The Porcelain Afterlife of Momoko Hara

The Gift

Haru had made her demands very clear.

The only way I was ever going to have a normal body again was to find what the Eastern council was looking for, and bring it back home. How much time it would take, I wasn't told. I was only reminded of what I could lose.

"The clock is ticking Momoko," Haru last said to me, "He won't wait forever."

I laid on my back, secured by plastic ties around my limbs and inside a flat cardboard box. A plastic film was pressed close to my nose. I was on my way to America, hidden inside a doll box.

The list of mission items flashed in my vision like a slide presentation.

First, I needed to take photos of any council documents I found. Haru only wanted documents that could be used against the Western Council. Next I needed to tap into the Council members calls. I was instructed to always record both ends of the line. And last, before I would be given any instructions on how to get home, I needed to break into the Council members emails and upload the archives to my memory.

Whichever Council member I was assigned to, I prayed they weren't very clever. If they found out who I really was and what I was doing in their home I might never get another chance at this.

It was only after my box was taped close, and my eyes could no longer shut on their own, when I realized what I had really been trained for. I had been programmed to keep eyes and senses awake until I was delivered to America. If I hadn't already done the same just days before, it would have been maddening.

So there I laid in the box. Hearing every scratch, bump and murmur outside. I thought only of all the things I would do once I was out. All the places Jaehyun and I would go once I had my new body. It was all going to be worth it.

It just had to be.

Warm thoughts of Jaehyun's soothing voice lulled me into a dream like state. Though I knew I wasn't really sleeping, it was enough to keep me lying still for so long.

After a long while, the box dropped to a loud thud on a hard surface and the plastic ties around my wrist shook. I listened to a pair of voices outside the box and watched their English words translate across my vision.

"Are you sure about this," a mans nasally voice said.

"We've already scanned the doll twice," another man with a rugged voice said, "There's nothin' in this box that's unusual okay."

"I don't know. This all just seems a bit odd to me," the first man said, "Why the hell does a doll need to talk so real for? It's just creepy, you know? Has anyone even figured out how the Japanese are making these things? That's my question."

"Listen," the other man said bluntly, "Mr. Winter didn't stutter. If we don't get this doll out of council security and to his daughter by tomorrow, it'll be our jobs."

"But what if we miss something?" the first man said, "What if there's something in these toys our scanners can't pick up on?"

"Like what?" the other man said and laughed, "Like little people watching through a hole in the plastic?"

"I don't know," the first man said and lowered his voice, "But someone could get hurt if the east finds out what the councils been up to."

"Look," the other man said as the box lifted, "It won't be blood on our hands. I'll tell you that."

The box dropped again this time into what I could only assume was a noisy truck. The engine rattled the cardboard box as it's wheels transversed over unsteady roads. Then it went quiet for a while. For so long I was able to get lost again in my thoughts until the sharp rip of paper woke me back up.

"Mommy, it's a Momoko!" a little girls voice shrieked.

With every cutting sound of paper ripping the grainy pixels of my vision began to focus.

A little girl was holding my box close to her face. She had bright sky blue eyes that stared back at me with wonder. Her round cheeks were pulled up into a wide smile that showed her little square teeth. Under a red headband was thick brown hair cut into sharp bangs.

The little girl hugged me close to her blue sweater before she moved the box to look at me from all sides. I wasn't able to move my eyes or neck but from here I could look around the room.

It was late at night. Possibly early in the morning. The warm light of the high ceiling room was lit only by the white candles in each of the windows. In the corner, a grand pine tree stood next to a staircase with sparkling glass orbs and strings of gold lights on its branches. Under the tree were dozens of colorful paper wrapped gifts.

I recognized this setting in a distant sort of way. I had seen something like this on television shows. It looked like the perfect Christmas, in the kind of home that belonged to a family with more wealth than I had ever known.

A dark haired man was slouched on a brown leather couch and wearing a white robe with striped green pajamas pants. Beside the man, a thin woman with fluffy blonde hair and orange tanned skin was adjusting her white cable knit sweater.

"You told me those Hara dolls were sold out everywhere," the woman turned to the man and crossed her arms.

"Everywhere but the factory," the man said and continued to read from a binder on his lap, "Had it shipped all the way from Japan."

The woman scoffed and uncrossed her arms.

"Thank you Daddy!" the little girl said to a man from her seat on the hardwood floor.

The man looked up from his papers to give the little girl a nod with his long chin.

I listened to the distant chimes of bells on a clock and watched the woman stare into the glowing tree. She took long sips of a dark drink from a crystal glass. Her puffy eyes fought to stay open as a boy ran from behind the couch.

"Robby!" the woman shouted through her frosted pink lips, "No more of that thing, you hear me. Play with one of your other gifts."

The young boy starred at the woman with his black eyes narrowed and his thick brows furrowed under his bowl cut. In his hand a small black tape recorder was held up to his mouth.

"Make me," the young boy said into the box as it distorted his voice deeper.

"Bob," the woman stood up from the couch and yelled at the man in a robe, "For God's sake can't you get off your ass and pay attention to your kids for one damn day."

The dark haired man stood up from the couch and left the room without another word.

"Mommy," the little girl said and stood on her pink slippers making my box in her hand shake, "Does Daddy have to work on Christmas too?"

"Yes, Olivia," the blonde woman sighed and looked towards the tree again, "Now open up the rest of your presents, before your brother opens them for you."

The little girl dropped my box to the ground and ran towards the tree. The box landed facing up under the blonde haired woman.

"Merry Christmas," the woman sneered and took another swig of the dark brown drink.