been thinking about something that i think gets brushed over sometimes in regards to what sabitsukis subconscious “prioritizes” in her dream world. while the important people shes lost (oreko, smile, etc) certainly weigh heavily on her mind, another object of her past that she seems to miss terribly is, well, herself.

a common theme in .flow is the fear of losing ones identity. sabitsuki has never had the chance to be a normal child and grow up in a healthy environment, which would have contributed to a normal development of identity. her idea of who she is is skewed. when you grow up in a hospital full of countless girls just like you, almost all of whom never get to grow up, who are dead and carted off before anyone bothers to get to know them - no one has a chance to figure out who they are. no one even cares. a connection to people like oreko, metal-tan, and possibly the gardener may have helped sabitsuki avoid drawing a blank in terms of self-identity.

so she is left with many hidden versions of herself as a child, either hiding in the corners of mazes, pushed away into dark hospital halls, or invisible altogether. as a child she was likely largely ignored, another patient who probably no one believed would survive. the “baby sabitsukis” we see are hidden because that is likely how she felt. that there exists a ghost of her younger self, invisible unless summoned like an animal with a whistle, is incredibly sad - though lacking the same level of dramatic presentation, its up there with the ghost oreko event. sabitsuki doesnt just miss the people who have passed out of her life. she mourns the child she never got to be, and perhaps the innocence that should have come with that youth, but that she was never allowed to keep.

drawn entirely while listening to this. i cried. its fine. im fine.