"White Flower" by Yoichi Watanabe

I am struck with the realization that something soft, fleshy, and once pulsing with life and opening up to the sky to drink in the sun is now so stark and still and cold. The sensual turned statuesque. Warm, flowing waters that have been frozen solid. I breath in through my nose, hang my tongue out to sense the flavor of the air. Nothing fragrant or offensive. I listen and hear a silence so complete I am compelled to take a deep breath just to be sure I've not gone deaf. I see the vase's pronounced curves break out of the artificial frame, and yet am reminded by the uniform texture that the shape is flat. I conclude, too, that even the texture is an illusion, for the leaves of the flower match the vase, and the houses in the background seem cut out of the too-evenly gradated sky. There is nothing to grab on to, no real coarseness to run my fingers over. I feel I am in a place where vision is the only sense. I am a pair of floating eyes. Floating eyes delighted by an elegant centerpiece.