Ten in Japanese is considered a good number because its pronunciation sounds like the English word for “Enough.” The body was not enough however, to help a mother clutching her daughter’s cold corpse. Eternal Ten emerges as an artefact of Ayakamay’s earliest existential experiences at the age of 10 following a series of emotionally disruptive events. It stands as an emblem for the moment when one loses their virginity with the belief that it will liberate them from corporeal pain, for by performing this act of sex one has now credibly passed through a proverbial doorway into a new existence of adulthood, leaving the past behind like the lifeless and cold body of Ayakamay’s younger sister in her screaming mother’s arms. What good was the body to her when it could do nothing to assist her mother, but if it became a feeling, a place where one found eternal comfort, then that would liberate the pain of the body.
As such Eternal Ten forms the simulacrum for that moment of epiphany which could be seen as the proverbial birth of Ayakamay and her art. It is in essence a prequel of sorts, like a short film that sets up future plots and undermines preconceived notions.
