heaven
He must be about six or seven years old. Bowl haircut, skinny joints, and bright, eager eyes; a typical Chinese-boy face. They were a typical Chinese family, from what I could see anyway: a father with a horseshoe pate and wire-rimmed glasses, a youngish-looking mother wearing a pink headband, and a squirmy, fidgety worm of a boy. The bunk-beds on sleeper buses were really comfortable, because they were mini pods suspended in midair, but that hindered one's vision of other people. I could barely see F, who was in the seat below mine. I had to lean all the way over my creaky right hip, stretch out to my fingertips, just to brush the right-angle of her shoulder. Even then, I would see a inverted image of her face: chin first, then nose, eyes, and the rest of it. But the little boy's voice floated over, whole and full and pure as crystal. He spoke in Mandarin, and enunciated each word clearly, as if he had learned those phrases recently and were turning them over, poking and prodding, with the crest of his tongue. His mother hummed along genially, punctuating her cooing by asking if he wanted any more oranges. He refused noisily- I saw a violent shake of a black mop above the curvature of headboards- and yawned defiantly into her ears. His father cut in quickly and darkly, chiding that he cannot behave that way, and the tense moment congealed into a sullen nod, before the boy segued abruptly into another topic, as loudly as he had begun.
It was a language familiar to me, and its homeliness was heightened by the unresponsiveness of the foreign environment. They neither expected to be heard, nor understood. In a land of conical straw-hats, motorbike orchestras and alphabetized roadside signs, what was common and everyday was now a secret language that only they share. They could speak like royalty or peasants, and nobody would seize them up with another glance. But they spoke unassumingly. They talked about the weather, cool and grey. The mother pointed out rice fields in the distance and the boy recited back the unfamiliar word. 稻米田, 稻米田, 稻米田. He wondered aloud, every five minutes, how much time was left on the journey. The father scratched his thinning crown and asked his wife for a bottle of water. It was a simple to-and-fro, a dialogue that was read aloud like open letters that would go unrecognized and unanswered. They were safe in the knowledge of being unknowable, of being anonymous, of being unremarkable.
But I understood them. Not perfectly, but well enough. I had nothing else to do. Sleep appeared to be a waste of daytime, and I was too restless to concentrate on a book. Their voices washed over me, murmurs that sprawled and cascaded. It was comfortable and amniotic, like a gentle womb of sound. Familial love is the easiest thing. I heard it in the little boy's proclamations. He was babbling about heaven at one point. 天堂. The excitement raced through the air and doubled back to pulsate through the bones of his words. He clambered onto his feet and bounced impatiently on the bed, setting off a chain vibration and an instant scowling rebuke from his mother. He was talking about when he grows up, his grandmother would be in heaven, and eventually, he would be there too. Along with flowers, hula hoops, and his by-then very-dead pet dog. It was a childlike understanding of the world. One grows up, one dies, one goes to heaven. His parents asked, "Where would we be then, when you grow up?". In a matter-of-fact tone, as if he thought them to be rather dull, he asserted, "In heaven, of course. When you die, you will enter the gates." He continued animatedly, describing the limitless reaches of the paradise, what they would be able to do there, who might they see (everyone they had ever loved), and how sunlight remains warm even though it might be eleven in the night. They laughed, lightly, but with a muted wistfulness. A six year-old boy was talking cheerily about heaven; what did he know? He knows a lot, he knows enough. He knows that eventually, when he becomes big and all grown up, his parents would not be around anymore. They will go somewhere far away where he cannot see, where he can only imagine the greatest things happening to them kind and lovely beings, beams unfolding across the faces that he had loved so much and yet, had slowly begun to forget. Did his father wear tortoise-shell or horn-rimmed glasses? Did Mother have a dimple that appeared whether or not she was smiling? Didn't they go on a family vacation to Vietnam when he was very little, which was a lot of fun because he pretended that he was on the Knight Bus, like his favourite scene in that old Harry Potter movie? He knew, probably on a subconscious level, of what it was all going to mean, but not then. At that moment, he was rambling spiritedly about angels and candy houses atop pillowy clouds. His parents were quiet, but bobbed their heads along, following the heartbeat of his jaunty tale. They smiled as they listened to the wondrous mind of their little baby: accepting, proud, and above all, adoring.
One day, he will go too. But he will find them, and that much is for sure.
About ten minutes later, the little boy begged and pouted away for the iPad. His small hands held the device naturally. Swiping to the right, flicking to the top, his fingers swirled across the screen. His mother leaned over, and pressed on a button. It was one of those joke applications, which made one's pitch much higher than usual. She spoke into the microphone of the iPad and giggled. The cat mascot on the page parroted what she said perfectly, in a helium voice. His eyes grew large as saucers as he grabbed it back clumsily. Curling his lip, he deliberated on what phrases to attempt. His mother chuckled and told him anything would be fine. "Hi, hi, hi. Who are you?" the words came out in a breathless rush. The cat mascot imitated it perfectly once again, complete with scrunched expressions and a paw wave. He laughed and laughed and laughed, as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Oh, I could have teared up.
It was a language familiar to me, and its homeliness was heightened by the unresponsiveness of the foreign environment. They neither expected to be heard, nor understood. In a land of conical straw-hats, motorbike orchestras and alphabetized roadside signs, what was common and everyday was now a secret language that only they share. They could speak like royalty or peasants, and nobody would seize them up with another glance. But they spoke unassumingly. They talked about the weather, cool and grey. The mother pointed out rice fields in the distance and the boy recited back the unfamiliar word. 稻米田, 稻米田, 稻米田. He wondered aloud, every five minutes, how much time was left on the journey. The father scratched his thinning crown and asked his wife for a bottle of water. It was a simple to-and-fro, a dialogue that was read aloud like open letters that would go unrecognized and unanswered. They were safe in the knowledge of being unknowable, of being anonymous, of being unremarkable.
But I understood them. Not perfectly, but well enough. I had nothing else to do. Sleep appeared to be a waste of daytime, and I was too restless to concentrate on a book. Their voices washed over me, murmurs that sprawled and cascaded. It was comfortable and amniotic, like a gentle womb of sound. Familial love is the easiest thing. I heard it in the little boy's proclamations. He was babbling about heaven at one point. 天堂. The excitement raced through the air and doubled back to pulsate through the bones of his words. He clambered onto his feet and bounced impatiently on the bed, setting off a chain vibration and an instant scowling rebuke from his mother. He was talking about when he grows up, his grandmother would be in heaven, and eventually, he would be there too. Along with flowers, hula hoops, and his by-then very-dead pet dog. It was a childlike understanding of the world. One grows up, one dies, one goes to heaven. His parents asked, "Where would we be then, when you grow up?". In a matter-of-fact tone, as if he thought them to be rather dull, he asserted, "In heaven, of course. When you die, you will enter the gates." He continued animatedly, describing the limitless reaches of the paradise, what they would be able to do there, who might they see (everyone they had ever loved), and how sunlight remains warm even though it might be eleven in the night. They laughed, lightly, but with a muted wistfulness. A six year-old boy was talking cheerily about heaven; what did he know? He knows a lot, he knows enough. He knows that eventually, when he becomes big and all grown up, his parents would not be around anymore. They will go somewhere far away where he cannot see, where he can only imagine the greatest things happening to them kind and lovely beings, beams unfolding across the faces that he had loved so much and yet, had slowly begun to forget. Did his father wear tortoise-shell or horn-rimmed glasses? Did Mother have a dimple that appeared whether or not she was smiling? Didn't they go on a family vacation to Vietnam when he was very little, which was a lot of fun because he pretended that he was on the Knight Bus, like his favourite scene in that old Harry Potter movie? He knew, probably on a subconscious level, of what it was all going to mean, but not then. At that moment, he was rambling spiritedly about angels and candy houses atop pillowy clouds. His parents were quiet, but bobbed their heads along, following the heartbeat of his jaunty tale. They smiled as they listened to the wondrous mind of their little baby: accepting, proud, and above all, adoring.
One day, he will go too. But he will find them, and that much is for sure.
About ten minutes later, the little boy begged and pouted away for the iPad. His small hands held the device naturally. Swiping to the right, flicking to the top, his fingers swirled across the screen. His mother leaned over, and pressed on a button. It was one of those joke applications, which made one's pitch much higher than usual. She spoke into the microphone of the iPad and giggled. The cat mascot on the page parroted what she said perfectly, in a helium voice. His eyes grew large as saucers as he grabbed it back clumsily. Curling his lip, he deliberated on what phrases to attempt. His mother chuckled and told him anything would be fine. "Hi, hi, hi. Who are you?" the words came out in a breathless rush. The cat mascot imitated it perfectly once again, complete with scrunched expressions and a paw wave. He laughed and laughed and laughed, as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Oh, I could have teared up.