Cry Me A Sad River - Episode Two – Part 15

15

A river just like this.

Lying between the two of us. From fourteen, to seventeen. One thousand and ninety-five days. Like a river one thousand and ninety five metres deep.

Qi Ming once imagined countless of times that, maybe just like many rivers, the sediments would settle at the riverbed gradually, causing the riverbed to rise, and then after a few dry seasons passed, the flat bottom of the river would appear, and his mother who had been standing at the opposite bank would approach him slowly.

Yet the truth was that, he wasn’t sure if it was himself or his mother, their hands digging open the stream, clearing the sediments, improving the irrigation. One day deeper than the next, once you step inside, being covered to the top of your head would be instantaneous.

Just like this morning, Qi Ming and his mother ate breakfast at the table. As usual, his mother commented on every single news headline while Qi Ming pushed rice into his mouth silently.

“Ma, I’m done.” Qi Ming picked up his backpack, when he was putting on his shoes; he saw his father’s wallet lie quietly on the small cupboard beside the door. The blood vessel on his neck throbbed.

“Aiyo, wear another layer, by wearing so little, are you trying to get sick my little boy.” His mother placed down her bowl and her agitated comments and moved into the room to grab another layer for him.

Qi Ming moved before the cupboard, picked up the wallet and took out six one hundred dollar notes and shoved them quickly into his pocket.

Qi Ming opened the door and called out, “Ma, forget it, I’m not cold, I’m going to school.”

“Hold on!”

“I’m really not cold!” Qi Ming pulled open the door and stepped out.

“I’m telling you to wait! Tell me, what is that in your pocket!”

The bright sunlight suddenly swarmed into the house, almost blinding Qi Ming’s eyes. His hand was still squeezing the six hundred dollars he had just taken in his pocket. Qi Ming’s hand that was still on the doorknob froze.

His voice drained away to an unseen place like a stopper being pulled from a basin.

Leaving behind a roomful of silence. The silence after a full basin of water had been emptied.

And his mother’s urgent breathing and face red from agitation in the silence. And his suffocated heartbeat.