06:20
It’s Monday morning. I woke up, checked my phone, got dressed, and walked out of my room. Mom was having breakfast at the table. She looked up. “Why are you up so early today?”, sounding confused. “I’m going to Grandma’s.” Dad appeared behind me. “I’ll take you there,” he said.
About 20 years ago, I had to get up early every Monday morning during the summer vacation. Dad would drive me to my grandparents’ house, where I would spend five days. I was too young to stay at home alone, so the responsibility of looking after me was passed on to my grandparents. In my memory, there are Monday mornings when my eyes filled with tears as I said goodbye to my mom and dad. Then, when dad came to pick me up on Friday evenings, my eyes would fill with tears again—this time as I said goodbye to my grandparents.
Around 08:30, I would arrive. Usually, grandma would take me straight to the nearby market. I am always allowed to choose whatever I wanted to eat that day. Along the way, I would see the “grandmas” and “grandpas.” — the people who living in this neighborhood. They were, on average, almost fifty years older than me, around the same age as my grandparents. They had known me since I was born. So from an early age, I was taught, “When you see them, greet them first.” “Call all of them grandma and grandpa.”
Then after greeting, the most common things I heard were: “Look how much you’ve grown! You’re so tall now.” “You look so much like your mom!”. Just like now, when I hear these words from one of the grandmas in front of me, it feels unreal, as if I were picking up a piece of memory from somewhere in my mind. Yet when I was younger, I never really knew how to respond to these kinds of conversations. So I would just smile.
At some point, without realizing, it already became a skill of mine. Whenever there is something I don’t want to explain, a question I don’t want to answer, a circle I don’t want to join, or simply a situation I don’t know how to deal with, I smile. So from childhood until now, I have received roughly the same comment: “Still so shy. You don’t talk much.”
Yes.
Half true.
Most of the time, people sat in the courtyard, talking or doing something to pass the time. There were no kids around my age, so I had to play by myself—and I was naturally, or perhaps through practice, pretty good at it. I would take the toys I brought from home and spend hours playing with them, destroying grass, plants, and flowers, or crouching on the ground, observing and bullying ants. People were always talking around me. I never knew what they were talking about, and I was never curious. Only sometimes, I would show them my great works, proudly.
But not today.
The little playground of mine was demolished by the authorities because the facilities had become old and worn out, and was replaced with a concrete path. There was no trace of the flowers or plants anymore. And, sadly, maybe I wasn’t interested in them anymore either. Yet more importantly, my “grandpas” and “grandmas” who used to be here were gone, too. Like those old, worn-out facilities, they had been declared obsolete and abandoned by some even more mysterious “authorities”—at the time, I didn’t know this. I only learned it later.
Things couldn’t be exactly the same as before.
Last year.
Last month.
Last week.
Couple days ago?
Yesterday.
This afternoon.
Half an hour?
No—
one second!
Alright so I stayed inside, opened my computer—using adult toys and playing adult games—finished my work.
My grandma sat beside me, as always. It felt like I was still the kid who was supposed to stay within her sight. But she was looking at her phone and iPad every now and then. Yes. In my memory, there were no screens in my childhood. So what is interesting? What is boring?
Sometimes I felt my grandma’s eyes on me, but she never said much. Suddenly, I felt responsible for talking to her. So now I know she:
- Goes to bed very early, usually lying down around eight every night, and gets up around four or five the next morning.
- Is very sensitive to the cold, needs thermal pants in the mornings and evenings. Now it’s early August.
- Has six more rounds of chemotherapy to go and should be able to finish by December this year. The medication being used now isn’t as painful; the only real side effect is hair loss. So I wanted to remember at that time, her white, thinning hair, now in her eighties.
- Has her next hospital visit next week, by which time I’ll already be back in Tokyo.
- Doesn’t like watching TV because it’s too noisy.
- Doesn’t really like eating either. As long as she isn’t hungry, that’s enough.
- Lives with my uncle, but he’s very busy with work—leaves early in the morning and comes home late at night.
- Refuses to live with my mom as well, even though life there would probably be easier.
- So most of the time, alone.
- In a little room.
- Her home.
- In the neighborhood with fewer and fewer people.
- But on days when the weather is good, she still sits outside, talking with people who pass by every now and then.
- Would rather sit outside late than go back home.
- Only goes back when it’s time to sleep.
Sometimes she asked me as well:
“Is Tokyo hot?”
“Is life tiring?”
“Do you hang out with your friends?”
“Do you cook for yourself?”
“Do you eat enough every day?”
“Stop eating so much greasy food outside.”
“You’re so thin.”
“When will you come back next time?”
“So, winter?”
“Which month?”
“How long are you gonna stay?”
“Every time is too short.”
“I only get to see you once or twice.”
“Couldn’t you stay longer?”
Yet during these conversations, my attention passively settles on the iPad in front of her, where she was playing Tetris. No strategy, no goals, no concern for the outcome. So she moves the pieces around almost randomly—so the game ends quickly. One round lasts about three minutes. Then she puts the iPad down. Five minutes later, she picks it up again. Then repeats the cycle.
She usually keeps the game muted, leaving the entire room in near silence. From time to time, I hear a bicycle passing outside, birds calling, or the distant stir of people—but it is barely perceptible. Looking at the scene before me, I see my brain copying and multiplying it across countless days and nights. For a brief moment, I feel like I want to scream.
That evening, she sent me to the bus station. Of all the farewells I have lived through, what I fear most—and what I most want to see—is the other person’s eyes. Through the thin, uncontrollable film of water suddenly spreading across my own eyes, sometimes I can see, through the blur, what seems to be the same thing gathering in theirs.
But as I’ve grown older, I’ve gradually come to realize that perhaps this film of water is only something inherited—a kind of disguise, a ritual of mine. In these moments of seemingly tender intimacy, I can see my own selfishness and cruelty—I don’t truly want to stay.
The closest way I can describe this extremely complicated feeling is : suddenly, I don't know what any of this is for.
I don't know what any of this is for.
I only smiled, “See you in winter. It’ll be soon.”
And then I got on the bus, just as I have repeated this scene many times in my memory.
But this time, I am going to see a friend.
We have known each other for almost as many years as we have been alive.
The day after I return to Tokyo is gonna be her wedding.
She tells me that the little baby inside her is two months old already, due next March. Maybe will even be an Aries, like me.
Facing the life that is not yet visible, her, and the man standing beside her who will soon officially become her husband.
I smiled.
“See you in winter. It’ll be soon.”
LIU
