“People run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water.” Charles Bukowski
I stripped down naked and looked at myself in the mirror.
A pair of eyes stared back at me. They were dark and soulless.
I turned on the tap and let the water fill in the slimy green bathtub.
The sound of water running echoed over the cramped room.
It was nearly midnight, no one was awake at this time, at least it appeared to be so. The solid silence took over the night. Casting over the city the immense golden silk, the forest of ancient street lights marked up their territory.
I thought about the park benches. Many strangers come and sit on them anytime from dusk to dawn, some are alone while the others go in couples. What are they thinking about while sitting on those wooden benches? I wonder.
I stepped into the tub, its porcelain surface was as cold as ice. I looked at my reflection in the water, as pale as the snow that was about to melt.
The water just reached my ankles. I watched my feet refracted through water, the scar on my right ankle hadn’t faded yet.
I traced my fingers along my cribs and counted
one
two
three
four
and five.
Here places my heart, doesn’t it?
Maybe all the pain I’m bearing doesn’t come from an aching heart. Perhaps there is nothing here behind those cribs, just a black mass of rotten flesh.
Did my heart cease to exist or has it never been there?
There are many times that I envision myself standing in front of the grand mirror in the hall, digging fingers through my chest, breaking the cribs, and trying to grasp the hollowness. Under the neon light, I see all my fingers dyed in bloody red.
Some may say I’m descending into madness.
But they are wrong. The madness is already here with me since the day I was created. It’s a line of my code, a layer in my design, and a part of my identity.
In a sense, we’re all crazy people. Leafing the pages in your memory books and you’ll realize that there is always something odd about people you know.
To some extent, humans are meant to be insane and damaged. It’s just some people are “blessed” with a little bit of “extra essence”.
The water raised higher and higher, I was just sitting there, with my knees to my chest, dreaming the empty benches under the dim yellow light.
This afternoon, I called him but the line was busy. About five minutes later, he called back and was surprised that I had called him. I had never taken the initiative to reach out to him before. He asked whether everything was okay, and I replied “Fine. Everything is fine.” The other end stayed silent for a few seconds and then he said “I’ll be there soon, I promise”. We said goodbye, the line went silent, again.
It suddenly struck me with nostalgia for the landline phones. No one I know now has a personal landline phone, including me. Those phones, when the call ends, it leaves behind the unique monotonous buzzing sound.
I began to lose track of time. Yesterday, I forgot it was Sunday so I waited for him for the whole day long. For some reason, he never comes on Sunday.
I never ask him why.
It was raining outside. The downfall was so heavy that it overwhelmed the noise of the next-door television broadcasting the boring late-night talk show. The volume was so loud that I can hear it every night. Despite the laughing and clapping from the live audience, the host gets no approval from my neighbor. Still, they turn it on every night.
I was thinking about getting rid of the television in my living room. What’s the point of it anyway? I don’t watch television, it’s too annoying for me. I read newspapers for information and go to the theater for plays and movies. At this point, the television has become pointless decorating.
Once in a while, sitting in front of the muted television, I catch a gaze of myself in its cold black screen, it feels so unreal in such a way that I was just an illusion, an image being projected in someone else’s mind.
Who’s that person anyway?
The rain kept going and going. As if someone just punched a big hole in the sky and through it all the water from the four oceans pouring out.
I sank back into the warm water, counting every minute to the moment that all my thoughts merged into the water’s current.
Who will wait for me at the eternity’s gate?
When the water turned cold, I stepped out, unplugged the basin, brushed my teeth, and go to bed.
At dawn, he came and we were making love in the morning sun.
6:28 pm, 1/9/21.
Gác Nhỏ Của Lam 