Origami

the kawasaki rose

------>>>> external link to see what a kawasaki rose looks like :)

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ONE

UNDER THE WARM comforts of her plush quilt, Sylvie squinted her eyes at the 'How to make a Kawasaki Rose' video running on her iPad. Her room was concealed in darkness, the only source of light coming from the 9 inch screen. She had informed her parents two hours ago that she was going to bed but, obviously she had lied. It was now almost eleven thirty, she saw, as she peeked atop the notifications bar on the screen.

Her hands, which were holding the square shaped piece of paper she had been folding for god knows how long, attempting to recreate the advanced flower design.

The annoyingly enthusiastic voice of the instructor on the video rang into her ears through the headphones she had on, another attempt at deceiving her parents that she was in fact, sleeping and not indulging her origami addiction.

"-and finally, all you have to do, is curl out the reversed folds. There you have it, a Kawasaki Rose! Simple as pie!" Mabel, the Cheshire cat clone said, as she brought her perfect specimen up even closer towards the camera. Show-off.

Sylvie glanced down at her work, then back up at the video. It looked nothing alike. That lady had lied, she thought. Both about the rose and the making of pie, which was most definitely not simple. Pulling off her headphones, she let out a frustrated growl, disappointed that she had wasted so much time at her attempt and had come out with something that just looked like a crumpled piece of paper.

A throat cleared loudly. Startled, Sylvie's hold tightened as a jerk reaction, even more sullying the "flower" in her hand.

"Sylvie, I thought we talked about this two nights ago. You can't keep up until the butt crack of dawn with those papier-mâché things." Her father, Jackson said, as he leaned on the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest.

Sylvie scrunched her face up at her father unamused at his mock ignorance of her favorite hobby.

"One, its origami Dad and you know it." She sat up straighter on her bed, putting aside the iPad that was in front of her. "Two, I do not recall such a discussion, what did you say? Two nights ago?" She smiled sweetly at father even though she figured he probably couldn't see her through the darkness.

Suddenly, her surroundings were swimming in a bright fluorescent light. Sylvie instinctively covered her eyes from the sudden pain.

"Ow! My eyes! You've blinded me, old man!" She exclaimed.

All her father did was chuckle as he walked towards her bed. She felt the bed dip underneath his weight, as he sat on the edge.

"Here you go," he said as he leaned over and brought out a stuffed mail packet he was holding towards her. She moved to take it from his hands, but before she could take it he quickly drew back.

"I'm serious, Sylvie. The late nights and all-nighters aren't good for you. Plus, you've got school work to worry about." he sternly stated, and layed the package on her lap.

Giving her father a quick nod she dug into the package. Her face instantly brightened at the contents. It was a package from her Aunt Midori, filled with Japanese origami paper and a few booklets on advanced designs.

It was when Sylvie was five years old, her Aunt Midori had come out to visit from her home in Nara, Japan. Midori, was her mother's best friend when they were in college, both studying Fine Arts at St. Dominic's College in California. They were sitting at a picnic table in the park just a few blocks away from home when Aunt Midori had taken out a delicate square shaped piece of paper with beautiful floral pattern embossed on it, Sylvie was captured by the beautiful simple thing. A simple thing as that delicate piece of paper. But what caught her attention even more, was when Midori started to fold the piece of paper in front of her into various strategically thought out folds presenting an exquisite flower as a result which she called Kasuduma.