love, read, write

It's October. Two months away from winter. My skin is already peeling in keen anticipation of the bony tree branches that will adorn my window like a vignette. The draft that will seep in through the cracks and blanket over my face when I sleep. The early darkness, the late mornings.

I've already begun to prepare – a slow retraction from my friends, gradual infrequency of meals, slightly longer naps. Fewer showers. No music. No laughter.

When it feels right, even, I practice arching my back. I know it is too early. Sometimes I get ahead of myself. Some form of muffled excitement gets me antsy in the afternoon and I strip myself naked and stand bent in front of the mirror, inspecting the bony arch of my spine. The little bumps along the curve, like the triangular plates on the back of a dinosaur. I can feel them growing, protruding. Transforming me. The beginnings of a rumble start to bubble somewhere between my pelvis and gut. It feels imminent. I am about to tip over into a roar. I close my eyes and focus on that bubbling, the heat that is stewing within me, vibrating into my knees. I bend forward even more until my hair is touching the ground. The floor might crumble beneath me. I imagine my back snapping itself into the proper arch. I can't wait to dissolve into the shadows of winter.

It is hard to know how much of this desire is detectable to the human eye. People might say that I'm strange, but not much beyond that. Maybe someone will look at me funny at the grocery store if I accidentally slip into my posture while reaching for flour on the bottom shelf. Or if I show up particularly disheveled to a friend's dinner, refuse mimosas, and speak twice in total. Or my staunch refusal of greetings and small talk at work. But generally I like to think that nobody can really tell, and that by the time winter arrives, my existence will quietly exit everyone's memory, leaving just a pinhole for me to re-enter in spring. There are no good-byes given; to them, I have just taken a very long nap.

November is typically when I begin to prepare for my hibernation. This is what my mother taught me. When you get really used to it, honey, she said, it'll even be two weeks. But that comes with experience. Aim for a month. She's right, two weeks seems impossible to me right now. But I'm twenty-six. You'd think I'd at least have gotten it down to three and a half weeks by now.

(i wrote this last year and forgot that i wrote it (it is fiction))

My mother was a rather private person. This was not apparent to me as a child; I presumed that all mothers were like mine – reserved, secretive, sparing in her words. She was a ghost of a woman, floating in and out of my life, leaving only traces of her cedarwood perfume and the echoes of her heels clicking down the hallway of our apartment complex. 

Our conversations were always just short of something real. Occasionally, during dinner, she might ask, "how was your day?" and I would reply, "good," and after a pause she'd nod, "good, good." And we would spend the rest of the meal in silence. I would sit at the edge of my seat, a flower leaning in closer to the sun.

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My working theory is that it was the mirror that made me into a ghost. Emphasis on the "working" – I'm still undecided whether I would describe my state of being as ghosthood, and also on how the mirror did the ghost thing. 

In the spirit of science, I have a couple of test scenarios that I believe would help me figure out what happened.

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We were drunk and half-high on a crumbling front porch, three hours into Saturday and talking about random, unexplained mysteries that had happened to us. Unexplained disappearances, anonymous gifts, unrevealed pranksters. Jenna, losing her glasses one morning, never to find them again; Steve, who’d one morning found a fresh blueberry pie in front of his dorm room with his name on it (which he shared with his roommate); Sora, whose life suddenly started presenting her with a small rubber duckies in random places every day for a month.

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Sometimes I forget about this: for three years I grew up homeschooled in a van.

It was second to fourth grade. Lessons were taught on the road, taught by my mother as she would snap Trident peppermint gum while explaining concepts.

“You have to understand that what I’m about to tell you is putting you light years ahead of your peers,” she’d say, adjusting her scratched sunglasses. “America is first and foremost a shitty-- shit. We’re running out of gas.”

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i.

I look up from my phone (opened to the News) and realize I’m no longer alone in my room. A bonfire flashes before my eyes. It’s young one, still feeding off of fresh wood, writhing out of control. Its body occasionally extends to my toes. My room feels otherworldly with dancing shadows that sway at the same rhythm as the flames. I rub my eyes.

It reaches out from its body to beckon to me in. The edge of its flame extends five little fingers as a shy greeting and I have the strongest urge to shake its hand, as if maybe its touch will feel like a cool balm. It’s silly. I know it’ll hurt.

When I look at the fire again, it has resumed its soulless shape. I turn back to my phone and keep scrolling.


ii.

How are wildfires born? I imagine it begins like a thought: circumstance, chance, and a bit of my own fault. Wind, a poorly kept campfire, a little bit of dryness, and a single persistent piece of glowing firewood -- that's all it takes to catch the world aflame. What a determination that last piece must have, waiting patiently for the hour in which it will grow thousands of times its size. A seed waiting for the world to provide it its due glory.

But imagine once it's grown -- it would be horrible for the people. What if I woke up to a fire in my room? How helpless would I be? The heat will press against my face and my eyes would open to a looming figure at my door. Between smoke and tears I'd watch it rapidly hug the periphery of my room, seep closer and closer until I cannot breathe. All of my previous thoughts at silly little bonfire events (“How much does fire weigh?” I had wondered) will seem absurd.

How crazy that a trivial thought, given time and circumstance, will grow so quickly. Left unkempt, a seed grows overnight into an inevitable beast. A beast that teasingly dances to a music I can't hear.

If I am to die this way, maybe I will shake its hand to see how it feels.

Eddie looked off into the distance. "I don't know." She sighed. "It's always been like that."

I didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry about all that."

Several leaves danced in front of us in a colorful waltz. I shivered from the cold. I could feel the icy metal of the bench through my jeans.

"You know, my name wasn't always Eddie."

"Oh, yeah? When did you decide on Eddie?"

"No, like--"

A dog owner and his dog jogged past us. He looked pretty content about his life.

"It's just. My parents."

"Your parents? They made you call yourself Eddie?"

"No, well. I chose that name myself. Nickname, I mean." She paused. "I mean, my name is actually Edward."

"Oh," I said. "Edward."

Eddie laughed. "Yeah, I know. I don't know why they chose it either. When I was twelve, too."

"What?"

"Look," Eddie turned to me. "There's just things I can't explain. My parents weren't very... normal. I didn't know that then. I thought names weren't permanent things. I never lived in places long enough to realize that nobody changed their names every two years. I never... I never got to stay. I never got to build myself up."

I rubbed my nose because there was nothing to do, but immediately regretted it upon feeling the chilly wind bite my exposed fingers.

"I see," I said slowly.

She looked at me in a strange way. To this day I can never explain that look. It was a rare expression.

"You don't have to say that, you know." She sighed, then shrugged. We sat in silence for a bit.

"I feel--I feel like I'm saying too much--"

"No, no," I said. "It's good that you're talking. It's good. To um, build yourself up."

"Yeah." She bit her lips. "Yeah."

Silence.

"You know," she turned to me. "I think everything about who I am is... is because of my parents. Or everything about who I am not."

"They do seem like an interesting bunch," I said.

"Interesting, yeah." She smiled weakly, her eyes searching desperately around the park for something to distract herself with. It was excruciatingly calm.

"You know I had five names before Eddie? And I lived the first two years of my life without one. They refused to give one. I was named 'Baby' for two years. That was my name on my birth certificate.

"And they never let me in on the names, either. They always decided. They had all this money, from god knows where. Ellen--my mom--said she inherited a ton. And so did Phil."

"Phil's your dad?"

"Yeah. Never call them by their titles or whatever. They were never really a mom or dad to me, anyways. They were so lost and indecisive about themselves that when they had me, they couldn't bear to be decisive for the sake of this poor living soul. I inherited all of their insecurities."

"They changed your name because they were indecisive?"

"Well, I mean. They thought it was cool. That it would make me a more creative person or something. They had the connections and the money. Legal issues aren't too big of a deal if you have a lot of money and know a lot of people, you know. I grew up with everything like that.

"But I guess I also grew up with nothing."

She wiped her eyes. I didn't know what to say. So I didn't.

We stayed like that, sitting on the bench, looking out at the quiet lake. The water was calm. I felt calm, but unsettled.

"Let's go inside," I said eventually. "They might be waiting for us."

People used to tell me about the man in the moon, but I never really believed them. How could a man be in the moon? Was he the moon? Did the moon eat him? It confused me, logically, and I thought about it much too often for it to pass as a simple lie parents told to placate their children. It drove me nuts—in a benign way, of course—and eventually, I came to a conclusion, in the seclusion of my mind, the silence of my privacy: there was no man in the moon. There was a man on the moon.

It was a small theory I kept to myself—there really was no reason or way to test it out or prove these hundreds of people wrong. I didn’t want to wreak havoc in a world where there were already so many rules to be followed, lines to stay within. I accepted it as my own private truth, apart from everyone else’s. In fact, when my younger sister came along and grew old enough to talk and understand, I found myself telling her not about the truth—the man on the moon—but rather the preferred belief, the man in the moon. Those are the eyes, I would say, and the mouth. It came out of my mouth empty, and it echoed in my mind in utter silence. There was no man in the moon. I knew that.

I held to the belief religiously even after I learned about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and the fact that, actually, there really was no man in or on the moon—there was just the moon, a natural satellite, ambling around our humble planet like a silent, loyal companion. It was there for our tides, because of our gravity. The moon: another accessory to the sparkling night sky. No life, no man, no story.

But somehow, deep inside, I knew it had to be true. There had to be a man on the moon. It simply did not make sense that there was such a beautiful shape without a man to accompany it. It just had to be.

Years passed and the thoughts subsided, washed ashore and replaced by what people tended to consider as more important things. The man on the moon was much too far away to be relevant, and eventually, it was the last thought in my line of ideas; the one slumping against the wall at the very back, reading his ticket over and over again wondering when the line would shrink and his turn would come up.

For a while, I never thought his turn would come up. Too many predicaments, worries, problems arose that would cut in front of my dear friend, the thought of the man on the moon. Too many things were in the way. And as much as I’ve heard, such is the way of most people.

“Childish dreams stay in the past,” echoed my mother’s voice when I had asked her about the man on the moon at age fourteen. Childish dreams. What was childish? How could it be childish if it could be true?

But one day, an opportunity came over me that I never had before. Had never been offered to any man—and I was sure of it, because otherwise, why was nobody talking about the discovery of the man on the moon? I was the first man to experience this moment—it would be marked down in history:

I met the man on the moon.

I wasn’t too sure how it all happened, nor how it began, but I remember being there and I remember meeting him. One minute, I was driving home, thinking about dinner, and the next, there I was, floating around in nothingness, alone and empty, wondering if maybe a space debris would fly by. Occasionally, one did, but it would skitter past much too quickly for it to be significant. Or sometimes it would brush against my shoulder and I would feel sore for days afterwards. Sometimes it was a particularly important piece of space debris, and I would observe it in awe. But what hit me when I arrived at the moon was the realization that I had been floating in space for quite a long time. Much too long.

When I landed on the moon (in my space suit, of course—nobody moved around without a spacesuit), I was awed by the surface of the ground. Smooth, white, and silky, almost. Completely different than what the textbooks claimed. I sat there, perhaps for a minute, maybe an hour, or maybe a few years, but eventually I looked up because I was not alone. There was a man there.

“Hello,” he said cautiously, his lips moving a bit too slowly, as if I were watching a movie with the audio out of sync. His face was pale, his hair jet black, his clothes quite loose.

“Hello,” I echoed, then noting, “You’re not wearing a space suit.”

“I’m not,” the man agreed. Then he sat down, and I realized that there was a chair for me. I tried to sit, but my space suit was much too big.

“Why don’t you take that off?” His eyebrows raised in concern, “I’m sure it’s been very uncomfortable living like that for so long.”

For some reason, when he said that, tears washed over my face. I realized, indeed, how much unnecessary weight I had been burdening on my shoulders; how many years I had gone through trudging along, thinking I was nothing; how many millennia I had been under the impression that we were all weighed down to the Earth with nothing to do but simply speculate about men on the moon and do nothing else. I had been walking in place for too long.

I took my space suit off, then. I sighed in relief as fresh air bounced off my shoulders (was there air in space? Or perhaps it was my imagination) and I could feel myself much lighter already.

“Who are you?” I asked when I was adjusted to the chair, to the vast, gaping hole around us—black upon black upon black with a dazzling array of sparkling stars splattered across the darkness. “Are you the man on the moon?”

“Indeed I am,” he said, smiling mildly.

“You’ve been here all along?”

“All along.”

“How come people believe that there is a man in the moon and not on it?”

“It’s easier to see,” he said, lifting his shoulders barely visibly in a silent shrug.

I paused, observing his features. His hair was ivory black, a sort of black that was darker than the space around us but still somehow reassuring; his eyes were such an ambiguous shape that I could not tell whether he was from which continent—and eventually I gave up because any which way you wanted him to be, he could become; his clothes were a simple white jacket and black pants.

“Where were you when Neil Armstrong came here?” I said eventually, unable to keep in my curious questions.

“Here,” he answered simply. His eyes were milky soft, his voice smooth.

“They didn’t see you?”

“They didn’t come to see me. They came to see the man in the moon.”

“So there’s a man in the moon, too?”

He lets a long pause slip by before saying, “Maybe.”

“But there’s a man on the moon, that’s you, right?”

He pauses. Doesn’t reply.

“Maybe.”

Silence ensued, stretched out for too long until it was a thin string wrapping itself around my neck. I almost felt like I was going to stop breathing.

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” the man said, noticing my apparent struggle with breathing. I let out a sigh as the air was filled with sound once again.

“Yes,” I agreed. “A walk.”

We walked for a little, and I observed the crevices along the ground as he trudged forward. Our footsteps of careful crackles against the grainy ground decorated the silence.

At last we arrived at an edge—for apparently, there was an edge on the moon, and he sat down. Pulled out a fishing pole. Looked up at me expectantly. So I sat down beside him.

“Do you fish?” the man asked.

“Occasionally,” I replied. “With my family, sometimes. I’m not too good, though,” I said.

He nodded, silently attaching a small piece of bread to the hook. “Watch.”

As he threw the bait out, I watched the fishing line graciously dance out into the infinities of the universe. The line would never end. It went down and down and down and down until I looked down and my head hurt because I couldn’t possibly take in all of the information below us. There were no barriers—I could see straight down to infinity.

“Don’t look too far,” he said quietly, “it might hurt your eyes.”

I nodded, then looked to him. He was looking at his fishing pole.

“Do you catch fish here?”

“Fish?” he asked. He chuckled. “No, not fish.” The fishing pole began to squirm. We waited as he reeled it in, perhaps for a few years, maybe. I watched his patience.

Soon the hook appeared and I saw that there was no bread on the hook anymore.

“You didn’t catch anything,” I observed.

“No,” he said. He took something off of the hook, a faint glow. “A star.”

“That can’t be a star,” I said immediately, but something came over me, something like embarrassment or perhaps shame. “Or can it?” I added.

He didn’t reply, just cradled the light until it shone a little brighter, until it began to flicker like a shy flame.

“Some claim stars their own and attach their dreams to it,” the man said simply. He turned to me, then. Gave the star. I held it in my hands. It was lukewarm, tickling against my skin. I could feel it squirming.

“Thank you,” I said cordially. I didn’t know what to do with it.

The man watched me, observing my emotions. I felt uncomfortable with his eyes so intently fixed on me, but I chose to focus on the star. It was warm, a dull yellow, the size of two fists. It had a very faint glow, but a distinct power. We stayed like that for quite a while.

“I think it’s time for you to go now,” he said eventually, and I nodded. He was right.

“Good bye,” I said, turning to my left. But he was gone.

This is the most I can recall from my visit that day (or night, perhaps—or year). It was all too confusing—I had met the man in the moon, but then, I wasn’t so sure. It was too disjointed, everything was, too muddled in some fogged atmosphere. I woke up the following morning in a bed—my bed? A bed?—and there were people waiting for me. I was on Earth again. My heart sunk.

“You’re back!” they said in unison. Water lined their eyes.

“I’m back!” I replied. Water lined mine.

“We thought you were gone forever!”

“I met the man on the moon!”

They smiled, then. They didn’t hear me. Of course. They had never aimed for the man on the moon. They gave me tea, blankets, hugs, smiles, tears. All the while I told them about the man on the moon and they petted my hair, hugging me tight, saying, yes, yes, of course you did, of course you did, but now you’re here now, you’re safe, hush, hush, it’s okay, it’s okay. Everything’s back to normal now. I didn’t know what to say. I just sat and listened.

I looked up that night and saw the moon hanging in the night sky, full to the brim, displaying the man in the moon.

“So you met the man in the moon?” one little girl asked me, maybe seven or eight years old. Perhaps she was my younger sister from twenty years ago. Perhaps she was my daughter. Perhaps she was my granddaughter. I couldn’t tell. I was too lost in the sea of time, too unsure of where to place myself. But that didn’t change the answer.

“No,” I found myself saying softly. “There is a man on the moon. And I met him. Yesterday.”

I looked at him once and he looked at me once and then we looked at each other at the same time and he left for his train and I left for mine. I never got to say a proper good-bye.

It's that time of the year, guys! I'm here again, and I have so much to say.
I am currently attending a creative writing program at Columbia University (taking the train/subway there and back every day, talk about independence). To be quite honest, I had no idea what to expect and I was actually fearing disappointment rather than difficulty. If the class was phenomenally difficult and rigorous, I would have been rather pleased, because despite the difficulties, I would have been able to learn a lot. I was more scared, therefore, of some elementary level class on "how to write" or rather, "how to put your pencil on the paper." Thank god that I can say that Columbia's writing program is probably one of the best experiences in my writing 'career' so far. It really is.

Going to this program has definitely opened my eyes to the vastness of writing and art itself. I'm not trying to sound cliche or mushy or even advertise the program. I am being very candid right now when I say that I am extremely excited about this program. We workshop each other's work (and I must say, everybody's passion for writing is absolutely beautiful, to say the least) and sort of "conference" with each other to improve our work and debate on its topics. This is definitely helping me improve so much. So so so much, and I am so happy that I've applied and that I've been accepted into this program. It's just... an amazing experience. I know it sounds cheesy. Bear with me.

In the program, we aren't exposed to "normal" writing that I thought were the only ones in existence in the literary world. Poetry was flowery and maybe sometimes funny; prose was in paragraphs. That was as far as my knowledge went.
I had no idea about prose poetry, about Tao Lin (whose poems are amazing), about the different ways writers challenged genre distinctions--it was a whole new revolution in itself. Reading all of these bizzare genres and forms of writing opened my eyes up to a completely different side of literature. And I love it so much.

I realize that writing isn't about just words or form; it's about the meaning and the way you manipulate or break or piece back together that form and genre. I think I'm beginning to get a grasp of how vast and, just, open the world of literature is. I mean--who ever thought of writing a book of Wendys?
I'm serious. Reading so many surrealist writings and minimalist shorts has made me even more excited about writing. It has sparked a new area of interest. I'm a fan of modern art and minimalism, and I'm more than excited about the discovery of similar parallels in writing as well.

With that said, here is a short story I wrote for an assignment for class. (It's actually due tomorrow.)

Here goes.
(It's flash fiction.)

There was a cigarette in between his teeth—his perfectly aligned, white teeth.

It was summer. A starched, bleached, bland summer day. The heat was swaying the trees in a lazy rhythm. The sweat dragged down my sagged face languidly, like it still wanted to linger at home, on the couch under the heavenly fan whirring out the now-coveted cool, oh—cool breeze.

I wasn’t too sure he was there—then again I wasn’t too sure I was there. I could feel the sun’s teeth were sinking into my skin, mocking me as it slowly let my sanity ooze out of the scorching teeth marks. I wouldn’t have been surprised if somebody woke me up just then to tell me I had fainted on the way to Quick Check.

He was standing across the street. Was it a mirage? But mirages were the sorts that you saw or hallucinated because you wanted it—you desperately needed it. I did not need a boy.

It was appalling, almost, the way he dared to have white teeth with that ugly cigarette. Actually, he seemed to be mocking me—that was it. He was mocking me. He knew I was thinking exactly what I was thinking, and he was flashing those tantalizingly white teeth at me. Maybe the white teeth were a mirage. God knows I need white teeth.

Another wave of heat hit me then; the wind sort of sluggishly slopped around my face. I almost fell over from the stagnant current.

But he seemed completely unaffected by the heat, that boy, the way he was listlessly grinning. Heck, he was wearing jeans—in this weather? It was the hand-me-down sort. Folded at the cuffs. Nobody folded at the cuffs. Definitely hand-me-down.

His grin sort of reminded me of those southern boys—the sort you would never want to meddle with. But he had an uncannily handsome look about him that I couldn’t quite place; was it his eyes, or his nose, or his eyebrows? He wasn’t quite muscular or skinny or fat. He was avoiding any sort of conventional description, that sly boy.

The way he was grinning, though—it gave me no view into his personality. What was he? An arrogant rich kid? Well—definitely not rich. But what? I mean, each word was rolling through my head like some lethargic turtle on two hours of sleep. Words were not feeling invited to my brain that day.

He was looking at me, though; his eyes were definitely fixed upon me. What color were his eyes? Were they blue? Green? Brown? Hazel? Oh, I had a thing for hazel eyes—but I needed no boys. No boys.

What was it about him? Why did it strike me as oddly handsome, the way his folded-cuff hand-me-down jeans were drooping over his tennis sneakers stained brown, the way his hoodie said something that I obviously couldn’t read because of the sun and the scorching heat? (I hoped it wasn’t anything explicit; that would certainly lose my interest.)

(But I wasn’t interested in boys. No, I was not.)

I gave the crosswalk button a few more impatient punches before slowly turning to face the other side of the street.

A breeze reluctantly made its way up the scooped hill of the sizzling town, as if it were some sort of stroke of God. A breeze—warm, but at least not hot. It entered my left ear, whispering ice-cream before leaving through my right. Then it hit me.

By God, I realized, what a fool I am!

He was mocking me!

He knew I was not in need of any boys. So he had decided to be there.

Jesus Christ—that was it. He was mocking me. He knew I was avoiding any sort of emotional attachment.

Ice cream cravings perching its very heart at the freezer aisle of Quick Check soon dissolved away into the pollen decorating the next breeze. I needed not to cross this street. It was for another day. Ice cream cravings, I apologized, you’ll have to wait for later.

Just then the crosswalk sign turned the cordial white of a walking man.

So I walked right back home, leaving the cardboard cutout wavering in the breeze.

Thought I’d be the usual irresponsible person that I am and forget about posting?

Well..

HAH.

:D

I remembered!

Which is because I set a reminder on Saturdays to post on my blog, but yesterday I was all busy and stuff (not to mention I got home and just sat on the couch blankly for about five hours hurhur).

Then I remembered today about posting. Yay! Plus, today I have decided to do all of my homework and EVERYTHING possible so that tomorrow, which is President’s Day (a school holiday), I shall relax without anything bothering me (such as frantic thoughts about doing homework at 11:00 PM).

Which is actually what I plan every day before there is a school holiday. I usually end up procrastinating anyway. Oh, what’s the use. This is an era of procrastinating adolescents. What can I say.

 

Today’s writing is…

hmm.

Frustration.

(No, it’s about frustration. I’m not frustrated. Heh.)

 

“I’ll be back around four thirty!” I shout. Slam the door. Walk down the steps. Don’t even look back, no use waiting. And, of course..

The door swings open.

I don’t look back. Keep walking.

“No you won’t!”

Keep walking.

“You’re coming back on the first bus. You need to clean the house before the landlord comes!”

“You do it,” I say. Mainly to myself. Too loud. She heard.

A few curses, something hits my backpack. Slipper, probably.

Don’t even care about what the neighbors think anymore. Just keep walking.

“Have an important meeting at school! Be back around four thirty!”

I imagine a nice mother, smiling and waving, saying “Sure, honey! Have fun!” Or at least just wave and disappear behind the door.

Some curses. None that I haven’t heard.

Another hit. Other slipper, probably.

She has good aim. I chuckle. Could’ve gotten somewhere with that.

Actually, no. Not with that personality. Couldn’t have gotten anywhere, not with that personality.

. . . . . .

“Mom, I’m staying after today. I have a Green club meeting today.”

“Don’t you have the other meeting today, too? I thought you in Math club, too!” She says, in her broken English, strong accent. I’ve gotten used to that—you kind of have to. But sometimes, it’s scary. The only time she speaks in English is when it’s important. And usually, her value of importance is different from mine.

“Oh, yeah. I know.. But… The Green club meeting is more important.”

“No! No it’s not! The Green club is the small club you join for fun! Pick up trash at park for community service! Not the serious club! You need to be on math team!”

“No, but Mom—it’s really important today. We’re planning new ideas for the club! I want to be the President of the club next year!”

“Why you wanna be the president of the Green club? Why you not be the president of math team? Math team is better! You go farther!”

“Mom. There is no math team president. You just try out.”

She stares at me, indignantly.

I decide to tell her, then. “Besides! I didn’t even make it last week!”

Her eyes widen. “What!? You didn’t make it?”

“What, I’m not a math person!”

“Not the math person! Not the math person! Why you so stupit? You have to study, study hard. I came here for better life, for you, and what? You not study hard! I gave you the textbook to study! You have to work harder! What you want to do when you grow up? Be the hobo?”

“I want to be a vet!”

“You wanna help animal? Be the doctor and help human! Make more money!”

“Mom, I have to go. The bus is coming soon. And I’m just going to the Green club meeting.”

“No, go to math team! I write the letter to teacher for you. Let you try out one more time.”

I sigh, exasperated. “Mom!”

I open the door to leave, but she suddenly stops me, shoving a humongous lunch box in my face. “You forgot the lunch!”

I look at the huge bulk. “What is this?”

“It’s the good food! Help you grow stronger! Taller! Have to eat it all! Not one rice left!” And she pats me on the back while pushing me out the door.

“Have the goot day! Go to the math club!” She shows her teeth in an awkward smile, and waves half-heartedly.

I sigh.

. . . . . .

Cold outside. Sitting alone. First two seater right behind the doors. I put my head on the window to sleep, but the broom wedged between the seats and the window (probably for cleaning the bus) is poking into my arm.

Pull out the permission slip in my jacket pocket. All wrinkled. What am I gonna tell the teacher.

She won’t sign it because I have to wash the dishes for her.

She won’t sign it because she’s an insensitive human who won’t do anything herself.

She’s a parasitical idiot who I refuse to admit as my biological mother.

She won’t sign it.

She’s in the hospital?

Mind is blank. What should I say?

I really need to go this time. I really want to. Important for my career. I want to try this out.

Test if this is right for me. If this is where I’m meant to go.

. . . . . .

I’m sitting squished in between two random seniors, barely awake, when I remember. We’re getting our midterms back today! For math!

I sigh. I’m barely managing a ninety in that class. I didn’t understand two of the chapters so far, and right now, I feel really behind. A feeling of anxiety crawls up my back and bites me in the neck.

What if I get a low grade? Even an 85 will bring my grade down. What’ll Mom say?

Could I maybe ask for a retake?

But what if I do worse?

Maybe to ask for extra credit?

But he doesn’t do extra credit.

What am I going to do—I couldn’t even finish the whole test!

She’s not going to let me go to Green club anymore then.

What am I going to do?

. . . . . .

Best thing is, I have World History first period. Don’t even have time to think about any lies.

Looking through the window—door’s closed. Purple tie today, Mr. Ellis. My least favorite color.

An omen, perhaps?

Should I walk in? Then it’s more time to talk privately. More time to reveal that I can’t go.

But. Less time for excuses.

Walk in? Don’t walk in?

He sees me through the window. Dang it.

Opens the door. Smiling.

“Heeey, how’ya doing? I see you’re early today. Come in! What were you doing out there, standing awkwardly? Don’t want to be in World History more than the required time, eh?”

He laughs.

I smile. Awkwardly.

Expression changes. Probably means he remembers—

“Oh, right! So, did you think about going to the Politics Convention? You know, I think that trip is perfect for you! You’re very involved in the political area, you know. And I see that you have a lot of opinions and insight.”

I think. Think. Think think think.

Blank.

Hospital? She’s in the hopsital?

But he might call her.

Sick?

Tell him she changed her number?

Make him call my aunt?

“Are you okay?” Different expression. Worried.

“Mmm, yeah, I’m fine.”

“So what do you think? Did you get it signed? Can you go?”

Think think think. The truth?

Maybe that’s best.

The truth.

“Mr. Ellis?”

“Yes?”

“The truth is…” The truth, the truth. The truth!

“The truth is—” I can’t. No. I can’t tell. “I can’t go.”

“Oh, Amanda! Why not?”

Think think think. Why not. Why not? Why not why not why not?

Something I can’t help. Something, something…

A funeral?

“We have a funeral on that day. I’m sorry. I can’t go.”

“Oh, Amanda, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Maybe next year, right?”

“Yeah…” Look down. “Maybe next year.”

“What does your mother think about it?”

“Oh, my mother?” Think think think. So he won’t have to call her. Something, something. To make him not want or need to contact her. “She thinks it’s a great opportunity for me. She likes it.”

“Glad to hear!”

“But she’s not sure if she can afford it…” I add. Ease the excuse into it.

“Oh! Well, always remember—we have financial aid, when you need it!”

“Oh. Well—”

A kid walks in. “Good morning, Mr. Ellis.” (With a nice, cordial reply, “Good morning, Eric, I like your shirt today! Abraham Lincoln. Haven’t seen him in a while, have we?)

“Well—”

Rrrrrrrrrrrrring!

Kids pour in.

“After class, okay?” Smiles.

Smile back. Awkwardly. Sit in seat.

 

And I walk straight out right after class.

 

. . . . . .

I have math fourth period. It’s excruciating. For three periods, I am frantically looking at the clock, wondering whether I want to see my grade soon, or I want to have it an unknown number for as long as possible.

The time passes by so slowly, I’m starting to think that the school might be doing this on purpose, making the clocks slower so that all math students can feel the extreme pain of the suspense dangling in front of our eyes.

First period.

Second period.

Third period…

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrring!

I rush out the door, dash right up the stairs, nearly run into about three people, and burst into the math room.

The teacher looks up at me, surprised. The room is empty, it’s bright, the walls are white, and it’s kind of blinding me in comparison with my third period class, which is psychology, where there’s only one window and the room’s really dark. It’s quiet, except for the rustling of papers at Mr. Lindberg’s desk.

“Never seen someone so eager to get to math class early.” He chuckles.

He’s sitting at his desk, with a pile of packets. Is that our midterm? I wonder aloud.

“No, it’s your midterm preparation packets. I’m almost done grading them.”

“Are we getting them back today?” I ask.

“No, probably tomorrow, I still have a few classes left. He pats the pile that I had been looking at.

I stare, confusedly, but then I realize that he has misunderstood me.

“Are we getting the midterm test grades back today?” I word it carefully.

“Oh, the midterms? Yes. We’re going to go over the test today. You won’t get to keep it, though.”

Oh.

“How did I do?” I can’t help it. I’m dying to know.

He smiles. “Kids ask me that all the time. I have no idea, Jess. Everyone asks me that, but I always answer, ‘I don’t know, as the Grading Machine.’ It was multiple choice. I’ve only graded the open ended, and besides—I’ve graded practically 100 of them. I don’t really remember. But you’ll find out soon enough.”

I sit at my desk.

The bell rings. Kids pour into the classroom. And I’m drumming my fingers on the desk.

“Okay class,” he walks up to the front of the room as the class settles down and some announce that they “heard from so and so that we’re getting the midterms back today.”

“You’re right,” he smiles to the girl in the back. “We’re getting them back today.”

The class stirs in reaction to this.

“I’ll hand it out alphabetically.”

Great, I’m about the thirteenth person. I’m sitting, looking around, hearing people with their “Yess!”s and their “I’m so stupid!”s.

He passes by and puts the packet face down on my desk.

Face down.

What does that mean?

I lift a corner, slowly. I peek at the grade.

Eighty three.

I sigh.

I lean back and cover my eyes.

I’m screwed.

. . . . . .

My heart is only half of what it was last week. When Mr. Ellis told me about it.

I can’t go.

I can’t go this year. Not next year.

Stupid mom. Not even a mom. Doesn’t even care.

Sit down at lunch. Halfway through the day. School food. Ugh.

. . .

I’m holding my books for the classes after lunch, but for some reason, it feels heavier than ever. I’m dragging myself to lunch, and I see Manda’s sitting at the table, picking at the school food. Chicken nuggets with peas and corn. Who serves chicken nuggets with peas and corn? Ugh—I hate it.

Until I remember, I have my packed lunch. Probably has some sort of oriental medicine to drink. The ugly-tasting one, the one I hate.

I sit down.

“Hey,” I say.

She nods.

“Something wrong?” I ask.

“Nah.” She continues picking at her food. She looks a little mad. I don’t know.

I open my lunch box.

“I hate math.” I say. I hate it, I loathe it, it’s so despicably ugly.

It’s always in my way for so many things. I just can’t understand it.

. . .

“Why? Did you do bad on the midterm or something?” Still thinking about Ellis and Politics Convention, though. Could’ve changed my life—but stupid Mother had to rip it up. I’d taped it up anyway. No use, though.

I can’t go.

After all of that excitement.

Stupid mom. She doesn’t help me, she doesn’t encourage me. Just brings me down.

Doesn’t care. Doesn’t give a flying Frisbee about anything I do. As long as I’m her stupid servant.

Just keeps me from getting anywhere in life. Throws obstacles, that’s what she does.

Hates me, that’s what she does.

Just there to do the dishes and make the food.

Probably doesn’t want me here, anyway. A nuisance.

Why can’t I have a mother who cares about what I get on a test.

Or just not have a mother at all. She just brings me down.

. . .

“Ughh… I didn’t even do that bad. I got an 83. But it’s going to bring down my grade down to a B, and my mom’s going to KILL ME!”

I sigh. I can’t even imagine the look on her face. Why can’t she just encourage me for who I am? Just try to let me to in the direction that I want? Not everyone has to be a doctor!

I want some freedom, some independence to think and go in the direction that I want. I just want her to stop caring about my grades, for once. Just let me do my own thing in school. Find my own path.

. . .

“You always say that.” Kill her? Mine will. Not yours.

Already throwing slippers, throwing dishes. Making me clean them up.

Who’s the mother who’s gonna kill?

Wants me home to clean the house.

Pshh.

Clean it yourself, woman.

Making the mess yourself.

Probably won’t even let me leave the house after college.

. . .

“Yeah, because she’s such a nosy mother. Why can’t she let me be? I’m me, and she’s her! This is my life, why does she care? If I get an 83 in math, I get an 83. But I’ll just do good in biology and English and it’s all fine! I can be what I want. But she doesn’t really care about what I want, does she? She just wants me to be a freaking doctor!” I’m so overemotional right now. All of this anger towards my mom suddenly heightens. Why can’t she just let me be an independent high schooler, so I can make my own choices?

At least you can make your own choices. At least you get to go to clubs you want. At least your mom doesn’t look at every single homework grade.

. .

“At least she cares.”

What do you know about mothers who don’t care about what you want? What do you know? Have you ever been hit by a slipper? Have you ever had to skip school because you had to clean the house all day under the threatening of ripping your binders and notes?

I didn’t think so.

You have a mother who packs you lunch, who cares about your grades, who wants you to do better. And me? My mother?

“Shut up.”

. .

“Seriously? Shut up? I won’t even be able to make my own choices, because she’s just forcing me to do everything!”

Have you ever been spanked and scolded because you got a C on your test? Have you ever been grounded for leaving your homework at home? Have you ever gotten a degrading lecture about your stupidity and ignorance?

Do you know how it feels to have a mother who forces you to do things you don’t want?

. .

“Look, Jess. Your mom cares about you. She wants you to succeed. Be happy she cares.”

If only you knew.

. .

“She cares? She doesn’t care! She doesn’t care at all! She doesn’t acknowledge that I have these feelings that are depressed when she bashes on my ignorance, that I have dreams that are crushed when she forces me in other directions, that I have dreams to do and be things she won’t let me do, no, not in a thousand years!”

.

I can’t take it. Whiny Jess today.

Stand up. Go to the library.

Need some peace.

.

Fine, then. Someone’s a little moody. Leave me. Not that you’ll ever understand. You, what with pursuing your dream. Fine. Fine, then. Go.