rain is falling from the sky, Ma

Giselle Chiew

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i am young and all i want to do is run, so i run, run and run into closed doors, stumble over my own tongue till ulcers bloom and frame my teeth. when Ma discovers them, she tells me to put salt on them. you have to be ready to jump, welcome the pain all at once, she warns, curling her hands into towering waves to mirror the crashing pain. what comes after? i ask, squealing and pushing her hands away. the silent aftermath forces you into stillness, Ma says, pinching the salt between her fingers. she asks, are you ready? and i open my mouth, ready to retrieve the future’s pain. in the dim light of the evening, she dances me through the hurt until it recedes into a dull throbbing. when i am older, the pain does not demand anything from me. i seal my ulcers with salt and then climb into bed, silent. 

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when i am home sick from school, Pa buckles me to the back of his bicycle and pedals us across the island. bikes us to heartland mall, all the way from central. bikes us to Teochew Mui, parks his bike by the roadside, makes sure it is in our field of view. he chooses a seat and goes next door to order, and i am left to stare at the restaurant’s signature dishes hung on the white walls. when he returns, the aunty trails after him with her big metal tray. on it, the sauces from all the dishes have spilled and diffused together. she places each dish down on the table, presenting to us a feast of chinese omelette, stir-fried broccoli and brinjal drowning in garlic sauce. later, when we are eating, he scoops broccoli into my bowl and picks out the celery from between the egg. each time, he confirms by asking me, you don't like this, right?, and i nod. we scarf down our warm watery porridge, content with the daylight streaming in through the window, the future out of our grasp. i still don't like celery now, even though Pa still believes that the taste can be acquired, even though my tongue’s cells have died and been replaced more than ten times over since my last homecoming. in my eyes, the same streets are set alight with the silent hues of vertigo and i stand there, mosquitoes drunk on the lactic acid in my calves, thirty-two degrees and still in uniform.

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for so long Jie and i chased the filtered west, thumbing the orchids winding around the garland in between the roses in an attempt to hide their purplish grins. we spent our childhood consuming television shows, laughing and speaking in accents we would never come to adopt. then came the breaking open, the growing taller year by year and peering at the world above the hedge. the roses pricked our smooth fingers, and we recoiled out of instinct. what do i do? i think it’s too late. last year we gave up our precious heritage to the sea, and there it remains, ebbing and flowing into levees and into rivers, unspoken. it slips like water through our cupped hands. we close off every sentence in self-defence, angry lah!’s punctuating the ends of them.

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i’m trying to head home now, junior college on overexposed film, strumming guitar chords in the storm of this calamity. running groggily through the days, the air greasy under my fingertips, stuck seasons away, here too damn near the equator. sometimes i remember how foolish my determination was, to steal the future’s pain. how the muffled flame was just the beginning, how the plumes of smoke followed, settled, and have never once lifted. 

 

if i can’t see my hands through this smoke, how will i forge my path? do i stay, or do i go? and if i don’t look back, how will i find my way home? rain is falling from the sky, Ma. will it only get heavier when the clouds drift? where will i find shelter? will i be left in the humid dust, or should i start running now?