Snow Fox's Vignettes

The woman stops by the window, feeling the sunshine as an insult. She resumes her pacing about the room, her petticoats rustling with the whispers of ghosts. She undoes her long hair before throwing herself on the four-poster bed. She remembers, and cries, trying to swallow the sobs and keep them down before they escape and someone hears, but she can't help it, there is too much pain, and it bursts then trickles away with a stream of memories.

She would sit next to him on the bench while he played the piano, wishing the music could go on if he stopped and danced with her again, longing for the warmth and softness of his hands. And even though his thin mouth was almost always curved into a frown, she knew it was all right because his eyes had a smile.

They would begin slowly, and then gather speed as their emotions ran high. She taught him the waltz, and he showed her how they danced at the harvest festivals of his youth. When their feet grew tired, they sat down and listened to each other play the piano. She heard the folk songs from his childhood and she guided him through bagatelles and écossaises.

But her brother smashed a vase on his head after he tried to ask for her hand in marriage because he was poor and she was rich. Her brother doesn't have to worry about her running away with him anymore, though. Her dancer, because he was poor and he had not quite finished becoming a doctor, was sent to war.

But he kept his promise. He came back, but not the way he intended. Not as a respectable officer and finally able to see her in a wedding dress and take her to a new home with him, but covered in white cloth and nailed inside a box.

The last of the sobs leave her body, and she rises, arms and head limp like a broken marionette. Slowly, she spins in a circle and then makes believe that she feels his hand on her waist, and their fingertips are touching as he guides her twirl. Yes, he's there, she can see him, and they dance slowly until the woman collapses on the window seat.

She opens the window, hoping that he waits below with his arms outstretched.

Mystery

World domination. Grand theft. Kidnap. The works. Whatever it was, we had to stop it, my best friend and I.

The girl with brown hair and the eyes like a muddy green sea was my partner in thwarting the plans of diabolical villains the way our childish brains thought the F.B.I. did. Our enemies were hammy, stereotypical, and all around cliched. And, just like in the movies, we always won. We always solved our mystery. Our stage traveled with us. It was the playground for high octane chase scenes, the baseball diamond when we needed dust swirling into the air for dramatic effect, the blacktop for almost everything else. We once dramatically wrestled with our adversary while rolling down a gently sloped hill before subduing him in the field of neatly trimmed grass.

How about we drop a cage on him, then get the jewels.

No, I think just beating him up is better.

Yeah, that's a little more satisfying.

And the game continues.

I don't know what happened to us, how our game fell apart. All I know is that one day, it didn't seem there in her anymore. She grew up and moved on to other things, and I had to leave in order to find more stories. Sometimes, I run into her, the brown hair potent with perfume and gossip. She doesn't wear the clothes we needed for our game, not jeans and sweatshirts, but miniskirts and tank tops. The eyes like a muddy green sea have lashes made black and sticky with mascara, and the lids are outlined in black as well. Those eyes are an empty mystery.

Thanksgiving

San Jose. Screaming baby cousins. My aunt's watchful glare as I sit on the very edge of the couch and glance up from my book to the television with listless eyes. A Disney Pixar film being played for the benefit of the children that couldn't care less. Uncle David and his BS. Being grateful and polite. The unfamiliarity of my uncle's home, richer and bigger than ours, surges over my head, and I have to run.

I am told to be a good girl. I try and try and try and try but there is always something that didn't go quite right. Something that reinforces the beliefs of my family that I'm something wild. I am not the delicate peach blossom that Chinese tradition dictates I must be. I was born more bull than woman. There's nothing in that house that doesn't do something to push me closer to the point of no return, when I will begin to fight back.

Issac grabs his sister's hair and Abby's screams pierce my ears and concentration. Elijah cries out for more milk and love.

My books and pens and my notebook's creamy blank pages keep me safe in their reassuring embrace. Not time yet. Can't smash them against the wall now. Witnesses are afoot, they implore. Lisa already dislikes you. You don't need to give her a reason for hate.

David brags about the latest car he bought off the Internet and fixed up for thousands of dollars more than it was ever worth.

No, no, they whisper, you can't talk back to him, he's an adult, and you don't have the right to question him yet. Yes, even Dad knows he's full of hot air, but even though you know it too, you don't know how to put him down yet. Wait.

Nevertheless, my nerves are rubbed raw. Strained. Stretched. Sore.

It is possible to escape, if only for a moment, when I take refuge among the rubber ducks. The bathroom. The one place where I have privacy, the one place where my aunt cannot follow me and see if I'm up to no good. The ducks watch me, their painted blue eyes almost sympathizing. But I have to be out in a moment. My great-aunt and her loose bladder see to that. I return to the domestic chaos, and the epic struggle continues.

This is the place my parents take me every year. This is the place that I do believe awaits me in the depths of hell.

Whole Wheat Bread and Water

We both knew that his name was really Cassidy Cheng and he was messing with me because I was younger than him. I played along with his joke and called him Dennis until it got old a year later, just for the heck of it because I was twelve and he was eighteen and we knew better.

Dennis Oscar Shostakovitch XIV told me to come meet his little brother, who is my age. Even though I already said hi, I didn't think there was any harm in trying to have an actual conversation. Our parents chatted in the dining room while Robert curled and uncurled himself on the couch as if an invisible steel fist was clenching his entire body. He was also sucking on a toy fire truck. I said hi again, and he gave me a glob of spit in response. Cassidy made me shake Robert's slick and drool covered hand. Robert offered me the fire truck and I declined, excusing myself by saying that I preferred police cars. Finally, when I thought the awkwardness was about to suffocate us all, Robert put the fire truck in his pants and tottered to the refrigerator to look for a snack. Cassidy confiscated the cheese he took, replacing it with a crust-less slice of whole wheat bread and a water bottle from his mother's purse. I told Mr. Shostakovitch to come to my room for a minute, and Robert clambered along. I asked Cassidy what happened to him.

Autism, and he wanted to taste everything he saw. Severe mercury poisoning, because some of the things he put in his mouth had it in the paint. He's twice as dysfunctional now.

Robert drooled and spilled water on the carpet. I kind of choked up and gave him the warmest hug I could, Cassidy joining in to make a Robert sandwich. I wondered what his brain looked like, and I almost started crying again. I haven't seen him since.

You watch the children and the teacher make hand gestures and sing, wondering what's the point, so you sit in the circle and ask them exactly that. You like art time because you can waste the marker ink on scribbles. So the week after the man from the plate making place came to take your drawings and turn them into plates for Mother's Day, you give your mother a plate of scribbles of her favorite colors. The teacher is upset, and she worries about you even more.

You can't color your rats by putting your favorite crayons in one hand or write your middle name on papers, and especially not in cursive. But you're not sure why because your cursive has gotten much better since the last time you tried. The little rat in his cage looked upset to be eating seeds for the third day in a row, so you gave him nuts, and the teacher threw a fit. Is your self-portrait facing right instead of left? The teacher is running low on aspirin. You didn't like the pattern of colored flowers on the pictures the teacher showed you, so you decided to make it a little different, but she didn't like that, of course.

Why are you the only kid that gives me all this trouble? Do this, exactly this, she says, and you nod and color your dogs blue. You always wanted a blue dog, after all.

You don't think it needs to be like that, but that's how it is, and now your parents are here for a talk. They think you're funny in the head, because you thought the flowers should be red and orange instead of yellow and orange.

Nonsense. My child is gifted.

Doesn't matter, if she can't follow directions.

Directions, directions. You, poor thing, just sit there, and wonder.

How I miss you, little girl.

Alma, Who Talks to Dolls

That's what she does, all day in the shop. A girl of eighteen long and monotonous years, talking to dolls while painting their eyes and lips and giving them clothes. She sits in her wheelchair behind the counter, waiting for customers to come so she can use her soft sweetness to persuade them to take one home.

Alma tells the doll everything she would do if she could use her legs. She tells them that she would run to her friends and embrace them instead of waiting for them to come to her wheelchair, stand and sway to the music that she makes with her flute while her sister dances to charm the money out of the crowd's pockets. She plays the flute for the dolls as well, when she runs out of things to say and business is slow. Sometimes, her friends come— the sister of the man who owns the doll shop, the girl with whimsical eyes and just as untouchably delicate as the porcelain girls lined up on the shelves; the sister's almost-but-not-really lover, who gives Alma dreary forecast of the state of the world while bringing her small cakes from his family's bakery; and of course, Alma's sister, who is the greatest comfort.

The owner is the one who visits her the least, aside from giving her another task. He is missing both eyes— clawed out in a fight— and needs his little sister to guide him to the counter or the back room where Alma also spends her time. But one day, he tells his sister to leave for a minute.

I know, he tells her.

What do you know?

Everything.

He feels for her face and kisses her.

Time Riding on a Cloud

Remember these? They're some exercise books I tried to use to teach you Chinese. But you didn't learn jack shit.

A dull slap as the pile lands in the bag, accompanied by muttering in the language I should have understood. The books quickly disappear as Mom pelts them with a flurry of other items. A box full of broken crayons, one of my old coloring books, a Barbie doll given to me on my sixth birthday and narrowly escaped being tossed out by Dad. She was convicted of attempting to Westernize his daughter and making her feel inferior to molded plastic clothed in designer clothes.

Nauseous from the sheer amount of history flying before my eyes, I curl up on my bed and close my eyes, holding my panda bear to me. They'll never take her away, at least, not when I'm holding her close to me, just like the little girl that has burrowed into my heart, a little piece of history.

Did she know, when she hid under the table and screamed at the sight of ink and brushes? How would she have changed if she listened a little more closely to her family when they slipped into that other language, the one that made the children laugh when she tried to speak it at school? Should she have been ashamed of her mother stumbling over English, making it sound so ugly, when trying to talk to the teacher? I learned how to mangle the language of home with English until my tongue couldn't wrap its way around the true meaning anymore. And now it is too late, my tongue is made of English, and there is no more room for Chinese. That is what America wanted to happen, and they made it happen.

But clouds in the sky never seem to move, and you only see them when they're gone.

Little Boat in the Sea

Will you let me see inside that empty little boat of yours, the one floating next to mine? You've been there for awhile, and I like you. Do you like me?

Why is it empty, except for your lonely self? Let's throw across two ropes and tie them together, if you'd like, I trust you with my things and if you had things you cherished you'd trust me with them, I think.

This place is indeed empty. It makes me sad. Do you like my boat with the pale blue and minty green and creamy white paint, the seashells and books on the little shelves in the wall, the way it moves in the water? Does it feel like home? Stay there a while and enjoy yourself, won't you, while I try to figure out what's best for you, how to make this a home for you. I don't want to see you living like this anymore.

Now that that's settled, let me see what I can do for that little boat of yours. I'll patch up the leaks and give her a fresh coat of paint next chance I get, I'll move some things in and maybe myself too, so you can have some time in mine. Let's float together in the ocean and share our luck. Help each other through the storms and pass the time in the calm. This isn't your boat anymore, and that's not my boat anymore. They're our boats. We'll be sharing them. Do you think that's a nice idea? Will you do this with me?

I want to say this to you, and more, when you give me the chance, but I stand at the deck, mutely watching you drift away in your misery, wondering what it will take to get you to let me into that empty little boat of yours, so I can fix up your heart. Your despair grows heavier and heavier until it anchors your boat in place, and then I steer myself towards you, to lessen your load before it's too late, but it's too much, and you sink to join the denizens of the deep.

Ghost Garden

The fence used to be dull and brown and splintery, but it is now painted bright blue, as according to the school colors, and has been properly sanded. It took them quite a while for them to think to do that, apparently. I push open the gate and it falls over— the hinges weren't connected. It never was in good condition anyway. This so-called Science Garden never had many visitors, no one to take care of it, no one to plead its case with the school administrators.

The signpost commemorating the (unfortunately) short life of former science teacher John. E. Eggold is there, but the engravings are fading. As I always do when I see it, I wonder if he is indeed buried under the flowers and weeds behind the sign. We used to pretend his ghost was there, watching us, ready to gobble up our souls the moment we mistreated his dear plants. Even now, I glance for them, but of course I'm alone. I wonder if John E. Eggold minds that they're neglecting his memorial.

The flowers were never well trimmed and they are in open rebellion now, the stems and buds dangling out of the raised beds. They remember me, and they pull at me, asking me if I am still willing to help them escape the clutches of the weeds, in honor of our old love.

I stop by John E. Eggold's disputed resting place, shrug off my jacket, and wage war on the weeds. The flowers sway with joy as I cast aside the languid cadavers of their persecutors, the invaders of their prosperous realm, ignoring my fingers pricked on the weed's spiky defenses. Every drop of blood would fertilize my old friends, and I stomp the weeds into the gravel around their liberated kingdom for good measure, watching plant juices spew. I move on to the raised bed behind John E. Eggold's and the one next to that, and the one next to that, and the flowers thank me.

“We knew you'd come back for us, someday,” they cry, waving their leaves and bobbing their buds in a victory salute.

But of course, I am imagining this. They're all dead. The wind stirs their withered bodies, and the rustling of ghosts is what is thanking me. For nothing, now.

It just sits there. Over on the bed, sometimes lying on its side on the pillow, but today, diligently sitting up against the headboard. Giving me a one-eyed stare that I can't bear to meet, for fear that it will melt my soul with freshly boiled shame. It would turn up its nose at me and look away, but it doesn't have a nose. Anymore, at least.

A long time ago, it was a she. She was my best friend, the one I forced to absorb every small worry and tear. Silent patience for so many years of squeezing and twisting and travelling was rewarded with more small-child misery, a never ending stream of whining. She lapped it up, her helplessness visible in plastic amber eyes. And then one eye gone, then the nose, after a baseball game with a PVC pipe.

On warm afternoons watching me do my homework, we shared tea. She liked some lemon scented hand sanitizer in hers, for the flavor and alcohol. The stains are still there on her formerly snowy clean mouth, and I scolded her for being messy even though I was the one that tipped it into her nonexistent mouth.

And then, every summer, I took her outside for a bath. She was squeezed and throttled and soaped all over, and then hung on the clothesline by her ears, in full view of my bedroom. At night, I watched her, wishing she was with me. To substitute the pain of hanging by the ears with mine, for the math workbooks and summer boredom.

Somewhere, somehow, she left me, sick of the little love I could give, and soon became an empty husk of cotton in my arms every night. Somehow, I didn't notice.

Oh, that poor panda.