Utena locked the door behind her. She wasn’t worried about a breakin, it was more a feeling of internal peace she craved. When the door was locked, she was in her haven. Her quiet, peaceful place of refuge. She took off her coat and hat and walked into the kitchen to make herself tea. The water, the tea, each in its orderly place, each with its own comfort of the predictable. Who was that woman today? She wasn’t a homeless person, nor a beggar...maybe she was crazy? Utena had to admit she hadn’t seemed crazy, just confused. No, not even that. Determined. And there was something about her, a conviction that almost made you believe.... Utena sat at the table, clasping her cup in her hands. The warmth of the porcelain seeped into her chilled bones, and she relaxed slightly. Wrenching her mind away from the stranger who knew her name, Utena turned her thoughts forcibly to her plans for the week. She jotted a few lists and notes on a piece of paper and sat quietly, drinking her tea, contemplating the strange event that had intruded itself into her regulated life. Her thoughts wandered, however, into the past, and she thought, as she often did, of the Aunt she hadn't seen in years, not since she had moved to Amsterdam. Once a year on her birthday, Utena received a card and a letter, but aside from a new snapshot every once in a while, her Aunt was no longer part of her life. Neither were the parents she had lost so long ago, or the husband she had left. Not one to make many friends, Utena had built a simple life, one that was predictable, regular. A unaccustomed wave of loneliness surged through Utena and she lowered her head, her eyes moist. The cup of tea was less than half full and the liquid slopped against the sides of the cup as her hands shook. The light over the table was reflected and distorted by the motion, making it hard to see the pattern on the cup's bottom. Utena focused her vision in confusion. Pattern on the cup's bottom? This cup had no pattern, this set had no decoration of any kind. She pulled her hands away as if the cup had suddenly become scalding. As the tea settled, she could clearly make out the stylized image of a rose on the bottom of the cup. Picking the cup up as though it might further metamorphose into a fanged serpent, Utena carried it into the kitchen and emptied its contents into the sink. Holding the object up, she was startled to see that the cup itself was shaped to be reminiscent of a rose. Utena stared in horrific fascination at this unfamiliar cup, into which she had poured her tea and from which she had drunk. Placing it on the counter, she threw open the cabinet with something like desperation, and found herself staring at the neatly organized rows of white, unadorned, cup-shaped tea cups, coffee cups and glasses from which she had removed this aberration only minutes before. Utena looked once more at the strange cup then, leaving it on the counter unwashed, walked to the entrance, put on her coat and hat and shoes and left the house.
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