the fear of mirrors
The first chapter of The Asexual Man novel.
Prologue
I, standing at the end of my life, as a pained man, a silent man, a guilty man, a detestable man, an obscene man, a preposterous man, an abandoned man, a forgotten man, an indecisive man, a perplexed man, a man despised by men, a man mocked by women...
An asexual man,
am using what little rationality I have left to write down everything about myself in my endless confusion and struggle, to leave behind a small piece of evidence of my ridiculous physical existence, to let my life briefly continue in the memories of others through texts, rather than just being food for maggots, rapidly decaying and perishing in an unwanted corner.
May my soul rest in peace, may my spirit embrace nightmares no more.
Chapter One. The Fear of Mirrors.
In 1936, in Marienbad, Jacques Lacan used the term Mirror Stage to name his theory for the first time. He attempted to explain to the public that the emergence of self-consciousness begins with an infant's first gaze at its own mirror image. At this very moment, the mirror has finally become the loneliest of all human inventions: people repeatedly excavated the philosophical meaning of mirror images in the illusory world behind the mirror, while also repeatedly ignoring the existence of the mirror itself. The thin mirror stands like a wall between reality and illusion, constantly extending, however never being able to reach any boundary.
I don't know much about Lacan, nor am I interested in philosophy or psychoanalysis anymore. In my youth, groundless self-worship brought me countless anxieties and unease. To alleviate such negative emotions, and to help my self-worship gain some self-deceptive peace of mind, I forced myself to read some works similar to the one’s by Lacan, and convinced everyone that these books are where my interests lie. But when I gradually realized that my self-worship stemmed merely from the unfair advantages that my gender had brought me, this so-called interest simply ceased to exist.
But don't get me wrong, I have never read Lacan, and never will read Lacan. Even just thinking of this name makes me shudder. In my long and chaotic memory, all parts related to Lacan emit a nauseating stench. Whenever I wander in the maze of my memories, I can always smell this odor from afar and try my best to avoid it. And the source of all these terrifying memories is M.
M was my childhood neighbor, who lived with her grandparents in a decaying apartment like me. The old apartment that I grew up in had three bedrooms, one for my grandfather, one for my grandmother and me, and one left for my parents, even though they almost never appeared in this house. The whole house had only two windows that could be freely opened and closed, one in the living room and one in the kitchen. The rest of the windows were either jammed or fitted with iron bars. My daily life with my grandparents took place almost exclusively in this 30 square meter space, where even lifting one's head became a luxury due to the low and moldy ceiling. To escape the irritation and suffocation brought by this ceiling, and to avoid my alcoholic grandfather's endless rage, on every sunny day I would climb up to the roof, greedily enjoying the pleasure of the capacity of looking up. M would always appear on the adjacent roof without prior arrangement, sharing the freedom brought by the boundless sky with me.
At that time, M had already entered junior high school, while I had just finished kindergarten. At first, I didn't dare to talk to her, only daring to stay in the corner of my family's roof and secretly watch her. She always wore various long old dresses, holding the same almost worn-out book, quietly reading in the place that is caressed by sunlight. The unique river wind of this port city often messed up her black long hair, but she was never annoyed by the wind's childish disturbance. In my impression, she never tied it. Whenever it danced in the wind, the sky could no longer attract me. I always watched her carefully, afraid that my gaze would interrupt her, until one day she also looked up and saw me. She didn't say anything, just tilted her head and smiled at me. I felt my face starting to heat up, so I just mumbled You're beautiful and then ran down the stairs embarrassed in her silvery laughter.
From then on, whenever my grandmother went next door to play cards or chat with M's grandmother, I would quietly follow behind my grandmother, take a small stool, and sit still beside my grandmother. All the seniors there would be surprised or even worried by my silence, because they couldn't imagine how a mischievous child like me could suddenly become so well-behaved without any sign. Everyone was astonished, thinking my grandmother must have forced me to take some mysterious medicine or cast some weird spell on me. But in fact, I was just patiently waiting for M to return home from school.
Whenever the reddening sunlight began to be blocked bit by bit by the buildings in construction in the distance, M would appear punctually at the corner of the road, slowly walking towards home. At this time, I would stand up and run to the middle of the road, watching M enveloped in a shawl embroidered by the setting sun, walking towards me step by step. When she was only a few steps away from me, she would show her habitual smile, grab my hand, and walk home with me. She called me little brother, I called her big sister. To this day I don't know her full name. I only know that M is the start of her surname.
At night, she would move a chair to sit on the roof, light a new candle, and read that old book as usual. Whenever I was by her side, she would read aloud softly, and I would crouch beside her leg, listening to her read as if listening to a fantasy. I didn't care about the content, I couldn't understand anything, I just wanted to immerse myself in her embracing voice. At times like this, I could forget my parents' absence, forget my grandfather's beatings, forget my grandmother's shouting... Before I returned to that cold room, I could forget everything.
When the candle burned out, she would close the book and excitedly mutter to herself in the moonlight. The more she spoke, the more excited she became, and she would often turn her head to explain the content of the book to me. Even though I couldn't understand anything, she would tirelessly explain it to me. I was her only audience in this small town. I did noy want to disappoint her, so I tried my best to remember the content she explained. But no matter how hard I tried, I could only remember the author of the book and a few scattered words. She didn't mind, she just wanted someone to listen to what she wanted to say. Almost every night, we would enjoy our freedom in this way, on this narrow rooftop, until our grandmothers' shouted urgings locked this freedom back up under the low ceiling.
One time when I got back home from the roof at night, my grandfather was already drunk, and my grandmother became his outlet as usual. My grandfather cursed at her, calling her a "stinking bitch", while accusing her of raising me to be an ill-mannered, unruly bastard. My grandmother could only secretly wipe her tears while gathering the leftovers from the table. When it happened, I suddenly stood in front of my grandfather, learning his tone, and gave all the words he cursed at my grandmother back to him.
“Don't you dare curse at grandma, you're the stinking bitch!”
As soon as I finished cursing, my grandfather slapped my face. The slap made me dizzy, but I still used all my strength to straighten my back and continue calling my grandfather a "stinking bitch".
My grandfather grabbed the wine bottle beside him and used all his strength to smash it on the cracked wall beside me. Countless glass shards splashed like raindrops in all directions of the room, large and small bottle fragments formed a circle on the bare cement floor, tightly surrounding my fear, until I burst into tears. Hearing me cry, my grandfather became even more furious. "A boy crying at the drop of a hat, is that thing in your pants just for show?" After cursing, he tried to stand up to continue beating me. At this time, my grandmother kicked away the glass beside me, stood in front of me and shouted at my grandfather.
“If you touch him one more time, I'll fight you to my fucking death!”
After that, my grandfather lowered his hand raised in mid-air, spit on the ground, glared fiercely at my grandmother, returned to his room alone and fell asleep. After my grandfather went back to his room, my grandmother dragged me to the room where she and I slept, cursing me for being reckless and unruly, while also asking if I had been splashed by glass shards and if my face was hurting from being slapped by grandfather. I never answered a word. I pushed away my grandmother's hand and crawled into the quilt alone to cry in secret. From then on, every time I was beaten, I would be like a wooden person, not responding to anyone. I felt weak, ashamed, like I shouldn't have that thing in my pants: if I didn't have that thing, I would have reason to be weak, I would have all the reasons to cry. This was the foolish idea I learned from my elders as a child, as did every child in this town.
When my grandmother thought I was asleep, she tiptoed out, accompanied by my grandfather's heavy breathing and snoring, to clean up the scattered glass shards on the floor alone. After she finished cleaning, she tiptoed back to bed and hugged me to sleep. At this moment, I just pretended to talk to my grandmother as if nothing had happened, as if everything that had happened earlier was just my imagination.
“I read a book with the sister next door today.”
“What time is it now, why aren't you asleep yet?”
“I read a book by someone called Lacan with her today, it was about mirrors.”
“Stop reading these useless books, go to sleep right now!”
I gave up trying to make conversation, so I stopped talking. In the deep of night, my disgust for my grandfather and pity for my grandmother formed a lullaby in my mind that I couldn't get rid of, playing until it entered every one of my dreams. And every morning after my grandfather’s shameless violence, my sobered grandfather would act like nothing had happened and make breakfast for my grandmother and me, as if, when the three of us ate the breakfast he made together at the table, we would all lose our memories, and our contradictions would just disappear without a trace.
On weekends, I would spend all day with M. Early in the morning, I would knock on her door. Her parents had already gone out to work, only her grandparents and her were at home. Every time I knocked, her grandmother knew it was me, because my knocking was always loud and urgent, and M had usually just gotten up and was washing up in front of the mirror. While she was washing up, I would lean against the door, watching her and asking her all sorts of questions. I don't remember what I asked her, nor do I remember if she gave me any answers. I only remember that she always sneaked into her mother's bathroom, fascinated by the cosmetics that filled the shelves, like adults fascinated by money. After looking for a while, she couldn't help but open those bottles and jars, take out a little bit with her pinky finger, and then carefully rub it on her face.
“Help me watch the door outside, don't let my grandmother see or she'll scold me again.”
M always instructed me anxiously while staring at herself in the mirror. I stood at the door like a soldier who had received orders, observing the outside intently through the door cracked open, and quietly alerted M if there was any movement. M always looked at her made-up self in the mirror enchantedly, appreciating her face like admiring an oil painting. Sometimes I would secretly turn my head and quietly look at M reflected in the mirror. She favored red, choosing deep rose red from eyeshadow to lipstick. Her black eyes looked mysterious and cold under the red eyeshadow, forming an unsettling contrast with the passion revealed by her upturned mouth corners.
"Does it look good?"
I didn't answer. Looking at M in the mirror, a different face appeared in my mind: my mother. Red eyeshadow, red lipstick, cold eyes and upturned mouth corners. Even M's long hair became exactly the same as my mother's.
Seeing that I didn't answer, M was quite puzzled. And by the time she turned her head, I had already run out. The young me couldn't accept that M, who gave me warmth, could have even the slightest resemblance to my cold mother. I didn't dare to look at M's face, so I ran out before she turned her head. I told myself that this was just a trick played by the mirror, it was the mirror that made M's face look like my mother's. Such ridiculous self-deception quickly occupied my brain like poison, and then slowly turned into endless hatred for mirrors.
The young me was afraid of my mother. From the moment I was born, my mother was always absent, and the few memories I had of her were always linked to violence. Until my grandmother passed away, the image of my mother in my memory became gradually more vivid and shed its "violent" shell bit by bit. But all these happened after I grew up, as, for the young me, the word mother meant fear. She would beat my ass with an iron rod when I was naughty until my butt was covered with bruises; she would slap my face in public when I fought back to her words; she would have heart-wrenching arguments with my father after returning home late at night; she would criticize and mock me in front of everyone in the family for secretly wearing her skirts and high heels - even though I only did this hoping to please her, because she always said in front of others how much she wished I was a girl. In short, for me at that time, her appearance meant pain and fear.
After that, I didn't see M for several weeks. It was summer vacation at that time, the time when children my age should be out having fun, but I preferred to lock myself in a small room of five or six square meters, not even daring to go near the window. I didn't want to see M, or rather, I was afraid of seeing her. Just thinking about M's made-up appearance would make me feel uncontrollably nauseous; then my mother's face would invade my brain, make my whole body, even my eyeballs tremble uncontrollably. Whenever M came to my house to find me, I would hide under the quilt pretending to be sick, letting my grandmother deal with her for me. My grandmother knew I was pretending to be sick, but no matter how much she racked her brains, she still couldn't find a reason for why I didn't want to go out. She had to make up all kinds of excuses to deal with M. I listened to my grandmother's awkwardness and M's confusion through the quilt, until I was dizzy from being suffocated by it, until their voices dissolved in the sweat by my ears, only then did I dare to poke my head out to check the situation.
I hated days like this. My stupid imagination covered every wrinkle on my brain like glass shards, endlessly tearing at every thought of mine: no matter what I was doing, no matter what I was thinking, M's made-up appearance would occupy all my thoughts at some point. The food on the table, the old wallpaper, the yellowed books, would all turn into the appearance that made me tremble for no reason.
The dining table at home faced the window. I was afraid that I would see M as soon as I sat at the dining table, so I simply didn't eat. My grandmother sighed anxiously beside me, the wrinkles on her face squeezing together, her silver hair wet with sweat forming into strands, blown into clumsy silver ribbons by the metallic wind of the electric fan. She held a bowl in one hand, knocked on the locked door with the other, her two thin and shaking legs supporting her swollen body leaning against the door to eavesdrop on my movements, as if she would fall apart the next second.
“Come out and eat, if you don't eat now you'll be hungry at night!”
I didn't answer, still wrapping myself in the quilt, ignoring whatever my grandmother said.
“Fucking god, are you going crazy!”
My grandfather kicked open the locked door, snatched the bowl full of food from my grandmother's hand, and before I could react, he poured all the food in the bowl onto me. Seeing my panicked eyes, my grandfather became even more furious, ready to rush up and beat me. But before my grandmother could reach out to stop my grandfather, I jumped off the bed, shouted Fucking God! to him, and then took advantage of my grandparents' stunned moment to run out of this old house that was about to be filled with anger and roaring.
"Fine, you fucking monkey, keep running, let's see who dares to let you in this house tonight!"
My grandfather slammed the door fiercely, but I had already run hundreds of meters away.
"Good, I don't want to go back anyway!"
My shout was quickly decomposed in the hot air. Except for myself and the sunset lying on the horizon enjoying the farce, no one else could hear my heartfelt words. I quickly ran past M's house, and quickly ran out of this street. The faster I ran, the more intense my heartbeat became. My open mouth was like a small boat that had been freed from its anchor. The corners of my lips lifted up slightly like two ends of the small boat, catching my tears. I couldn't tell why I was crying at that time. Maybe it was excitement, or maybe it was fear, but no matter what, at this moment there would be no one around me to tell me that for the sake of that thing in my pants, I couldn't cry. Thinking of this, my tears flowed uncontrollably. By the time I climbed up the small hill beside the street, I was no longer satisfied with silently shedding tears. I began to cry out loud, cry freely, cry uncontrollably, cry vengefully even.
When I was tired of crying, I sat down on that bare hill, observing this street that confined me. There were no stars in the night here, only the electric lights of every household and the flashing construction signs lit up this sky. The roar of trucks leaving and people's cursing sounded noisy and ridiculous under the quiet night sky, so I had to cover my ears to calm my mind. I slowly lay down here like this, quietly falling asleep in the smell of the food spilled on me and the smell of sweat, hugging an empty stomach.
When I woke up, my grandmother had already fallen asleep beside me, my grandfather's snoring was the only sound in the room. My memory evaporated quietly in the air along with the sweat on my head, I couldn't remember anything that had happened before. I only knew that my grandfather's harsh words didn't come true: he still let me in the house. Later, my grandmother told me that I was carried back that night by the only outsider living on this street. When my grandmother told me this, she was lightly pinching my ear while gritting her teeth and muttering, saying that the outsider must have secretly drugged me, causing me to faint, and then he pretended to be kind by sending me back, truly sinful. I had never seen that outsider, but every old person on this street spoke ill of him. No matter what he did, to these old people it was always no different from "sinning". When I was young, I thought this outsider had done something terrible, and avoided passing by his house every time. It wasn't until I grew up that I understood, for the old people on that street, the only terrible thing he did was being born outside this area and having money: he spoke Mandarin, he drove a new car, he always held a mobile phone in his hand, he installed an extra air conditioner in his house... And gradually, the middle-aged people living here no longer gave this outsider a good face: the men were not only afraid that he would take away their jobs, but more afraid that he would take away the women here, even though the women here had never been, and would never be, their "possessions"; and the women's opinions often could only follow the men in their families. They weren't afraid of this outsider man, they were only afraid of the men in their families.
After sitting briefly at the foot of the bed, I slowly got up, driven by instinct, and went to the bathroom. I didn't turn on the light, fearing that the sound of the light switch would wake my grandmother. When I came out of the bathroom, I inadvertently glanced at myself in the mirror, only to find that my grandmother had already changed me into pajamas. I didn't dare to look directly at the mirror, but the source of my fear was no longer M's makeup or my mother's face. My fear came from facing myself in the mirror. My absurd imagination made me struggle. More than once, I wanted to tell M's grandmother or mother about M secretly putting on makeup, so that M would be scolded, and perhaps she would no longer secretly use her mother's cosmetics, and I wouldn't have to avoid her. I felt guilty and ashamed for having such a bastard thought, but I must also admit that the reason I chose not to tell on her was not because this impulsive thought was defeated by my rationality; in fact, it was only defeated by my cowardice.
I was afraid to fall asleep with shame, so I quickly turned my head and walked out of the bathroom. At this time, my mind was already clear, and my steps were no longer stumbling like before. Only then did I realize that the moldy walls in the living room were whitened by the light from M's room next door; and the reason I could see myself clearly in the mirror in the unlit bathroom just now was probably also due to this light in the living room. Encouraged by curiosity, I tiptoed to the window in the living room, wanting to see into M's room. This was the beginning of my countless future peepings, and at that time, what I felt was not pleasure or satisfaction, but endless anxiety. I stood behind the fabric curtain, quietly poking out half of my left head. The moldy smell of the curtain and the smell of cheap detergent filled my nostrils, so I only breathed through my mouth. When my sight touched M's room, my breathing became uncontrollably heavier.
Besides M, I also saw F in M's room.
F was the only boy still in school on this street besides me. He was the same age as M, studying in the same school. His grandparents passed away early, and his mother also lost her life in a car accident shortly after giving birth to him, so there was only him and his father left in the family. After losing his wife, his father quit his job at the construction site and supported F and himself with the huge compensation received from his wife's car accident. F wasn't very tall, and he had a serious hunchback, causing people to always mistakenly think he was a late-developing kid. Influenced by Hong Kong movies, he always liked to dress himself up as a wild and unruly hooligan: hair combed back, flowery shirt with open collar, exaggerated black belt and shiny leather shoes were his outfit for almost every holiday, but when it came to school time, he would obediently wear the school uniform and have the uniformed short haircut. When I first met him, I was also attracted by his uniqueness, but later I found out that his nonconformity was just an act: I had never seen a truly non-conforming person still wear school uniforms to school. Since then, I increasingly looked down on him, even treating him as a negative example, trying my best to distance myself from him, afraid of being contaminated by that false non-conformity from him. Originally, he also disdained to associate with a kid like me, until after a conflict between me and him, he suddenly became very willing to keep me company. That day, just as he was showing off his flowery shirt to me as usual, I didn't remain silent like usual; on the contrary, I fiercely replied to him with a "Ugly!", and then spit on the ground imitating my grandfather. He was so angry that he couldn't speak, his curved spine laboriously supporting his slightly trembling body.
"You little brat, I'll cut off your balls!"
I knew he was trying to scare me. Looking at his ridiculous appearance with a red face, I couldn't help but laugh.
"Go ahead and cut them, I don't want these things anyway, hurry up and cut them off for me!"
Seeing that I wasn't scared, F became even more furious with shame. He ran back to his house without looking back, took a pair of large scissors for trimming tree branches, and shouted at me standing at his doorway.
"Do you believe I'll really cut!"
"Come on then!"
After saying this, I pulled down my pants and pointed at my thing, shouting at him. F was at a loss. He didn't dare to really do it, but he didn't want to lose face in front of a kid. He would take a few steps forward holding the scissors, then put down the scissors in his hand thoughtfully, while I maintained my posture, even as more and more people gathered to watch, I didn't pull up my pants. By the time my grandmother dragged me away from the crowd, F had completely frozen in place, not moving at all. Since then, F's attitude towards me changed. Not only did he often come to play with me, but he even used money stolen from home to buy me snacks. I still hated him, but I didn't object to taking advantage of him. To satisfy my curiosity, or rather my thirst for knowledge, I often pulled him to read the advertisements posted on the wall at the corner of the street. Every time he read to me, he would look at me with a mischievous smile; and every time I repeated a word, he would laugh for several minutes. When I asked him what those words meant, he would pretend to be serious and point at his crotch, then burst into laughter again. I never understood what he meant, until I grew up, I found out that those advertisement flyers were all about sexually transmitted diseases, and the pronunciations he taught me were full of errors.
In short, I didn't like him. And when I saw him appear in M's room at this moment, my brain immediately went blank. My breathing became increasingly rapid, my heartbeat seemed to be deliberately going against the rhythm of the wall clock. F was still wearing his flowery shirt, M was still wearing her old long dress, but I seemed unable to recognize who they were. M sat at her desk absently flipping through her book, while F leaned on her desk motionless, staring at M, occasionally carefully brushing her hair blown messy by the electric fan behind her ear. I recognized that book, it was the book about mirrors, the book she used to read to me enthusiastically. Soon, M also stopped pretending to flip through the book, but turned her face to look at F, and gently grasped F's hand that was fiddling with her hair in her own hand. I couldn't see M's expression, but I guessed she must have been smiling like F. I had never seen such a pure smile appear on F's face, nor had I ever imagined he could be as gentle as he was now. Then, F slowly approached M, and pulled out that hand grasped by M. He used that hand to hold M's waist, and used the other hand to gently stroke M's hair back and forth. At first, M's body was still a bit stiff, but soon her tense shoulders and neck relaxed their vigilance, and naturally leaned towards F following the force of his embrace. At this time, F had already closed his eyes, his lips were about to tightly press against M. When F's slightly purple lips touched M, she shuddered as if electrified; but after a while, her trembling shoulders regained composure. She slightly tilted her head to the left, letting her lips more naturally touch F's.
At this time, I had already forgotten that I was peeping. My whole body was exposed by the window, the white light from M's room made my eyes turn black. But even so, M and F wouldn't discover me, they were completely immersed in their own world, everything around was just irrelevant. I stared blankly at the scene before me, feeling for the first time that reality could grip my thoughts and breath more than nightmares. I knew they were kissing, but I had only seen people do this at weddings. I didn't want to watch anymore, an inexplicable sense of shame spread through every nerve of mine, but my feet seemed to be nailed to the ground, unable to move. My tears silently occupied my entire eye sockets, until they overflowed from the corners of my eyes, I only felt their presence.
A few minutes later, F was no longer satisfied with just kissing. The hand hugging M crawled like a spider to her buttocks, while the other reached into her dress from the neckline, groping wildly at her chest. M immediately wanted to stand up from the chair, and wanted to push him away with both hands, but F stood up before her, put both hands on her shoulders and used brute force to press her back into the chair. No matter how she struggled, he wouldn't let go. Then, one of F's hands grabbed her hair from the back of her head and pulled hard, while the other hand directly pulled down her dress. I didn't know what F wanted to do, I only felt the shame in my body growing stronger and stronger, gradually turning into physical nausea. After pulling down M's dress, F also took off his own pants. His thing was as hard and straight as a stick, surrounded by dense hair. Just as the strong nausea in my body made my intestines feel twisted and burning, F grabbed M's hair and turned M around, then used his other hand to pull at M's underwear, and then forcefully pressed his thing against M's buttocks. At this time, M was like a wooden puppet under F's brute force, while I stood frozen like a wooden puppet, until my gaze finally met the gaze of M whose hair was being pulled by F.
I began to scream and howl regardless of everything, while the real victim a few meters away remained silent. My screams frightened F. He pushed away M who was bending over with her eyes full of terror, and hurriedly pulled up his pants, and then jumped directly out of the second-floor window. By the time my grandmother, awakened by me, rushed to the living room, F had already disappeared without a trace. When my grandmother saw M crying on the table, naked, she patted her chest while covering my head and pulled me back to the room, her mouth still chanting Amitabha Buddha. She stuffed me back into the quilt, patting my back while dealing with my grandfather who was also woken up, and it took a long while to stop my screaming. I wanted to tell my grandmother what I had witnessed, but my grandmother told me to shut up.
"You are a little kid, what the hell do you know, go to sleep, don't talk nonsense here!"
After saying this, she ran out of the room and locked it from outside. I lay helplessly on the bed, only faintly hearing my grandparents talking at the door. That was the first night in my life without sleep. I dared not recall what I had seen, nor did I know how to describe it to others. The only person I could describe to what I saw without any hesitation was my grandmother, but she didn't want me to speak. At that time, I didn't know what rape was, nor did I have a clear concept of crime. I only knew that F stripped M naked, grabbed her hair and pressed his crotch against her. For these actions, I only felt strange and ashamed, and what really made me cry, even made me angry, was the pain in M's eyes and her tears.
The whole night, I couldn't stop imagining the scene of the next day: apologies, arguments, fights, police... Rather than saying I was imagining, it's better to say I was looking forward to these things befalling F's head. But nothing happened the next day. There was no accountability, no conflict, the street operated as usual, the sun rose as usual, and F still wore his flowery shirt and freely shuttled between the street and the construction area. That whole day, I was locked in the bedroom by my grandmother, as if the person who had done something bad last night was me and not F. In my grandmother's words, she did this to protect me. She pinned her hopes on the broken toys and old books in the bedroom, as if these cold things could calm my unease and anger. But contrary to her expectations, my hatred quickly took root and sprouted like mold in this closed small room, growing wildly at an incredible speed under the noisy cicada chirping. I hated F's shameless behavior, I hated my grandmother's ignorant obstruction, I hated this street's indifference. Many years later, I overheard from my grandmother's conversations with others that the reason M's family didn't choose to call the police or other handling methods was because F's father had given M's family a generous hush money on that same night, and M's family, between her chastity and fleeting wealth, unhesitantly chose the latter. And the other people on the street probably all chose to forget this matter and never mention it again, out of the same idea as my grandmother that less trouble is better than more. Thus, before the sun rose the next day, this matter was already over. Obviously, for the people on this street, fairness and justice have always only served money and power. What the law couldn't manage in time was managed by gold and silver.
A week later, this street experienced a big power outage. When the old people here were no longer forced to stay awake at night by electric lights, they seized every opportunity to hand their lives over to dreams. They no longer needed to count their fingers to know how long they could live, nor worry about property distribution. They only needed to forget their breathing, forget their heartbeats. Before death silently ended their lives, dreams could provide them with everything.
But I didn't need dreams, I only wanted reality. My hatred made my heartbeat and breathing increasingly clear. While my grandfather and grandmother were enjoying dreams, I secretly ran out of the house, stole two bricks from the construction site next door, then groped in the dark to the back window of F's house. I couldn't tell what I was going to do, the anger and hatred accumulated over this week had already taken away my ability to think, they controlled my body, and in exchange, I gave them unlimited trust.
F's house had candles lit, visible from afar. His house had two floors, the first floor for F and his father to live in, the second floor filled with old clothes left by F's deceased mother and other useless wooden furniture. The back window of his house was in the bathroom on the first floor. When I arrived at his back window, his father was chasing him around to beat him for secretly drinking the medicinal wine brewed at home. His father had a slight limp in his left foot, naturally unable to catch up with him. He skillfully ran into the bathroom and locked the door, still holding a candle and a plastic bottle full of wine in his hand. His father cursed outside the bathroom for a while and then returned to his room, while F sat cross-legged with his back to the window, examining the medicinal wine in the bottle. By the time I climbed in through the window into the bathroom, F finally heard my movement. I was crouching by the window picking up my two bricks, and before I could turn around, F lowered his voice and questioned me with a trembling tone.
"What the fuck are you doing here? You nearly scared me to death, get out!"
I slowly turned around, and F's gaze was immediately drawn to the bricks in my hand. I weighed the bricks in my hand, staring at his somewhat frightened eyes.
"I've come to kill you."
After saying this, I raised the two bricks in my right hand, posing to smash them towards F's head. He immediately dropped the plastic bottle in his hand and crawled into the washing machine in the corner of the bathroom. He curled up his body, tucking his two arms under his bent knees, fitting himself perfectly into this washing machine. His movements were extremely practiced, perhaps in daily life to avoid his father's beatings, he often hid in this washing machine. Seeing him in such a miserable state, my anger towards him increased rather than decreased. I used all my strength to smash the bricks in my hand onto that washing machine, then kicked over the plastic bottle on the ground. The strong medicinal liquor instantly spilled all over the bathroom floor.
The huge commotion again attracted F's father. He pounded on the door while cursing loudly at the bathroom. I was afraid of being discovered, so I picked up the bricks on the ground, intending to run back home. Just as I bent down to pick up the bricks, I touched the candle F had brought in on the ground. The moment the flame on the tip of the candle touched the spilled wine on the ground, the fire quickly spread along the alcohol on the floor. I panicked. Watching the flames on the ground gradually approaching the curtain by the window, I even forgot to call for help. I jumped out of the window without looking back, then ran all the way home. By the time I got home, my grandparents were still sound asleep. I crawled into the quilt beside my grandmother, trembling even as I breathed. I should have called for help, and should have woken up my grandparents and told them that F's house was on fire. But I didn't do so. Hatred easily plugged the mouth trying to cry out formed by the fear and unease in my heart, and remaining silent had never been so easy. Until F's father's cry for help woke up everyone on this street, this silence finally began to crumble.
The merciless flames burned recklessly under the catalysis of dry air and aged wooden furniture, the slowly rising thick smoke forewarned the smell of death to the ignorant and stubborn old people, the firelight became the only light source in this night without power, coldly illuminating the people gathered around the house, casting their devil-like shadows on the walls of every household. F's father knelt by the burning house crying and shouting, surrounded by people trying to stop him from rushing into the house to find his son. Someone told him that the bathroom window was open, F must have run out by himself. F's father believed it, kneeling alone in front of the house waiting for F's appearance. He waited until the firefighters came, waited until the firefighters left, waited until the onlookers went home to sleep one by one, but he still didn't see his son. I stood on the roof watching the flames being extinguished bit by bit, watching the firefighters find F's body burned like charcoal in the bathroom. Everyone knew F was burned to death, only F's father still didn't want to believe it.
I slowly walked down from the roof at my grandmother's urging. My hatred and anger had disappeared along with the extinguishing of the big fire, leaving only the remaining unease and bewilderment fighting in my heart. Before I entered the room, I glanced at myself in the mirror. The faint light emitted by the few candles about to burn out in the house made my mirror image hazy and dark, but I could see it very clearly. My dark and sharp eyebrows, slightly sunken nose, deep red lips, jet-black skin, everything became incomparably real and even scary after I realized that I had indirectly or directly burned down a house and killed a person. At that moment, I suddenly understood why the old people around were so obsessed with dreams and illusions: the horror brought by reality could make people physically and mentally feel a real hell.
I bent down and vomited all the emotions in my heart mixed with vomit at the bathroom door. As I thought, the stench was the unique smell of fear and unease. My grandmother was startled by me. Before she could speak, I had already taken a quick step to the mirror. I forced down my nausea, lifted the lid of the toilet water tank beside me, and smashed this only mirror in the house into pieces on the ground.
F's father knelt in front of the burned house all night, no one knew when he collapsed. When people found him the next morning, he had already breathed his last breath. The people on the street deliberated all night, and finally planned to donate the money raised for F and his father's funeral to the residents on the street in their names. They illegally buried F and F's father's bodies in the empty ground beside their house: because they were not even willing to spend money to buy cemetery plots for F's father and him. To make the "donation" more convincing, the men of some prestige on the street even specially made a banner and a horizontal scroll, and specifically invited a so-called photographer to take a photo. Thus, F and his father's funeral was not held, their half-burned house was not cleaned up, and the unburned part was looted empty by people. For these dealings, the men on the street were naturally indignant. They blamed all these thefts on that outsider, even though that outsider's home remained as simple and plain as before.
After this incident, everyone tried their best to forget it, except for that half-burned, half-empty house and the persistent nausea and unease in my heart, there was no evidence left to prove that fire ever existed. Two weeks later, I left this street and went to a boarding school dozens of kilometers away to attend primary school, and on weekends I lived with my parents in a new apartment near the school. That house had many windows and walls so white they shone, no mold, no low ceilings, no grandparents, and no roof connecting to the sky. Of course, there was no M either. In these two weeks before I left, I wanted to see M countless times, but I knew she was avoiding me. She might blame the responsibility for people on this street gossiping about her being a shameless whore on my scream that night, I couldn't agree with this idea, nor did I have the courage to point it out. M blamed my scream for being too sharp and piercing, while I blamed my scream for not being heartbreaking enough, not being able to tear apart people's habitual hypocrisy.
A year later, I returned to this street to visit my grandparents. New shops and nearby chemical factories had sprung up, and the air people breathed was filled with a pungent smell. Many old people had passed away. Unlike F and his father, these old people all received decent burials. My grandmother was still in good health, while my grandfather had already developed liver and lung cancer, with not much time left. Technology and all other new things with the smell of steel or plastic were impacting everything on this street, and the old people here were the victims.
I still couldn't see M. My grandmother told me that not long after I left, M was sent by her family to the home of a local businessman, and now she was already pregnant. That businessman planned to take her to get a marriage certificate as soon as M reached the legal age. When my grandmother mentioned M being pregnant, her eyes sparkled with happiness. Obviously, the cruel fact that M was only sixteen or seventeen was far less important to her than carrying on the family line. I listened to my grandmother's description, feeling that everything was like an endless dream. The memories from a year ago finally broke the chains that entangled me, devouring my rationality again like a nightmare.
My grandmother was still talking on and on, and I had already walked alone to the bathroom. I looked at this new mirror in front of me, everything seemed to return to a year ago. I stiffly raised the lid of the toilet water tank like before, using even greater force than last time to smash this mirror again. My mother, who rushed over hearing the sound, cursed me and slapped me. My grandmother squatted on the ground sweeping up the mirror fragments while stopping my mother. I looked at my reflection in the mirror fragments on the ground, and finally understood one thing: I could break every mirror in this world, but my fear caused by "reality" itself would never disappear. It is a curse on me, which will accompany me to the grave along with my remorse.
Ning Huang
