Posted by: Shelly on: July 13, 2007
It had been four months since the boy was able to last spot his father on any of the local news channels, no matter how long he sat in front of the television and no matter how many times he clicked his remote. Although it was supposed to be a relief, he could not stop his heart from aching nor could he keep his mind from wishing to see his father again.
That morning was yet another regular morning, where whatever sunlight that could fight through the thick clouds of pollution shone into the high glass windows of the mansion. The boy opted to eat his breakfast in his room yet again, as he had done since his inception into his new family. But like he had done since his arrival, he had poured his soymilk down the drain, flushed his congee down the toilet and thrown his toast out the window for the flocks of pigeons to eat instead.
From his room window, he could see his adoptive father strolling down the walkway from their grand front porch, all the way down to his newly bought Lexus, which was parked next to his 3-month old Ferrari — both sitting comfortably next to the empty space that was meant for the Hummer that would arrive from special order next week. The boy eyed the middle-aged man with disgust and all but spit down at the man from his position on the window sill.
The man was plump, so plump that the boy figured he would soon return to his tailor for a new fitting of business suits, suits that would be capable of snugly holding his bulging belly and thick thighs without bursting. Previously, the boy had considered telling his adoptive father to get a hat while he was at it, to hide his receding hairline, but chose not to waste his saliva on such an eyesore. The boy turned away in disgust as the man looked down at the golden Rolex watch on his left wrist and grinned that disgraceful wide grin of his — the one that turned his double-chin into a triple-chin and buried his small, squinty eyes into layers of facial blubber. Without having to look back don, the boy knew that the wild-boar of a monkey was now waving his sausage-like hands at him. When the boy threw the last piece of bread out the window and turned to leave, he assumed the pig thought that he had waved back when he heard the rumble of the car engine.
The boy walked out of his room calmly, knowing quite well the route he had to take in order to avoid everyone else in this family that, to him, was all too giddy and all too oblivious of everyone else who was not rich, and even some of those who “were not rich enough”. He already knew that far on the west-wing was his so-called older brother, the one that was 20-something years old and, while infested with STDs, was not dead. The boy heard the main door shut and instantly knew, that it must have been his not-so-loving sister. The boy rolled his eyes and continued to shuffle along his way, pretending he had never seen that hopeful expression on her pig-like face — an expression that told him she was off to another audition. Last year, he had considered telling her that all the record companies and labels in China had her on their blacklists, but instead opted to tell her that she needed to lose about 20lbs and fly to South Korea to get some breasts and perhaps a new face. Maybe one like natural beauty Lee Young Ae. That did not go down very well and he hadn’t spoken a word to her since then, much to his pleasure and joy.
The boy all but vomited when he heard the wailing of his adoptive mother. He had once considered asking whether she was half banshee, but had decided to keep his mouth shut because he felt sorry that this year, she would be 23 years older than the age she insisted on telling everyone else. He did not understand this woman at all, no not at all. The boy often wondered which parts of her witch-like face were real — and which she had picked up off he surgery table. Soon, he would know, because she seemed to sag more each day, more so than a regular woman of her age. The boy always kept a Polaroid camera at hand in order to take snapshots of the parts that would pop off once her layers of make-up lost its ability to hold her face in place any longer.
The boy did not try to look at her, and avoided her at all costs for fear of her disgusting habit of trying to hug him. He feared her rail thin, wrinkly body that was splattered with moles that could have only been signs of skin cancer. He could tell that she too had once been a thick-woman, from the left-over sagging waves of fat that hung loosely around her bones. The boy liked to take guesses at when she would die from all the slimming pills she took each day. He did not hate this woman as much as he did the rest of them though — he found it quite amusing to seek out her faults day-by-day. In fact, he even began to keep a calendar that kept track of each new defect he found. He was sure that by the next week, he would have enough to put her in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Without a word, he sat himself back down in the exact same spot on the couch he sat in every day and turned on the television once again. He ignored the maids dusting the $2,000 vases and their warnings against the Mistress, because he knew that his adoptive mother was still too busy wailing three stories above and ten rooms to the left of where he sat. Taking a deep breath, the boy began to surf through the thousands of channels that their cable offered, ignoring those in languages he could not understand and filtered out anything that was not local news.
The boy sunk deep into the groove he had created after four years of sitting for hours in the same spot of the same couch. The only piece of of furniture in the house that his adoptive family did not change each year, because he heard it had come from his adoptive grandfather — a man who the boy thought would cry had he seen his pig of a son today.
Suddenly, the television screen went blank and an emergency alert signal rang throughout the surround-sound speakers of the spacious living room. The red words ‘EMERGENCY ALERT’ scrolled in the marquee across the top of the screen and yet again, Miss Zhang’s image popped up in a corner of the television while the rest of the screen was covered in what could only be smoke and acid rain. On the television, the boy could see that the lens of the cameras were smudged with dirt and speckled with rain. The boy forgot to continue breathing after letting out his last breath.
Through the thick layer of smoke and blurred videos the dirty-cameras provided, the boy could recognize the area immediately. From the outline of the terrain against the sky down to the smallest pebble in the dirt, the boy could recognize it all. It was a coal mine, a coal mine where his father had worked for 26 years, now covered in massive flames that threatened to burn a hole in the sky itself.
‘This is an emergency alert from CCTV,‘ Miss Zhang’s voice read monotonously from her report. ‘There has been a major gas explosion in one of the mines in Zuoyun County of Shanxi. The cause of the explosion has yet to be determined, no commentary is available.‘
The coal mine his adoptive father owned.
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