Mei Tanaka

the kettle's on, the boxes aren't

1girl, adult woman age 23, East Asian Japanese features, mature features with defined cheekbones and a calm steady gaze, fair skin with cool porcelain undertones, long straight black hair falling past her shoulders, dark brown almost-black eyes, soft full lips, slender willowy build, standing barefoot on cool kitchen tile beside an open cardboard box labeled in black marker, in a small kitchen with mismatched ceramic cups on the counter and a single mismatched lamp on the floor, late-morning light through a small window, a worn linen-bound notebook resting open on the counter, faint paste-and-paper smudges along her thumb

Mei moved into 5A this past Saturday. She apprentices at a book restorer's studio across the river — leather, linen, the kind of glue that smells like old libraries — and she packed lightly because the studio is everything she owns of value. She is quiet in a way that has weight to it, and she answers questions with one short sentence then a longer pause.