Beam of Floating Dream

The girl who plays English horn plays English horn. Wretched, poignant melody diagonally punctures through closed windows, clusters of air vacantly vibrating, pantingly dissolving. It must be a young, petite girl—not even reaching ten, nine or eight—in purely white dresses, blue ribbons her mum polishes, trembling to hold the massive instrument in her unstained hands, stumbling to balance herself until a straight back, feet nailed, so that she can pursue her intermittent solo, the one she did yesterday, or even earlier than I can even remember, at the age of the best, at the age when she can still stand upright.

The neighborhood is crammed with streets like maze, warrens like beehive, which are crammed with solemnity. Hustling cars deliberately take a load off from swishing, lest they would be the mischievous culprits shattering the atmosphere by accosting with friction between their tires and the coarse, bone-dry ground. Slouching in the couch, I can hardly move and see dragging a decrepit body, but listen to the shards and specks of perpetually same canzonet, the horn suffocating me with somber whine—I need air. Urgently, despite backache, I strived and managed to stand up, leaning on the windowsill and clinging to the window. It does not move at all as if saturated with lead—then, all of a sudden, flung open seemingly surpassing a threshold, centrifuging me to fall back into the couch.

Malignant sun drains every bit of vapor in air, beams of strong sunlight directing in my face, which must have been turned into a landscape since I feel droplets of sweat creeping down my carved wrinkles. The nag gets even louder, while I do not possess sufficient vitality to get up again, relinquishing my control over sleepiness to the greatest extent—it’s the magic of hearing. Closing eyes, holding breath, compressing mouth are always simple, but when it comes to audition, nobody can really readily prevent themselves from hearing. For me, it no longer serves curiosity, but sympathy to the saber-ratting backbone, which grumpily cracks with frustration. I had used it too much when I was young, I regret to believe.

Another pause of music terminates my speculation. The girl never climbs over the hump. A thwarting note. Isn’t the note me? My cousin Philip bestowed a bedroom on me, his family seeming reluctant but deterred to defy his supreme charity. The old the useless. That’s what they always say behind me. Nothing to refute, I just shielded my eyes, in my couch feeling torrentially dethroned. A hideous existence of burden. A dynamite invaded by searing pain, until completely obliterated. I was ordained to be silent with the facto fact. Now I bend down to accept it.

Inevitably, sleeping is the mere thing to do in my life, where I have piously scavenged for one sip of felicity but fail, since it is in my dreams I can float on velvet, calmly, travelling as fast as a light beam, as far as a light beam…

“Mr. Barnhart, may I have another story?” In merriment tone Robert exclaims, the only son of Philip, I consider as precocious although Jenine, Philip’s wife, clarifies that he seldom gets A in tests, a temporal dose of consolation—to him I can unfold what I swathed for half of my life: my life stories, wasted once I die. The girl stops her horn, surroundings quietude. All rooms are empty and dark as curtain closed, Philip and Jenine at work, except for Robert’s bedroom, radiant and snug, welcoming me in. Instantly, I leave the couch, staggering into his room, placing the adorable 9-year-old boy on my lap, and begin my story.

Fifty years ago, another night of routine for the deadly tranquil plain, where we stopped the caravan and camped, bending over to stretch our sore spines after a whole day of incinerating walk. The moon was larger, brighter and closer than it is now, so my friend Spartan managed to pitch a tent without a flashlight. Perhaps we are the first two who have slept here, throughout history. Mind wandering, I was about to lie down, while Spartan lifted the mat and asked, “Barnhart, can you wait for a moment? I wanna have a cigarette.”

I was sleepy and he was imploring. Before I could even refuse, he tugged me out of the tent and added, “You won’t get bored if I tell you a story. When the cigarette is finished, the story…will finish.” I stooped to strangle sleepiness, whereas chuckling, Spartan lit up a cigarette and puffed a beautiful smoke ring, which was expanding and expanding, finally confining us at its center, then taking another drag. He stared down at me, and starts talking.

The pattern of the person P’s backbone was exceptional. Perhaps he was so blunt when young that he did not even feel the pain as inferiority and timidity were carved into his bones like engraving a seal. Later, it was said that he gradually displayed excelled intelligence among peers, and all kinds of awards and honors were dipped in heavy crimson ink, but P was able to straighten up as a well-known nouveau riche. Nevertheless, laundered under the beams of flow of time, P’s bones returned to its original, spookily pale appearance.

P is proud of his spine. There is not any skin, or flesh, on his back. Looking from behind, the only thing is a squiggly, lathy white backbone, shuddering when walking. “Isn’t this design for me?” P raised his eyebrows. “How convenient!”

I have been P’s classmate since fifteen. People say, P’s too terrifying—under freezing gusts of air conditioner, his clothes unceasingly sank and sank, sinking right into his empty body. As a result, they all tried their best to avoid P. It’s disability. The teacher claimed, forcing me to help him take his belongings here and there—what the hell! I would not like to be such a servant. Fortunately, P said he could handle this and it was not necessary for me to help him, lifting the bottom hem of his navy-blue T-shirt, showing me his dreaded spine, as if it is a rigid steel bar. He went far then, I following him like a chick, afraid that the teacher accused me of my irresponsibility. Thus, I spent my days accompanying P as he walked around with surprising agility, resembling nothing less than a specialized model of automaton. Occasionally, he even exchanged a jest or two with me. While I had intended to inquire about the cause of his disability or any obstacles he faced in daily life, these questions remained unvoiced, for he himself made no mention of them, preferring instead to chatter endlessly about topics such as poems and baseball. Although not particularly engaging, his conversation at least staved off boredom, just not that fresh.

One day after school, someone told me with a smile that P said that I was his friend. Thinking about P's funny appearance, I laughed along with that person. Short after, P came with a small portion of cold noodles. I buy this for you, he said with enthusiasm. The plastic box was covered in slippery, spicy oil, hard to be held. I was about to open the lid when my right fingertip slipped to the other side of the box, leaving my hand empty.

The cold noodles and spicy oil stayed on P’s orange sneakers, with chili seeds dripping down—one and the other—bustling into the gray cement cracks. I stood still, ashamed, considering squatting down to clean P’s shoes that were already unrecognizable. However, he just laughed and lifted up his wrinkled T-shirt, revealing a sharp and angular section of his spine, saying, “See, I'm just a disabled person. What's important about these shoes?”

I wanted to look up at him, but no matter how much I tilted my head, all I could see was a spine that seemed to have no end. I stood on tiptoe and only then realized that a disproportionately large head was perched on top, with laughter and laughter constantly circulating on his face. I stood in front of P like a king pardoned from his reign. I laughed.

Later, I found that P was the mere person I had ever met who would suffer losses and still be happy. On the playground, someone grabbed his shirt and deliberately frame a case, “P, I heard you saying that our class was bad at playing basketball two days ago!” P didn’t answer, but pulled his shirt back, revealing some of his spine, causing a gale of laugh. “You must be unable to beat them so what you can do is barking!” P's face turned reddish brown, as if he was about to evaporate. He ultimately could not bear it, lifting his shirt and arguing in low, hesitant voice, “My body is disabled. how can I play ball with you guys?” I stood aside and said nothing. The crowd achieved their goal, scattering in all directions, leaving behind a string of sneers. P turned around, chuckling at me, pointing to his back and repeating, “I told you it's convenient! I told you it's convenient!” I laughed along with him.

Gradually, I figured out when P would laugh. For several weeks, I asked him to help me move things from one classroom to another, and he silently did it. Finally, he was unhappy, pulled down his upper garment, shook his head, and said he was not my servant. I stared at his serious, twisted face, and laughed. After a moment of inexplicable confusion, he loosened his clothes. The clothes suddenly bounced up with a loud sound, and he laughed with his eyes, nose, and mouth all moving upward a few centimeters. As long as someone laughed, P would follow to chuckle. This laugh brought about the end of enmity and feud, and everyone had perceived this fact.

On the second day at noon, P went to the bathroom and left the chemistry workbook on the desk. I was worried that I wouldn't finish the homework before class, so I copied P’s work without hesitation, making sure to capture every stroke and dot. After two classes, the chemistry teacher called me out and discovered that I hadn't written the homework myself, so he gave me a zero, and P was also implicated to receive a zero. Back in the classroom, I casually explained the situation to him, reassuring him that it didn’t matter. He couldn't stop chuckling and even said the expected words of “It’s okay, it’s okay.” In an instant, my unease disappeared into the hot summer breeze.

P was so delightful that we knew it was not necessary to consider his feelings. Gradually, we grew tired of his ugly, yellowed spine, and we didn't want to listen to anything he said anymore.

One day, P went to class with his computer open. I was curious and opened his files one by one. It seemed like a disabled person's files were not much different from a normal person's. I was surprised and turned my head, only to see P standing beside me with a grin. I clicked on the mouse, and he did not stop me but instead did his own work, scribbling on a piece of scratch paper. I felt relieved and sneered at his cowardice.

The tip of the mouse was sharp, like a knife, cutting through P’s privacy, through and through. I recklessly clicked and forgot about the consequences. I was looking forward to seeing P’s dejected and helpless reaction, but instead of the usual carefree smile, I found a pair of furious eyes glaring at me. His swollen face seemed like it could roll down from his thin spine at any moment. “What are you doing?” He sternly questioned me, “What did you do?”

The bony structure trembled relentlessly. I was so scared that I turned my head back and buried it in my arms, on the desk—he rarely got angry like this. I knew P's temper too well, so I started laughing. I could feel the sarcasm in my laughter resonating between my ears, but I could not stop, did not want to stop. I knew P would laugh along with me, exposing the evidence of his disability.

But no. He did not.

He pulled his clothes tightly down, covering his thighs, then his knees, and further down. His clothes wrapped tightly around his spine in a circle. He lunged at me like a dying doe rushing towards a starving leopard.

My head was spinning. I heard a few people shouting and pulling P away from me. I never saw P and his spine again. Whenever someone asked what happened that day, I would sneer disdainfully and said, “P lacks tolerance and can’t take a joke!” Everyone laughed.

After P was gone, I did not feel much difference, except that I had to retrieve things myself. I grumbled and complained about not being used to it. Later, I went to the teacher's office and overheard some information about P’s situation. It seemed that P had his spine sawed off in the hospital. P claimed to feel no pain, and the doctor did not administer anesthesia. However, P felt somewhat numb. Under the faint yellow light of the surgical lamp, P opened his eyes wide and observed this world, which was chuckling, eventually without blinking.

The saffron flame on cigarette went out. The moon went further, into the clusters of clouds and never returned. The plain faded. I could not see Spartan’s face clearly, nameless wild flowers emitting dark red glim, glittering. I felt tilted and paralyzed, bending down to feel my spine. It must seem hilarious, as Spartan laughed.

When I looked down, Robert was no longer on my laps. Oh. The setting sun is in the phase of its last radiance, beams of golden light are not so real. Was I in the otherworld, or am I? I landed from floating, feeling the ground. The girl began her second performance, still failing to complete the hardest note. My back ached. So, I returned to the couch and shielded my eyes, curled up and strived to be asleep, collapsed in another beam of dream.