shelter
When I was little my favorite game was called 暴風雪來了. It means “the blizzard is coming” and like most things it sounds much more poetic in Chinese. I’d curl up on the couch and my mother would pull a great big blanket over our heads and together we would huddle as snow and wind and sleet and rain pelted our makeshift shelter from all sides for what was probably only thirty seconds but seemed like an eternity. Water running through the pipes became icy sheets of crystalline daggers and the hum of the air conditioner became the roar of wintry gales, and when the sounds stopped we’d peer through holes in the blanket, cautiously eyeing the outside world to make sure that the storm was over, and then at long last we’d emerge onto the living-room floor, draped in afternoon sun as it had been the whole time.
We don’t play that game anymore, or at least, we hadn’t for a long time. I’d grown up, after all. There were essays to write and internships to chase, machines to build and experiments to run, things that didn’t pause for pretend snowstorms. Somewhere along the way, I’d folded up that blanket and packed it away. It’s probably been donated by now.
I came home from college a few days ago. I daresay that I’d been happier there. Compared to home, Boston felt like freedom. It felt like a place where I could flap my arms and try to fly, a place where I could smash my face on the pavement and break my nose, a place where there was no longer anyone hovering around to break my fall. I had rarely ever called home. The times I’d done so were mostly because of practical matters, or because of a sense of familial duty. I’m someone who says 我會處理 ― I’ll deal with it. Don’t worry. I’m someone who’s getting progressively more annoyed by my parents’ insistence on not letting me do my fair share of the housework. I’m not made of porcelain anymore, I want to cry.
But today, exhausted, I curled up on the couch, the same couch from all those years ago. I must’ve looked a bit downcast, for when my mother saw me she prepared an ambush. With all the sweetness of a fifty-year-old woman, she sat down beside me and straightened her back.
The air conditioner hummed, the pipes gurgled, and I looked up just in time to see a blanket being pulled over my head.
暴風雪來了!