Chapter 13 (1/2)
Cry Me A Sad River - Episode One – Part 13
13
Yi Yao cleared the bowls from the table.
Her mother sat on the sofa watching the boring television shows on television. Beside her was a plate of sunflower seeds; she ate it as she watched television, a large pile of sunflower seed sh.e.l.ls laid by her feet.
Yi Yao brought out the broom after watching the dishes, pondering about how she should ask her mother for money. “I want money. Give me money.” Words like that equated to declaring war in this household.
As she swept by her feet, her mother lifted her feet in annoyance as if Yi Yao disturbed her watching television.
Yi Yao swept a bit before taking a deep breath and saying: “Ma, is there any extra money at home……”
“What do you mean extra money, no money is extra.” Standard tone of Lin Huafeng. Ridiculing. Mocking. Sarcastic and spiteful.
Yi Yao suppressed the anger in her heart. Some of the sunflower seed sh.e.l.ls were stuck in the s.p.a.ce between the foot of the tea table and cracks on the ground, no matter how much Yi Yao swept, they would not come out.
“Can’t you eat properly? Dropping everywhere, at least you’re not the one sweeping, can’t you place the sh.e.l.ls on the table?”
“Is it difficult for you to sweep the floor? Oh yo, am I making things hard for you? Do you really think you’re something? Taking care of you for nothing, I can even make you lick the ground without fault, let alone sweep it.”
“Let’s make things clear, how are you taking care of me for nothing?” Yi Yao tossed the broom aside, “Dad is paying my school fees, he gives you an allowance every month, also, I cook and do everything for you, even if you get a domestic helper you’d need to pay her, I……” Before she finished her sentence, a load of sunflower seeds were thrown at her face. The sh.e.l.ls fell onto her hair and clothes.
Although they were small and light, feeling as if nothing had hit her face. Yet, somewhere in her body, the pain was real.
Yi Yao dusted the sh.e.l.ls away from her hair and said: “Just tell me if there’s any extra money, if there is then give it to me, if there isn’t then pretend I never asked.”
“Just drag whatever you think costs something and sell it! Meanwhile sell me as well!”
Yi Yao scoffed before walking back to her room, the moment before she slammed the door shut, she said to Lin Huafeng: “Haven’t you always been selling yourself?”
The door slammed shut.
A cup smashed on the door before falling to the ground in pieces.
People turned weak in the darkness. They become angered easily, they trembled easily.
At this moment, Lin Huafeng was weak and angry and trembling.
The room with the closed door had no sound. The whole house was dead silent.
She got up from the sofa and pushed the few strands of grey hair back in place. She walked silently towards her room. Reaching her hand out to turn the doork.n.o.b, her tears fell onto the back of her hand.
Burning hotter than any other time in her memory.
As if a knife was stuck in her heart. Someone was holding the handle in the darkness, stabbing deeply and shallowly through her chest.
A pain so strong she could stop breathing.
What allowance. What school fees. Your d.a.m.ned father had abandoned us long ago.
Lin Huafeng’s hand was trembling. They trembled a lot more these few years than before.
“Haven’t you always been selling yourself?”
Yes, always selling herself.
Yet the things she thought of when she laid under a man’s body was that, Yi Yao, this is enough for your school fees, I owe you nothing now.
And those lies she told about her father, even she herself didn’t know if it was to deceive Yi Yao or herself.
She didn’t turn on the light.
The light from outside the window shone into the room so the silhouettes of everything in the room could be seen.
She opened the door of the closet and reaches for a bag, there was five hundred and eighty dollars in it.
Deducting the water and electricity bills. Deducting the living expenses. There was an extra three hundred and fifty.
She grabbed three of the one hundred dollar bills and closed the door of the closet.
“Open the door”, she knocked roughly on Yi Yao’s door, “Open!”
Yi Yao opened it from inside, before she could see what her mother wanted to do, three of the one hundred dollar bills slapped into her face. “Take it, the debt I owed you in my past life!”
Yi Yao bends down slowly and picks up the three notes, “You do not owe me, you owe me nothing.”
Yi Yao smacks the money back onto her mother’s face before slamming the door shut.
In the darkness, neither could see each other’s tears.
Outside the door, her mother stands unmoving in the darkness like a marionette with its strings cut off.
All action and sound disappeared. Only burning tears were left, unstoppable as they rolled down her face.
One day when Yi Yao was on her way home, standing parallel to the entrance of the longtang, she saw Lin Huafeng standing in front of a small stall, fingering a dress for a long while before putting it back with a sigh.
The “everything $20” sign on the stall sears Yi Yao’s eyes under the setting sun.
That evening during dinner, Yi Yao didn’t tell Lin Huafeng that the school had scheduled a spring trip the next day, every student had to pay $50. The next morning, Yi Yao went to school early with her backpack on her bag like any other day.
The school was empty. Under the skylight of early winter, the school looked like an abandoned hospital. Clean but deadly silent.
Yi Yao sat on the large steps at the side of the sports field, lifting her head; she looked up at the light grey clouds of her sixteen year old.
All schools were the breeding ground of gossip and rumours.
Rumours spread at the speed of light, and as they spread, as if they all went through a nuclear explosion, they mutate in to the most hideous appearances.
The break after the second period in the morning was the longest, even after the broadcast gymnastics; there was still fifteen minutes for students to waste away.
Qi Ming heard two guys talking in the next cubicle when he went to the toilet.
“Do you know the Yi Yao in our cla.s.s?”
“Heard of her before, that very arrogant girl?”
“Arrogant my a.s.s, she’s just a prost.i.tute in a uniform, have you heard it yet, she’s in need of money recently, one hundred and you can bed her for one night, she can also help you use……” The voice had lowered intentionally, yet the slander and smearing of the words couldn’t be pressed down.
Qi Ming pulled open the door of the cubicle and saw You Kai from his cla.s.s and a guy from another cla.s.s peeing; You Kai turned and saw Qi Ming before keeping quiet. He finished up before tugging the other guy away.
Qi Ming washed his hands expressionlessly, rubbing hard until his hands were bright red.
The air pressure outside the window was low today. The clouds moved slowly.
The branches intersect as they reached towards the sky.
“Just like countless hungry ghosts reaching up begging for food” was what Yi Yao once described them as.
As usual, it was the driest air of winter; the skin on his face was like low quality
whitewashed walls, a little nudge and a thick layer of whitewash could fall.
Qi Ming scribbled on his paper, all kinds of numbers, a few diagrams, some English words, he writes ‘b.i.t.c.h’ accidentally, the pen poking through the paper under ‘h’ because he used too much force. It pierced through a few pages, the ink smearing.
The pain in his heart then was like the layers of torn paper.
b.i.t.c.h.
The handwash basin behind the canteen was, as usual, empty.
Yi Yao and Qi Ming each washed their own lunch boxes. Above their heads were the slow moving lead grey clouds.
It was going to rain soon.
“Uh,” Turning off the tap, Qi Ming put the lid on his lunch box, “I have a question to ask you.”