Origin in Death

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Death smiled at her, and kissed her gently on the cheek. He had nice eyes. She knew they were blue, but not like the blue in her box of crayons. She was allowed to draw with them for one hour every day. She liked coloring best of all.

She could speak three languages, but she was having trouble with the Cantonese. She could draw the figures, and loved to make the lines and shapes. But it was hard for her to see them as words.

She couldn't read very well in any of the Languages, and knew the man she and her sisters called Father was concerned.

She forgot things she was supposed to remember, but he never pun­ished her—not like others did when he wasn't there. She thought of them as The Others, who helped the father teach her and care for her. But when he wasn't there, and she made a mistake, they did something that hurt her, and made her body jump.

She wasn't allowed to tell the father.

The father was always nice, just like he was now, when he sat beside her, holding her hand. It was time for another test. She and her sisters took a lot of tests, and sometimes the man she called Father got wrinkles in his forehead, or a sad look in his eyes when she couldn't do all the steps. In some of the tests he had to stick her with a needle, or hook machines to her head. She didn't like those tests very much, but she pretended she was drawing with her crayons until they were over.

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