the completely fictional story of a boy
For convenience's sake, let's call the boy, our protagonist, Mike Z.
So the story starts in 1985, on September 23, six o'clock in the afternoon. That was the day of birth, also known as the "birthday" for Mike Z. Then five years passed, and something happened between Mike's mom and dad. Dad had an affair with a white lady who was doing research in China at the time, and dad left mom. And mom was greatly upset, and in consequences, Mike was mostly neglected. But fortunately, Mike's grandparents came to the rescue, trying to comfort mom and mike at the same time. Then one day dad left with the white woman to US, and mom followed shortly after. Mike was 6 when this happened, and he barely remember his mother's leaving.
in america, dad divorced mom and married the white lady, and had a child with the white lady. naturally, mom was very angry, and dad never paid childcare money, none whatsoever. mom worked hard to try to get mike to america, so that he might have a good future. mom worked too hard, because her health was steadily going down the drain. after six years, after mom got her green card, she worked hard to try to get mike to america. she succeeded, and was happy, because she gets to see mike and her own parents, who have taken care of mike during all those years of absence. the year was 1996.
all was happy in mike's heart, because he really, really wanted to see his mom, whom he has known only before as that voice in the phone, the person in the photograph. and mike's grandparents were happy too, because they haven't seen their daughter for a long time. so mike and grandparents arrived in LA in the feburary of 1997, and all was good. then something bad happened. in an ironic twist, mom found a new job, and she bought insurance for the first time since arriving in america. she went on a routine check-up, but instead of finding nothing, the doctors found cancer cells. they found late-stage cancer, and they put mom in ICU. mike was devastated, but being only 11, he couldn't really grasp the concept of death really well yet. so he thought naively that maybe mom will get better.
but mike also missed home--China--very much, because he had his uncle, who was like his father when his real father was absent. and mike cried a lot in America, and didn't help mom's condition by crying so much. and mike also went to school, and he felt extremely frustrated because he couldn't speak english, and he encountered bullies. add this to the feeling of homesickness, you have one very, very depressed boy. mom was also feeling depressed, and they fought alot because of these volatile feelings. but the fighting eventually stopped, because mom was withering away under chemotherapy, and mike was getting more mature. but they never made up with each other.
and then in 1999, after two years, mom finally eased her suffering and started to push daisies. and up until the very end, mike never said "i am sorry" or "i love you" to his mom, something to this day that he still regrets very deeply. mike's grandparents were stuck here, because they initially only planned to stay for three months and then go back to china again. but now they are stuck here as illegal immigrants, unable to get any assistance. and they are old, and their health is deteriorating. grandfather has high blood pressure, while grandmother, well grandmother has a disease that science can't cure: sorrow. yet they found jobs, menial ones, cleaning houses, taking care of old people like themselves. mike couldn't stand it, because grandparents used to be teachers in china, and they had a really nice house with a really good pension, but now they were stuck here, doing things that they never thought they'd have to do.
so time went on, and mike went to high school, where he's faced with an all new set of pressures: college admissions, social life, grades, blah, blah, blah. meanwhile, the family labored on. how they survived mike didn't know, and still doesn't know. because by all accounts, the family should've perished a long time ago. but the human will is strong, and there's always hope, at least for mike's grandparents. they put their every last hope on mike, hoping that he'll do them proud, make their miserable lives just a little bit more meaningful. and mike, for his part, tried to fulfill this duty; nay, 'tis not an obligation but more voluntary in nature. but there's always this search for purpose in mike's life, a question of whether the things that he does is worth the effort.
well, time went on, and now it's mike's senior year. though his grandparents are trying to act normally, mike knows something is wrong. he knows what it is: that they will miss him dearly when he goes to college. especially mike's grandmother, who has become like a mother to mike, because grandmom raised him since he was born, and through all the trauma and the tragedies, grandmother always stuck through to the end. grandmother misses china, because she has a son over there, and they haven't seen each other for 8 years. but on the other hand, she will miss mike too when she goes back to china. thus she's stuck between a rock and a hard place. and mike knows it, and mike can definitely feel her grandmother's painful dilemma. and there's strain in the family, because everyone is under tremendous pressure to make things happen, and inevitably there's arguments and frustration. mike tries not to speak too much, because he's afraid that he'll say something he's gonna regret. but because grandparents' lives are so much under pressure, they have occasional strains, and those strains put mike under a tremendous burden; because the last thing that mike wants to see is a family fighting. perhaps it's the condition of their existence, perhaps the human will is not as strong as mike once thought it was. the sheer brutality of reality is sometimes burdening for mike, but he tries to make the best of it, and the best of it is often times not good enough.
and now mike questions himself: did he really overcome this whole, crazy episode in his life? he tries to act cheerful and irreverant at school; but at home, he faces the sordid reality--that he's been lying to all of his friends for such a long period of time. he doesn't know why, maybe it's a compulsive psychological need to hide behind a mask, to not let people know the sorry state that he's stuck in. thus he covers up his insecurities with jokes and swear words, trying to appear nonchalant while all of these things are constantly weighing on him. add in his neurotic and cerebral personality, and you have a bad combination of over-sensitivity and over-analyzing. and mike couldn't find anyone to tell his story, because he's afraid of emotional attachment, of anything resembling to an honest friendship because mike's ashamed, though of what he can't really tell.
and there's the future, and mike's quite alone in that future. because once his grandparents leave him, he'll be alone, because his dad ain't helping him one bit. there is no backup for mike, because he's pushed towards the cliff's edge. there's no safety net, no much-counted-on shelter, and no friends that he can count on. no, mike's alone, and he knows it. once before, mike thought that he's fully recovered, able to rationalize this insane episode, but now he's not so sure anymore, because all these emotions are starting to revive in this heart. maybe he hasn't been able to rationalize all of this, maybe he's still stuck in the pit, though in a more shallow one than before. once he was truly optimistic about the future, confident about his ability to perservere in the face of adversity, able to overcome life's every challenge. but mike realizes now that all of that is nothing but propaganda put forth by self-help groups, by the fake, painted picture of progress.
and the only thing left is waiting, waiting for what, mike doesn't really know, and perhaps he really doesn't want to know.
Perhaps some scars are just never meant to be healed.
So the story starts in 1985, on September 23, six o'clock in the afternoon. That was the day of birth, also known as the "birthday" for Mike Z. Then five years passed, and something happened between Mike's mom and dad. Dad had an affair with a white lady who was doing research in China at the time, and dad left mom. And mom was greatly upset, and in consequences, Mike was mostly neglected. But fortunately, Mike's grandparents came to the rescue, trying to comfort mom and mike at the same time. Then one day dad left with the white woman to US, and mom followed shortly after. Mike was 6 when this happened, and he barely remember his mother's leaving.
in america, dad divorced mom and married the white lady, and had a child with the white lady. naturally, mom was very angry, and dad never paid childcare money, none whatsoever. mom worked hard to try to get mike to america, so that he might have a good future. mom worked too hard, because her health was steadily going down the drain. after six years, after mom got her green card, she worked hard to try to get mike to america. she succeeded, and was happy, because she gets to see mike and her own parents, who have taken care of mike during all those years of absence. the year was 1996.
all was happy in mike's heart, because he really, really wanted to see his mom, whom he has known only before as that voice in the phone, the person in the photograph. and mike's grandparents were happy too, because they haven't seen their daughter for a long time. so mike and grandparents arrived in LA in the feburary of 1997, and all was good. then something bad happened. in an ironic twist, mom found a new job, and she bought insurance for the first time since arriving in america. she went on a routine check-up, but instead of finding nothing, the doctors found cancer cells. they found late-stage cancer, and they put mom in ICU. mike was devastated, but being only 11, he couldn't really grasp the concept of death really well yet. so he thought naively that maybe mom will get better.
but mike also missed home--China--very much, because he had his uncle, who was like his father when his real father was absent. and mike cried a lot in America, and didn't help mom's condition by crying so much. and mike also went to school, and he felt extremely frustrated because he couldn't speak english, and he encountered bullies. add this to the feeling of homesickness, you have one very, very depressed boy. mom was also feeling depressed, and they fought alot because of these volatile feelings. but the fighting eventually stopped, because mom was withering away under chemotherapy, and mike was getting more mature. but they never made up with each other.
and then in 1999, after two years, mom finally eased her suffering and started to push daisies. and up until the very end, mike never said "i am sorry" or "i love you" to his mom, something to this day that he still regrets very deeply. mike's grandparents were stuck here, because they initially only planned to stay for three months and then go back to china again. but now they are stuck here as illegal immigrants, unable to get any assistance. and they are old, and their health is deteriorating. grandfather has high blood pressure, while grandmother, well grandmother has a disease that science can't cure: sorrow. yet they found jobs, menial ones, cleaning houses, taking care of old people like themselves. mike couldn't stand it, because grandparents used to be teachers in china, and they had a really nice house with a really good pension, but now they were stuck here, doing things that they never thought they'd have to do.
so time went on, and mike went to high school, where he's faced with an all new set of pressures: college admissions, social life, grades, blah, blah, blah. meanwhile, the family labored on. how they survived mike didn't know, and still doesn't know. because by all accounts, the family should've perished a long time ago. but the human will is strong, and there's always hope, at least for mike's grandparents. they put their every last hope on mike, hoping that he'll do them proud, make their miserable lives just a little bit more meaningful. and mike, for his part, tried to fulfill this duty; nay, 'tis not an obligation but more voluntary in nature. but there's always this search for purpose in mike's life, a question of whether the things that he does is worth the effort.
well, time went on, and now it's mike's senior year. though his grandparents are trying to act normally, mike knows something is wrong. he knows what it is: that they will miss him dearly when he goes to college. especially mike's grandmother, who has become like a mother to mike, because grandmom raised him since he was born, and through all the trauma and the tragedies, grandmother always stuck through to the end. grandmother misses china, because she has a son over there, and they haven't seen each other for 8 years. but on the other hand, she will miss mike too when she goes back to china. thus she's stuck between a rock and a hard place. and mike knows it, and mike can definitely feel her grandmother's painful dilemma. and there's strain in the family, because everyone is under tremendous pressure to make things happen, and inevitably there's arguments and frustration. mike tries not to speak too much, because he's afraid that he'll say something he's gonna regret. but because grandparents' lives are so much under pressure, they have occasional strains, and those strains put mike under a tremendous burden; because the last thing that mike wants to see is a family fighting. perhaps it's the condition of their existence, perhaps the human will is not as strong as mike once thought it was. the sheer brutality of reality is sometimes burdening for mike, but he tries to make the best of it, and the best of it is often times not good enough.
and now mike questions himself: did he really overcome this whole, crazy episode in his life? he tries to act cheerful and irreverant at school; but at home, he faces the sordid reality--that he's been lying to all of his friends for such a long period of time. he doesn't know why, maybe it's a compulsive psychological need to hide behind a mask, to not let people know the sorry state that he's stuck in. thus he covers up his insecurities with jokes and swear words, trying to appear nonchalant while all of these things are constantly weighing on him. add in his neurotic and cerebral personality, and you have a bad combination of over-sensitivity and over-analyzing. and mike couldn't find anyone to tell his story, because he's afraid of emotional attachment, of anything resembling to an honest friendship because mike's ashamed, though of what he can't really tell.
and there's the future, and mike's quite alone in that future. because once his grandparents leave him, he'll be alone, because his dad ain't helping him one bit. there is no backup for mike, because he's pushed towards the cliff's edge. there's no safety net, no much-counted-on shelter, and no friends that he can count on. no, mike's alone, and he knows it. once before, mike thought that he's fully recovered, able to rationalize this insane episode, but now he's not so sure anymore, because all these emotions are starting to revive in this heart. maybe he hasn't been able to rationalize all of this, maybe he's still stuck in the pit, though in a more shallow one than before. once he was truly optimistic about the future, confident about his ability to perservere in the face of adversity, able to overcome life's every challenge. but mike realizes now that all of that is nothing but propaganda put forth by self-help groups, by the fake, painted picture of progress.
and the only thing left is waiting, waiting for what, mike doesn't really know, and perhaps he really doesn't want to know.
Perhaps some scars are just never meant to be healed.