“Sleeping is the anesthesia, letting go is the remedy”
I saw her.
Sitting on a bench in the middle of the park with her legs dangling weightlessly in the air. Beside her, there was a little boy with rotund face carelessly stroking the shame grass on the ground. His unrestrained exuberance contrasted the petty shame grass, which discreetly concealed itself under veils of protection.
She was watching him intensely while I approached her slowly. I didn’t blame her for her obliviousness of my appearance, I, myself could hardly detect my movement. Behind her, there was a couple flirting with each other with the glory of the evening sun as the background. I envied the sweetness. They were so blessed by the diffraction pattern of the unusually tender sunlight.
She seemed unperturbed by them; she just fixed her intense gaze on the boy who was now shrieking in joy. Thrilled and bolded by the closure of the leaves on the Mimosa Pudica, he was now looking around, as if he were searching for some sort of recognition.
Disappointed. He slumped back into his own fantasy in frustration. I wondered did he know Mimosa Pudica, which appeared protective and ambitionless, was now a major threat to Kakadu World Heritage Area. I guessed he was not aware of that.
However, I was more perplexed by her apparent curiosity in the mischievous boy. Like a patient Yoga guru, she still stared at the boy, trying to convey some kind of message to him. There was no anxiety in her eyes and all I could see was trace of uncanny determination. The fire of perseverance emitted from her eyes was offensive, almost ludicrously macho.
Her feature was fine. She looked deceptively young but I knew perfectly her experience suggested otherwise. There was no defection on her immaculate face but somehow, her eyes told me otherwise. Did I miss something? I scrutinized her face.
Sensed my impolite intrusion, she turned her head in a graceful angle and smiled at me. Did I see a playful and mocking wink at the corner of her eye? I was not sure. She nodded to me and tilted her head slightly, offering a seat for me.
Flattered by her sudden openness, I nodded back apologetically and took the seat beside her.
I could smell fragrance. The euphoria I could derive from that smell was almost erotic and was certainly arousing but I knew I must control my urge.
“Don’t you think he is adorable?”
Her voice drew me back from my little shameful fantasy. She must have talked about the boy right? I scrambled to regain my composure.
“I think so, don’t you think he is lonely?”
She tilted back her head, again in almost flawlessly elegant angle, and thought.
“Why do you think he is lonely?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
She chuckled and bowed her head low. I was taken aback. I thought I had just said something insulting or preposterous until I realized she was actually staring at something she was clutching in her grip.
I couldn’t guess what was it and I was also too timid and unsure to ask her directly. Protruding an ambiguous question now might be unwise and timing just couldn’t be worse.
“He was indeed very lonely..How about you?”
Without hesitating much, I rebuked.
“How about you, do you?”
She smiled. I just loved her childish smile, it reminded me all the fairy tales I had been told. Too immersed in her thawing smile, I nearly missed out that something was receding from her grip.
Stream of sands were slipping away from her clutch, like water flowing over the edge of the waterfall. The sands formed a linear line, then diverged, then disappeared miraculously along the direction of the wind.
“Not anymore.”
X
“I was 14 years old when I married him.” There was hesitation in her final word.
Ignored my utter surprise, she continued with her narration.
“I was pregnant at that time, my mother forced me to go for abortion, his mother objected vehemently, I was just lost.” She spoke with ease, no awkward hesitation, as if she had rehearsed that over and over again before. I didn’t think this was a statement, I sensed rhetoric in this sentence and I was right.
“He said he wouldn’t be bothered by other people’s opinion, he just wanted to get married with me and formed a small family, what a sweet talker he was..” My little speculation was correct, contented and bolded, I asked why.
“All men tell lies, don’t you think so? By the way, I hope he won’t end up like his father.” She turned her gaze to the boy who was now exhausted by his vain effort in making the leaves of stubborn mimosa to open.
I was speechless. I was always trying to seek for a chance to talk to the victims of teen pregnancy but my effort was always thwarted by conservativeness of the society. We had too many taboos, and unfortunately, teen pregnancy was the taboo of the taboos.
My head was spinning and I was nauseated. The sunlight blurred my vision, the boy distracted me and perhaps the aftershock of the news had just taken its toll on me.
Feeling unsure, I asked her what happened then.
The answer was totally expected and anticipated. It seemed the old stories that happened in every vein and artery of this city had just replayed itself.
Started off well, having frequent rows, making a fuss over small matter, endless bickering, pain became too unbearable, agony exceeded threshold level,
Then divorce would naturally become the last piece of this puzzle, this enthralling epic.
A long sigh from her, in fact, it was the first sigh I had ever heard from her since I sat down beside her.
“Maybe I should have listened to my mother..”
“You are regretting now?” Not realizing what I was saying, I inquired impulsively.
“Regret, of course I’m, what will you do when you realize you have committed a mistake?
I mused and ruminated what she had just said. How many times I had cried over spilled milk? How many times I had fretted over an irreversible mistake? Maybe she was right.
“There is no turning back once you have embarked on the journey you have chosen,
maybe this was so-called destiny. We are just dice of the god you all worship, don’t you realize that?
Instinctively, I looked down at my shirt, Campus Alive Christian Fellowships, the wording was too unmistakably obvious to be ignored. Now I knew why the scent from her body was so luring. She was persuasive and compulsive. That was the scent of pertinacity I had smelled just now.
I decided to rebut but my head was lumbering. Sometime, we tended to think we could easily brush aside things that happened around us everyday, but when it’s our turn to face them, we would be caught wrong-footed. Hence, I didn’t condemn her aggressiveness, nor did I question her credibility.
“You should forgive yourself.” Out of no reason, I simply blurted out this.
She seemed flabbergasted. She looked at his son again, she sighed again.
“I tried before.”
I looked at her apologetically, trying to seek for forgiveness.
“It really didn’t work.”
I could see tears welling in her eyes, stirring and diffracting my silhouette.
X
She sensibly asked her son who now lost his interest in mimosa to go to other places to play. I must admit she was attractive with maturity crawling under the thin layer of beauty. Her seriousness captivated me more than her story.
A good story never started off on a sunny day when birds were screeching. A decent horror movie never had the setting in the old and dilapidated wooden house. I guessed god was a good writer also. Every twist and every paradox would never be totally expected. Even some of them who crowned themselves with arrogant and naïve six-sense ability couldn’t anticipate what would happen in their filthy and unworthy life.
Chance came to her even before she divorced with her husband, unexpectedly. She fell in love with him, an unforeseen tragedy. Her husband discovered. He told his mother methodically. Her mother-in-law blew her top.
Everything was like a melodrama.
Like a cliché that plagued the whole mankind for centuries.
However, cliché was always the saddest story. We had heard of it everyday, it was almost like an irritating routine, which most people wished to run from but never had the courage.
It was a heartbreaking and devastating story. It must have meant a lot to her.
Sometime in the middle of the narration, I really wished to interrupt her, I suspected concoction, I questioned the authenticity. My arrogance must have finally taken its toll on me.
Born into a middle-class family, I spent my whole life in impressing people and striving for something special, which I didn’t even know what it was. Perhaps I was too ignorant, perhaps the lady in front of me was the master of disguise, but that didn’t strip me off my sin, my obsession in sinful extravaganza and disgusting spectacular stunt.
Staring into her wet eyes, my heart twinged and I was disgusted. She was no longer whining. Calm and still like lake water, she was. Her story might sound ordinary, realistically speaking, it might sound cliché and even melodramatic.
I just didn’t care.
She could deceive me, she could lie to me, but I couldn’t lie to myself.
X
As soon as she finished her narration, she changed her sitting position. Perhaps she felt uncomfortable to shed her tears in front of a newly-met stranger, perhaps she just felt discomfited by years of struggles.
The sunset was magnificent. She looked even more resplendent, partly because her splendor was magnified by the sunset. I couldn’t help but to steal another look at her.
She was now watching intensely at her son again. Just like the first time I saw her.
“ You still have him.” I pointed at the boy who was now chasing after a stray cat.
“He is the reason why I’m not lonely.” She didn’t turn to me when she spoke.
Suddenly, I could feel changes in her, perhaps it was because of the changes inside me that made me different. I was confused.
Never in my life had I been so deeply affected emotionally by a stranger, she just had the magic to change a person. Did she know? I didn’t think so.
She didn’t speak much. Neither did I.
We just sat there. I thought both of us had pilfered something from each other. She seemed contented. There was no trace of tears on her chin, not anymore. Perhaps just like what she said just now, she was “no longer” lonely.
I hoped she was right. Looking at the boy with his trademark boyish grin, I saw hope, I saw desire, I saw promises. Did she know the journey ahead was still long? Did she know how arduous motherhood can be?
Those answers didn’t need answers and there were no definite answers as well.
“Could you tell me a story about mimosa?” She spouted out of the blue.
I thought for a while, searching and browsing through the achieve of my memory. A story about mimosa came to me.
A young magician was granted a mimosa by his master upon his birthday. His master said: “ You are the youngest disciple I have, so use this wisely when you are in trouble.” The magician cried out : “ But master, I don’t know how to use.” His master said: “when you are in danger, you just shout out ‘Mimosa’, and you’ll be fine, but remember to shout ‘let go’ when the danger is over, or else you’ll be suffocated.”
On the way back to his hut, he saw a wild boar running towards him. He was scared so he shouted ‘Mimosa’ loudly. Then an invisible force was clutching and squeezing him into a gigantic mimosa. He could now see the wild boar through the gaps between the mammoth leaves.
That wild boar tried ferociously to break the protection of leaves by using its sharp teeth but it failed. Eventually, that wild boar became exhausted and it left.
However, he didn’t dare to go out because he was afraid the wild boar was still around. Thus, he just stayed in the giant mimosa, afraid in letting go.
Suddenly, the protection around his body tightened. He tried to shout but all he managed to mutter was ‘leeeee’ and he died of suffocation.
“It’s a sad story, isn’t it?”
“Not entirely, sometime we just need to let go and all the problems will be solved.”
“Perhaps you are right.” She nodded in agreement.
There were very few in the park now. I looked at the mimosa involuntarily. All mimosa had opened their leaves cautiously and gradually.
“Mum, can we go home?”
“Ya!!” There was change of tone in her voice. It was the sweetness that suited her pulchritudinous face.
“I’ve to go, see you next time.” She stood up and the familiar filled my nostril again.
“Bye..” I couldn’t believe that was the only thing I managed to mutter. And I didn’t even know who his husband was, how old was she, what’s her name? “Maybe next time” I told myself.
She seemed totally oblivious of my awkwardness. Watching her back, a sudden urge to confide my secret in her grew. However, I managed to suppress it. “Maybe next time” I told myself.
Mimosa, I fell into my realm of pondering again. Perhaps all I needed was to let go.
“So tell me mimosa, is letting go that hard?”
All I could see was mimosa that was being stroked by the light breeze. I stood up, clearing my mind and the couple was no longer there.
I murmured to myself,
“Time to go home, time to let go.”
