In Continuum.

Ashes Coming Home

I am a pain in you're ass
And I'm wondering how long it's gonna last
Be my mirror, be my friend,
Be the workhouse of the energy
I twist your arm to spin

The weather has been a bitch, but at the same time reflecting my emotions. Doesn't that mean that I am being a bitch, too? I have no idea, nothing makes sense these days. Like the way the sun comes and goes as it pleases, like a child playing with the light switch in your bedroom, turning it off and on because the blinking of the light bulb makes you nauseous and dizzy, and being nauseous and dizzy is sometimes fun. The worst part is, when the humid air invades the house, with the pounding of the construction downstairs it can become pretty frustrating. Being the room with the air-conditioning constantly turned on, the other family members flock to my room sometimes to enjoy the brief moment of coolness, all the while giving a briefing about why air-conditioning is the best invention in the history of all inventions.

Stumbling into my room a while ago was my mother, hands still sticking from the dish washing she did only minutes ago, and that alone already caused her to pant like a dog. With a hand on the door and the other on her waist, we talked about books and music as usual. I have a cool mother, I think everybody can testify to that. A mother whose a great cook, a great mother, and a great friend. It can't get any better than that to be honest. And there we were talking about life, when the inevitable nagging came along. Being a woman of 49, it is hard to stay away from that area of a conversation. But sitting there at the computer table, I was as good as a cornered beast, being interrogated somehow about what I have done and what I haven't. Then, it happened.

Mother," I noticed that you haven't been going out lately."
Me," I don't see a reason to go out these days."
Mother," She's still working everyday?"
Me," Who?"
Mother," Your girlfriend."
Me," Mom, we broke up."
Mother," When? What happened?"
Me," I really don't want to talk about it."
Mother," How did you deal with it?"
Me," Mom, please..."

Please.

Everyday, like a power station
You know it isn't good
I know you're burning too much wood
Oh, and you burn out
The twisted irony is
Your ashes come home to me
Come home to me

This is the story of how my parents met and fell in love.

Almost thirty years ago, a bald headed army boy - my Dad - was enlisted into the army like all good male citizens of Taiwan. Like all the military in the world, shaving your head was a must even back in the old days, and my mother has a photograph of his baldness to prove it as well. But unlike the rest of the world, they didn't need to go through physical checkups to see if you are fitted to join this vocation or that vocation. You go into a room, stick your hand into a box full of different vocations, and then pick a piece of paper from inside. Your vocation would be whatever that is written on the paper, and my Dad was lucky enough to become the driver in the air force of the Taiwanese military. He still goes around telling people how glorious it was for him to be driving generals and colonels around in his jeep, and how he managed to learn his magnificent driving skills from the army. But of course, he always left out the fact that he never fired a single round from any rifles or guns, or the fact that he gets to go home every single day. He never even had a uniform.

Almost thirty years ago, there was a young girl - my Mom - who was the third youngest girl in the family of seven. Because of her father's drinking problems as well as opium addiction, the once wealthy family crumbled when they were younger, and they resorted to selling home-made clothes to help with the family finances. My mother's high school was far away at that time, and it took a bus ride, a train ride, followed by another bus ride to get to school every single day. But she never complained too much, because it's not like people were wealthy or spoiled back then anyway. It was late in the afternoon while they were trying to catch the last train home, when the students from her school met with a horde of army boys who were also trying to head back home for the weekend. At the platform of the train station, the young girl met the army boy.

So we take a walk
To make some sense
And I'm wondering if you fancy my advance
I have pushed you
Way too far
And you say Fuck you little princess
Who the hell do you think you are?

My father - even till today - was not too good with words, or had any charisma to speak of whatsoever according to my mother. Coming from a business-driven family, my father's head was filled with money and more money ever since young. Romantic novels and romantic words never came across him as something worth remember or reading, until the moment he met my mother and wanted to know her better. So in an desperate attempt to get to know her better, my father did what he thought was an act of romanticism by asking for my mother's magazine. It was a female magazine, kind of like Cosmopolitian or Cleo back in the old days. My mother and her friends thought it was strange how this army boy wanted to read about women's makeups and wardrobes, but my father pretend to be interested anyway. The truth is, my father is the kind of person who falls asleep three lines into any book in this world. So the fact that he borrowed and read a magazine was quite a feat indeed.

He got an address and was elated. So when his battalion needed a crew transfer, he volunteered to be transferred from his original camp in Ping Dong to TaiPei, just to be a little bit closer to my mother's residence in San Chong. But writing to my mother wasn't enough, he had to break military laws just to see her a couple of more times in a week. Because he was a jeep driver, he had a lot of free time at hand. So once in a while he would drive the jeep out of the camp illegally to fetch my mother round the city for a ride, illegally of course. He knew full well that once caught, he would be thrown into the barracks and never see the light of day for the next couple of months. But that's the sacrifice that he made, and to me that was sweet of him despite the lack of romanticism in his blood.

He spent a lot of time at my mother's place last time, and had a close relationship with my grandfather through mahjong. And he stayed so often at my mother's place during his army days that when my father was about to leave his duties, my grandmother told him "If you are going to ask somebody to sign those papers for you just so that you can leave your duties, ask me. You spend more time in my house than in camp!"

So that is how my parents met and how they grew to like each other. The truth is, neither of them experienced a true heartbreak before, because they were both each others' first loves. My Dad claimed that he had a couple of relationships in the past, before my mother came along. So when my mother asked me about how it felt like to break up - she sounded almost too curious - I told her to ask Dad about it instead, since he had a couple of minor relationship hiccups himself.

"Nah, he's too dumb" my mother said, and I laughed so very loudly.

Everyday, like a power station
You know it isn't good
You know you're burning too much wood
But I said if you burn out
The twisted irony is
Your ashes come home to me
Come home to me
Come home to me

The truth is, when it comes to heartbreaks, my parents were newbies at it. My mother told me, frankly, that she has never experienced that in life before, because my Dad was the first and the last person she ever loved. Still, it was more concern than curiosity in her eyes when she asked me how I pulled through the ordeal. I declined to tell her what happened, what truly happened between me at that girl who came home for Chinese New Year with a pair of oranges. Under the eyes of my parents, I suddenly became paralyzed with words, as I say there unable to answer her questions.

She asked me how I got through the break up and how the process was like. I told her if she never noticed my ordeal then I probably did a good job in covering everything up. There is guilt in the fact that my friends know about my story and not my parents, but there is also this threshold I am yet to crossover. I cannot bring myself to tell her what I went through, like how I couldn't tell her the stories in the army. You know how parents are, I'm not if they can take the fact that their son went through what he went through. After all, they'd probably not understand how it felt like because they themselves never went through such a thing before.

I appreciated her brief comforting by the door just now, but they were very superficial because the real story was more than just because "two person didn't work out". There were a whole lot of other reasons too, and to have my parents be involved in this would be too hard for me to bear. Not to blame my mother or anything, but that did open up old wounds inside, like the way a band-aid might rip off the healed scars to reveal the wound beneath it, that was how I felt like when she asked those questions. Perhaps in due time I might just sit down one day and spill the whole story from the beginning to the end. But right now, it might not be the best time to reveal what is underneath the bandage just yet.

Heartbreak is not something you want to experience Mom. It's a pain that you cannot remove by swallowing pills or applying some medical creams. It is the empty feeling in your chest and so much more than just that. It's good that you folks had each other to hold on to all these years, and never had to experience what I went through. Because it's not good, to go there. You become a different person, and I can't imagine you guys changing to somebody else.

Yeah well your ashes come home to me
Come home to me
Come home to me

You know well the circus gonna have you on a fucking mantelpiece
The mantelpiece
The mantelpiece