilet blow and onto the floor. The tears that had flowed down her face ever since she had entered the bathroom turned into sobs. She could hear the faint murmuring of voices, but she paid them no mind as she had a task that needed to be completed. She grabbed the razor blade with her hand which continued to spew blood. The blood coated her school uniform and most of the stall’s floor. She supinated her right wrist and brutally stabbed the center. This time she quickly cut towards her palm, opening her radial and ulnar arteries in her right wrist. She slumped forward, resting face against the toilet seat covered in her blood. The voices outside the stall had grown more frantic and loud. At her vision began to dim she heard a faith thumping noise. Her vision was mostly dark as she saw a P.E. coach smash through the stall door. The last image she was left with was of the chiseled arms of P.E. coach as he lifted her limp body.
Akira slowly opens her eyes. A blinding light scorched her retina leaving a black imprint when she closed them again. Her mind seemed to be in a total state of confusions with random synapses firing in no logical order. She tentatively opened her eyes once again to get a sense of where she was. This time she could make out more details of the bright object. The word “light” popped into her head. She tried to lift her right arm to block out the light. But she found that she could not lift it more than a couple of inches. This realization was accompanied by a searing pain in her wrists. Puzzled by this pain and lack of mobility she turned her head to see the extremity in question. As turned her head she observed the rest of her surroundings. Her thoughts consolidated into a more coherent pattern. She figured out that the white squares she was currently staring at were a wall. These walls meant that she must be in some room. She turned her head exploring this new train of thought. As she rotated her head to the left, her vision was greeted by an identical looking wall. But something wasn’t quite right with the walls. The walls had a very uneven texture with what looked like seems. The words “wall padding” crossed her mind. That’s strange. Why would there be wall padding? With a sudden sense of urgency, she examined the wrists. To her growing panic, she saw a metal bracelet fastened tightly to her wrist which connected to her bed by a metal chain. She violently jerked the chain in an attempt to free her wrist. The unnoticed white bandage underneath the mental restraint had turned a reddish color. Her synapses filled with neurotransmitters all trying to activate a different portion of her brain and body at once. This caused Akira to lose all sense of corporeal reality. The last sensation she experienced before being injected with a sedative was screaming as loud as she could.
Akira’s mental state did not improve at first. After her initial regaining of consciousness, every subsequent awakening ended almost immediately with her being injected with a sedative. This cycle of waking up just to be put back to sleep lasted a couple of weeks. Eventually, the trazodone and risperidone, which she was intravenously injected with, allowed her to awaken in a placid state. She ended up being locked in the mental ward for the next two weeks to make sure her mental state remained stable.
On the first full day of Akira regaining consciousness, her parents arrived to drop off makeup work for the assignments she had missed. She paid little attention to the to the stack of papers, which her parents had made clear that they expected to be done by the next time they showed up. Instead, she spent the day blankly staring at a TV mounted in the corner of her room. After she had calmed down, she had been transferred to a regular room. Non-padded beige ones instead replaced the white padded walls. Also unlike her previous locked room, this one wasn’t devoid of all furniture and included the aforementioned TV. The only channel it showed was food network. Along the right wall, a window looked out at the brick wall across the street. The wall directly behind her housed an abstract monochromatic painting. It was a spiral turning outward till the line jerked in random directions. The line went back and forth on the spiral almost as if the artist was covering over the original spiral. The leftmost wall held the door. This was less a door and more massive piece of steel to keep any occupant of the cage inside. The wall directly in front of her was barren except for a table and chair at the foot of the bed. The table was stacked with papers her parents had dropped off.
The attending psychologist pushed the massive steel door inward revealing a beige hallway. The faint sounds of screams echoed around the hallway. Seemingly unnoticed the attending walked up to Akira’s bedside. “Excuse me you need to talk your medications” she stated flatly. Akira turned, looking at the two paper cups the middle-aged woman presented. One of the cups contained the trazodone and risperidone and the other held water. The doctor watched as she swallowed the pills and then spoke up again, “We are studying the effectiveness of taking a vocational class in the recovery processes of suicide patients. So as part of this effort next week you will be involved in a cooking class.” With that, the doctor left the room. Akira went back to intently staring at the TV in the corner. 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7mRHYYQDHZ
Akira's parents returned the next day expecting her hard at work. Instead, she was enthralled in her favorite task of blankly staring at the TV. She came to learn of the schedule of different shows that the Food Network hosted. The imagery of extravagant and exotic foods helped take away her focus from her ruined life. However, her parents launched into a lecture on how if she could not cope with the stress of her work she would never amount to anything. The pitch and decibel level of her parent,s speech exponentially rose. The informed her of how she wasn’t worth the vast sum of money they put into her education. The psychiatric ward’s security removed them from the hospital, and they were barred from ever seeing their child again. A series of therapist came through her room daily trying to elicit some recognition of all the hard times she had been through. She ignored them. All she thought about were the differents types of meals she could make and the spices and ingredients she would use. She wondered if she would be eliminated if she went on Food Network’s Worst Cook in America. As she progressed through her stay in the psych ward, she developed a list of various dishes she would make in her cooking class. 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiFQ5sHHqvq
At the start of her third week, she finally was able in to participate as a test subject in the cooking as therapy class. Akira turned her head with mild interest as the giant piece of steel that qualified as her door opened inward. Puzzled by this intrusion at an unscheduled time, Akira looked at the middle-aged woman with a quizzical expression.602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjEUtnOf4rs
“Hello Akira, I’m Lillian, the teacher of cooking as therapy class.Would you follow me, I repurposed one of the common rooms into a makeshift kitchen” Akira followed the woman through a maze of dingy beige hallways. They arrived at what could barely be described as a kitchen. It consisted of a ten-year-old electric camping stove that featured one working burner, a plastic tub of water resting on a chair as a sink, and a waist high trolley that Lillian had found in the back of a medical supply closet and now used for food preparation. 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Y66rDYdle
“ I know the kitchen situation isn't ideal, but this is the best I could do. The good news is that I grabbed the finest quality ingredients from my restaurant. Fortunately, only two patients qualify to take part in cooking as therapy, so the lack of burners won't be an issue.” Lillian total Akira. Akira, disappointed that this was all the class turned out to be, walked to the chair and removed the bucket of water. Lillian was unaffected by Akira’s lack of interest and unpacked the basket of goods she had stored underneath the trolley. She unpacked sourdough, blues cheese, gorgonzola, onions, and butter. Curious at this odd assortment of ingredients Akira refocused her attention onto Lillian. 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo6F7Tpk9cd
“Today we are going to be making one of my personal favorite comfort foods, grilled cheese. Akira, help me chop the onions, and Caitlyn coats the bottom of this pan with butter and put it over medium heat. ” Lillian gave these directions while handing a gleaming copper pan to the other, up to this point, unnoticed participant. Akira placed the tub back on the chair and walked over to Lillian’s side. As Akira walked over, she examined the other girl. She seemed to be around 17 years old with a frail figure. Lillian handed Akira the onion and showed her how to peel off the skin. Once the onion was peeled, Lillian showed Akira how to cut through the onion while keeping the onion slices in a ring shape.602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0QEuHsgraM
“Caitlyn cut four slices of the sourdough,” Lillian said handing her the bread. Akira watched as Caitlyn's atrophied arm muscles struggled to push the knife through the bread. 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEPNs0y8PDe
“Akira please watch the onions brown” Lillian instructed as she placed the sliced onions into the copper pan. Akira carried the pan over to the camping stove and placed it on top of it. The stove creaked and groaned as it bent under the weight of the copper pan. Akira gazed disinterestedly as the onions changed from a faint purple to amber. Satisfied with the state of the onions she brought the pan to the trolley. In the meantime, Caitlyn and Lillian had prepared the bread and cheese. The three of them carefully constructed two grilled cheese sandwiches. They started off with a base of thicker pieces of blue cheese. Next the place the sauteed onions finishing off with a thin layer of gorgonzola 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVtf7fnSLma
“Now carefully place the two grilled sandwiches on the pan.” Akira watched as Caitlyn placed their creation onto the still hot copper pan. After the bread had turned a golden brown, they removed the sandwiches from the stove. Caitlyn and Akira devoured their collective creation and savored its delectable bittersweetness. 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWOOt6E10Ej
Akira was not interested in using the so-called “sink” left without a word after eating her sandwich. Once back in her room she removed the small knife she had stolen from Lillian’s collection. She once again supinated her wrists and drew and line right through the center of both them. The flood of blood once again came except this time there was no one to see and stop her. She once again blankly stared at the TV in the corner of her room and bled to death. 602Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDabS9ip0IL
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