His Memory: The Boy at the Shore (1/2)

GU XIAO

Three years ago, I should have stopped lying to myself.

I wasn't even aware of when I was lying to myself, but there was this disturbing discrepancy between my own lies and the truth.

A few weeks after Wu Fei and our mother drifted away, this detachment continued ripping larger and larger.

However, this isolation had already bloomed before, but that incident was like water to this bud of displacement, nourishing it into something more significant.

I think it started when our mother got remarried and started showering more love towards her new husband, He Rong, and his sister.

I wasn't upset about that.

I honestly wasn't.

Or maybe I convinced myself.

It wasn't her fault.

Though it felt like the title of 'mother' had simply become just a title, or rather, a contractual label.

Even with our father, it was the same. It was my fault for thinking like this that I hated myself for having these thoughts.

It was selfish of me to feel lonely, because they all had their own problems to deal with, too. It was cold in both their homes. It was cold everywhere.

Our mother's house was large, and everyone within that house truly appeared to look like a happy family.

After staying there for more than a week, I didn't dare intrude on them further. And now, I could no longer return there because she was no longer here.

It was amusing how I developed an underlying fear of talking to people in the past, afraid that the people who were always by my side would somehow see past this fabrication of my own existence.

But the more I used my precarious achievement of placing over that mask, the more I felt myself crumble and burn into ashes, washing away with the waves at the shore.

Looking back, I would sometimes sit silently and blank out if I wasn't near people.

When the nights were cold, I would sometimes purposely stand outside at the bus stop and allow the chilling wind to brush past me, hoping I would get sick. That way, I knew I was still living, and my body was still trying to keep me alive.

Being near people and engaging in idle chatter with neighbours and others was probably the only way of keeping me sane, yet it also tired me.

I would have become so empty if I was to stay alone for too long and not speak to anyone.

Perhaps these were just the effects of loss, but I was afraid I would still live with this constant emptiness after weeks, months, years.

Losing everyone and even myself. But in the end, I did get better after a while. I really did.

There was plenty of oxygen, yet none of it reached my lungs, let alone entered my nose. To constantly move between these two foreign houses, where both Gu Heiyu and I felt like we were a burden to our parents, was tiring.

After a few years, I became accustomed to it. I was worried about Gu Heiyu. I didn't want her to have the same thoughts as me. I didn't want her to be like me because I was pathetic.

I had drowned myself in this acceptance that I was rather a failure, but I didn't want her to feel the same.

During my years in school, the only way I knew I was still living, that people still recognised that I was a functional human being, was if I was surrounded by people.

That way, I knew I was existing and not some fleeting breeze that came and went with the summer and the chirping cicadas.

My awards, my achievements, and the ropes of praise and validation that wrapped around my fingertips.

I once thought I would feel better with those pieces of worthless praise and medals.

I thought that it meant I was heading somewhere in life, and I couldn't deny that it didn't make me somewhat relieved because it felt like I was truly in the right direction.

Since I had already started constructing who I was, there was no point in stopping.

Wu Fei said that I would never understand him. It was true that I would never understand him because I wasn't him.

But what about him?

He poured everything onto me.

His anger, hatred, inferiority.

Everything that I wasn't even aware of. Did he think I was happy? I was loved by others? Did he think I enjoyed this too?

If he wanted everything I had, I would have gladly offered it all to him.

But if I did, then what would be left of me?

When I caught the bus home alone, I watched the people who came and went.

The exhausted mother with her crying child.

The dishevelled man who wore ripped clothes, yelling and talking to himself.

The school students who had just finished cram school, smiling and chattering.

The grandma who sat alone, holding onto the grocery bag.

If one was to judge them by their appearance, they all appeared to be contented with their lives.

We all caught the same bus and headed to the same destination. To our homes. But when I thought about it, if one was to judge me on this bus, they would assume I was the same as them.

Perhaps the mother, the child, the drunk man, the students, the grandma, perhaps one of them, were experiencing the same desolation as me, and no one would be able to tell.

One month had passed since our mother and Wu Fei left. Our father had disappeared off somewhere.

The debt collectors had broken into his house. Right after my suspension was lifted, Gu Heiyu got into trouble at school. I was fired from my job.

Ah, what a mess. Maybe this was all just a dream.

There was only one more month until I moved to a school closer to our father's new home. I guess I was feeling relieved. I wanted to move. You could consider it to be me wanting to run away.

There was once a day when that youth rode his bike, past the shore and into the bustling streets. Ringing the rustic bike's bell, the days passed like scattering leaves.

I went to the beach and treaded to the shore. There were no stars, no moon, no light at all. The dull clouds brought down the cumbersome sky, covering every spark of light before it could reach me.

The cold waves brushed against my bare feet, and it was extremely cold that I could no longer feel my skin. Everything was numb.

The seagulls cried and flew over the shore. The flock all flew, except one.

It was left behind by its colony because it couldn't fly at all. The wings were trapped under a rock. It cried and cried.

Crying in stubbornness.

What did it mean to be lost? No matter how far the seagulls flew away, they weren't afraid to turn back to its hometown, even if it meant they had to abandon the sky that they sought.

I didn't know why I was on the shore, because the last bus had already left. The only way for me to head home was to walk for around an hour and a half.

It was already past midnight, and I had to wake up at five to go to school. Maybe I didn't want to head home just yet, so I just stood alone to waste time.

It was rather amusing. Every breath I took, every step I walked, every word I spoke, every smile I offered, every effort I exhausted into school, I found it to be all just a waste of time. I felt like I needed to be doing something, but I thought I was wasting time when I did do something.

Then what did it mean to not waste time? Did it mean for me to stop living? But to think like this, some people would tell me I was overreacting. I didn't know.

Maybe I was overreacting.