[color=gray][h3][sup][sup][i]She cried as she hugged a woman. The woman did not hug her back. 

Time passed. Still, the she stayed there, crying and hugging. She whispered to the woman sometimes, whimpering, begging that she respond, calling her Má-mah. She had to respond. Someone had to make her respond. Nothing. She went hoarse. Then silent, still weeping, but silent.

A young man’s yell echoed from the hall, breaking the silence. He asked why the front door had been left open. No response. He came into the doorway, and he stood. He was silent. Nobody acknowledged him. He turned the lights on. He pulled her back from her mother.

The flickering incandescent light-bulb revealed the woman wore a bathrobe which fell slightly ajar. She was nude underneath. Her neck was purple. Her face was darkened and contorted. It was frozen that way. Trapped in a scream. Yet she struggled to break free and return to her. 

He spoke to her. She should have understood him perfectly. He was familiar. But he felt blurry. His words escaped her. All she knew was that he was right.

She was dead.

Siâu ga nái, an old soldier’s words—a hated ancestor, probably.

Nothing to be done.

It simply is.

We can’t change things.

This is the best we can do. 

The words he said, they meant something like that. Nothing fit right. It wasn’t the same. Nothing was.

She couldn’t see Má-mah’s face. She only knew the expression. And the young man? Had he ever had a face? When she looked in the mirror, would she see a face?[/i]

She rolled over in bed with a painful groan. The sun was streaming through the curtains. There were sounds. People talking. People like her. And there was clinking. She stirred and squinted through burning eyes, looking in the direction of the clinking. Movement. It was…?

She shut her eyes. She lay breathlessly. The clinking stopped. A door’s click. The sound of stairs. She retreated into the covers. She searched the insides of her eyelids for fleeting faces, voices, and words. Names. Chunxin. Cherry. 

“Genny?” 

Different world, different words. Can’t be helped.

Genny kept her eyes closed. She nodded weakly. 

“I need you to sit up for me. I’ve got something to help you feel better.”

She shook her head. The sound of a glass and a small, hard object on wood disagreed. “You have to sit up, sweetie. We need to get you looked at.” She had no chance to agree. Clammy hands pushed her from laying down. She flopped upright and slumped forward. Fingers guided a pill into her mouth. She reflexively choked it down and flinched. “Water, honey!” She squinted forward, and gingerly grasped the ice-cold cup on offer. She drank. She handed back most of a glass. She began to fall back, pulling the comforter with her.

“I know you’re tired, sweetie, but I need you to wake up. I know it hurts. We’re going to take you to see the doctor. We just need to get you presentable and then we’ll take a cab. I’ll take care of the rest. And…we can get you some ice cream or something afterwards. Okay?”

Genny flopped over and curled up. Sunny pulled the covers back. She left and returned. Genny still laid there, grasping at sleep. A warm, wet rag touched her cheek. Genny jerked awake and squeaked. Sunny softly shushed and tutted that she’d handle it. Genny sat tense. Sunny gently wiped her face down, then her neck, then dried both. 

Genny winced repeatedly as Sunny patted thick layers of color correction and foundation onto her. From scalp to shoulders, Sunny slowly built a suffocating new skin onto the girl. Then, she wriggled an oversized, ratty sweater over the nude girl. 

Genny’s passive resistance continued. When Sunny asked her to help, she said nothing. She stayed limp. Sunny eventually stopped asking. She simply continued. Underpants and thick, dark pantyhose. A skirt. To keep things easy. 

Then she put her foot down. 

“Genny, seriously. We need to go. He’ll help you feel better. You can go back to bed when we get back. But we need to go now, or we can’t go today.”

Genny groaned. She looked pleadingly at Sunny. Sunny looked pleadingly back. They stood in a stalemate.

“I don’t want to make you. But if you make me call him here after his office closes, I’ll be busy with visitors. So you might have to help pay him yourself.”

Genny blinked. 

Sunny extended a hand. Genny took it. She rose and whimpered. 

The limp down the stairs took as long as the train that brought her to Minnenoona. She collapsed into a plush old chair as Sunny called a cab. The phone clicked, and Sunny addressed Genny again.

“Genny, dearest, the painkiller should be kicking in any minute now. Remember your posture. We can’t have you limping around like you’ve been playing football.”

Genny groaned and straightened her back. Sunny left and soon returned with a small container with holes poked in the top.

“Now, Genny, you’re going to need to keep Paczki in your lap, okay?”

Genny looked at Sunny quizzically.

“The doctor works as a vet during the day. That’s why we have Paczki. Because Paczki is the name we’re writing down, okay?”

Paczki. A Polish donut, a gerbil, and now, another name for Genny.

Genny slumped to the side in the cab while Sunny made small talk with the driver. The voices faded into babble. Just like she remembered. Before she knew it, they had arrived. Sunny rattled off a string of numbers to the driver as she undid Genny’s seatbelt. The driver—he was laughing about stepfatherhood. Of course. Flirting is an essential part of small talk. They might take you up on it, after all. Genny trudged along, seeking relief in the nearest chair.

The waiting room stank of cleaning supplies. And animals. It was a mixture foreign to Genny. Sunny knew it quite well. They didn't have to wait long. The nice lady at the desk nodded too Sunny after a few minutes in the waiting room. "The Doctor is ready, you know which office is his?" 

The door to Joe's office was open. Cracked slightly. When Sunny poked her head in, he was standing by the counter, on the phone. His face lit up when he saw hers. He held up a single finger. "... Good. That's what I needed to hear. Exactly what I've been paying those premiums for. Lovely... Okay, I've got a client waiting. I'll be expecting it by the end of the week. Goodbye." He gently hung up—his phone was one of those fancy wall-mounted pieces with the buttons. His warm gaze landed on Sunny. "Sorry Sunshine. Insurance." He rolled his eyes and gestured for her to come in. 

He didn't even glance at little Genny yet. Genny finally got a look at the room, and the man. It was cold. The lights were bright. All of the furniture was cold metal. Pale blue linoleum covered the floors and climbed half way up the walls. Two counters, one against the wall with the frosted windows over it. This counter was covered in things. Genny couldn't really make out what. The other counter, in the middle of the room was bare. Both counters went up to the doctor's waist. One of the windows had a blanket taped over it. There was a single stool, almost Genny’s height. As soon as she entered, Genny leaned onto a table, putting most of her weight on it, her eyelids hung in pain.

When Sunny was in and had shut the door he flung his arms up and pulled her in, planting a quick but enthusiastic kiss on her lips. "It's been too long! What have you brought for me today?" She returned the smile and shoulder tensing of a young star getting photographed. “Well, doctor, you know we always say to be gentle, to not roughhouse.” She spoke slowly, her eyes wandering around the room as she did. “But sometimes—” She interrupted herself, finding what she was looking for, “That’s—well—that’s not always what happens, is it, right, sweetie?” She dragged a set of steps meant to help large dogs get up on the counter over to the table. Genny scooted to the side, softly nodding, eyes slowly crawling open again.

And with that, the doctor’s gaze turned to Genny. Like Radowicz and many others before them, he wasn’t some knuckle-dragging monster. He was a well-groomed, decent-seeming, taxpaying guy. He was well dressed, in a suit and a long white overcoat. But he had huge dark circles around his eyes, and he spoke and moved with unnerving haste. And his eyes? They wandered viciously. He snatched Paczki's box from Genny and set it on the cluttered counter, he didn't bother looking inside. Nobody ever did.

Genny closed her eyes again, as Sunny coaxed her to lean in. She used wet wipes, produced from her purse, to wipe away the makeup. Genny remained stuck in a wince. “I just wanna make sure it’ll all heal up. And make it a bit more comfortable, you know? I always wish I could just take the pain away.” She gave Genny a peck on the cheek and softly rubbed her back. “He’s gotta give it all a look now, okay?” Genny nodded weakly, and began to strip, helped by Sunny. 

A cursory view of Genny revealed that her bruises from the night before had persisted and matured into dark purple marks. One of her hooded, downturned eyes had a frightening mark across it which extended along her narrow face, down her cheek, over her swollen lip, down to her chin. A little cut near her chin, and the imprint of metal just above suggested it was a belt mark. And as the coverings peeled away, a similar story played out across her thin, shivering body. Dark marks. Little cuts. 

When they finished, Sunny asked Genny to open her mouth wide. Hesitantly, with no shortage of further prompting, Genny did so. “It’s the same kinda rough downstairs. But up here, you can see it—he held way too tight.” Sunny rubbed Genny’s shoulder softly, “And I’ll have a talk with him about that when it’s a better time. But in the meantime? We’re so very proud. Genny’s going to St. Rita’s—and we wouldn’t want to spoil the moment with something negative like that.”

The Doc's eyebrows knitted in sincere concern for a moment as the makeup was wiped away. He tried to return his expression to a calm neutral position. "Oh Genny. I'm Joe; I've helped Sunny for a long while. St. Rita's eh? One of my girls went there, I'm sure you'll meet some lovely new people." The words he said to try and comfort her ironically stung in a way he would never comprehend. He glanced at her eye and turned back to his cluttered counter. 

When he faced them again he was holding a small vial of colourless liquid. The plain printed label had lots of tiny words on it. His other hand held a blunt syringe. He casually drew a dose and looked at Sunny, "Special K. I think I treated you to it a few times in the jungle." He opened his mouth wide and squirted the dose straight into his mouth. He drew another dose and offered the syringe to Sunny. "A light pick-me-up, doll." Sunny shook her head quickly. “You’re too kind; I couldn’t.” He always offered; she always refused.

He produced another larger syringe and drew a heftier dose now. "Okay Genny, this will stop it hurting while I look at you. Open wide please. It doesn't taste nice, so just swallow it, eh?" Genny hesitated, looking expectantly to Sunny, but a small nudge from Sunny made her relent. She could still feel it, even after the painkiller Sunny had given her. She just wanted it to be done. The pain. And the day.

Genny winced, swallowed, and froze. She crawled up onto the table, and sat rigid and straight, averting her eyes from the doctor’s present gaze and Sunny’s careful attempts at comfort. Blessedly soon, the tranquilizer began to work. She wavered, swaying slowly like a reed in a light breeze. She wilted bit by bit, reflexively fighting her hard-earned rest all the way. Sunny stroked her back, then her hair, trying to coax her down. Genny lazily curled away from her hand. Sunny followed her across the table. 

“Poor baby,” she remarked, “Genny’s worked real hard to get into St. Rita’s. I’d hoped she wouldn’t need stitches like I did. But we gotta get her healed up right and ready to meet her new teachers. Just glad she didn’t break her nose. She looks a bit like one of those, uh, whatcha-callem? At the museum. They’re old Japanese paintings, with the Japanese knights and all that. She looks like a princess from one of those, doesn’t she? It’d be such a shame if she got her beautiful nose broken.”

Sunny chuckled. “It’s a darn miracle mine has never gotten properly broken.” 

Joe parroted Sunny's chuckle. The wilting girl really was elegant enough to be a maiko. Once she was out cold Joe let his face break out into a grimace. Sunny spoke first.

“Alrighty then. How bad does it look, really?”

"You know how tough this life is. Poor thing." He leant over her, scanning her nude form with an examining eye. "She won't need many stitches. I'll disinfect her first. And I'm a bit worried by this:" He gently tucked Genny's hair behind her ear, revealing a vicious split in the cartilage and a swollen purple scapha. Sunny hummed sympathetically. “He was always good at keeping things hideable…” she murmured.

Joe continued. "There's a big risk of this scarring. But I can try my best to suture the skin back together. With a bit of care and some luck, we can avoid your pretty doll getting cauliflower ear." He ran his eyes over the little cuts smattered over her legs and placed a careful hand on one leg, moving them slowly apart; steeling a look of grim anticipation. He exhaled with relief. "Good. I had feared worse at first. My prognosis is she'll be right as rain well before school starts. Just make sure your 'man' learns some manners." He turned back to his counter; shaking his head and tutting. 

He washed his hands in the sink before turning around holding a pack of dentist's cotton and a big bottle of iodine. "It's a good thing she's out." He fished out a cotton ball and stained it brown with the antiseptic. He got to work swabbing her ear first, then the small cuts around her face. He got a fresh swab and disinfected the large mark on her eye, dabbing at her face with extreme care. Then he moved onto the rest of her body. He looked up at the frowning Sunny before speaking, looking at her over his glasses frames. "I know you're fine with needles, you can stay while I stitch her. But before that, the aftercare:" He turned back to his counter, putting away the bottle and swabs and rifling through his stuff as he spoke. 

"Warm water rinse, twice a day. Any of the regular signs of infection and I'll put her on antibiotics... " He paused for a moment in thought. "In fact I'll give you a prophylactic course. Some a'these fellers are filthy." He turned back to Sunny holding two paper bags, one in each hand. He held the first one out to her, it simply had "AMX" scrawled on it. "One a day until she's had them all, ten days total. After a meal, don't let her take this medication on an empty stomach, or she’ll get ulcers." 

He held the second smaller bag out, "As for pain relief, acetaminophen or some of your weaker Opies during the day. If she can't sleep at night: one of these. Never ever more." The smaller bag had "Innovar" scrawled on it. "The painkillers won't go off, if she doesn't need 'em don't use 'em. They'll knock anything smaller than an elephant out like a light." He nodded sternly as he handed them off and turned back to his counter rifling for his suture bag. Sunny nodded along seriously, offering him a grave little smile. She took the bags and tucked them in her purse. “Thank you, really.”

He peaked over his shoulder with an occupied glance, "It's nothing really hun. Girls like her don't have someone to look out for them often. I figure this makes up at least a little for all the other wretches I patch up." He turned back, he had a black leather bag, clipped shut. Like an  woman's coin purse, oversized. He slumped it on the counter next to the limp reclined girl on the steel counter. He fished about and dragged a little white fabric packet out of the bag. He handed it to Sunny and turned to the sink. "You're gonna tear the perforated top off for me, doll. And you're not gonna touch the needle, hear me?" He finished vigorously washing his hand and turned to Sunny and checked for her nod of affirmation. The corners of his mouth curled with affection as he looked at her. She tore the perforated top off and he pincered the curved suture needle with his index and his middle finger. Then he leaned over the counter, right over Genny, inspecting her ear closely. After a pause of examination he placed a well-practiced stitch on the inside of her helix, taking care to catch the skin and not the cartilage. Then he snipped the needle and remaining material; detaching it from the surgeon's knot and dropped it into a little sealed container on his counter. He passed Sunny another suture packet before washing his hands again and repeated the process on the outside of Genny's ear.

Joe looked back up and her after tossing out the needle and patted his hips, "Right. Give her ten days of good rest, that should do her a wonder. If you can bring her back for me to look at: great; if not, you should be able to cut the stitches out with a small blade you've heated white hot first... Now poor Genny must be freezing. Help me get her clothes back on her." Experienced as they were with the process, the two made quick work of it. And as they finished, Joe looked back at Sunny with a mischievous glint in his eye. "Now I don't feel right taking any money from you, hun, but I reckon we have probably at least half an hour to kill until little Genny is right enough to walk." He glanced at his office door, evidently having engaged the door bolt at some point. "How about you help me kill the time?" He winked at his fairy girl with a face that might've been repulsive if he wasn't so helpful. 

“Of course, I’d be happy to!” And with the brightness of a telephone operator, Sunny gave Joe his pick of her offerings. 

When Genny finally did come to, it didn’t take long for her to have the good sense to pretend she was still out cold. If only she could close her ears as she had her eyes.[/sup][/sup][/h3][/color]

[i]Written in collaboration with [@JFK][/i]