Serena turned left down that familiar road once again. Past the long stretches of farmland, and longer stretches of trees. During a game of hide and seek within these stretches, a falling durian missed her head by an inch. She took it home afterwards and ate it for petty vengeance.
Oh, how she missed it when life’s biggest threat was falling durians.
After those stretches came the lone houses; scattered by the road and home to the mysterious. She would’ve assumed the owners had passed if not for the fresh piles of laundry on the drying rack. Her old friends, the imaginative rascals, believed that anything but humans lived there. They merely posed as humans to conceal their true nature. It made for enticing ghost stories to exchange at school.
Oh, how she missed it when life’s biggest mystery was the owner of that house next to the run-down basketball court.
Then civilisation returned as she entered the village. She blared her horn, and a few stray dogs made a mad dash for the bushes on either side of the road. She’ll never understand how some people could go about their lives disliking them. Every one of them was the same; a giant baby who wanted food and a playmate. She’d doubt if Alicia was hers if the girl hadn’t inherited her love for dogs.
Oh, how she missed it when life’s biggest joy was scratching a dog’s belly and seeing its back leg kick wildly in bliss.
Oh, how she missed home.
She parked by her old house, and her old friends assaulted her with a series of bear hugs. After Ma and Pa had passed, their friends moved in to look after it, and kept the light on for her every Chinese New Year’s.
This impromptu visit brought them over the moon. They invited her to lunch with the excitement of an Alicia in primary school and bust out the mahjong table. In a village as small as hers, there were only three things one did for entertainment: mahjong, karaoke, and gossip.
The third was everyone’s favourite.
They caught her up with everything as if she had to cram it for an exam. This neighbour next door passed away, that neighbour next door got married to a westerner. This neighbour down the street moved out, that neighbour down the street was now in a wheelchair after a motorcycle accident.
She caught them up with everything: She met a new man, but nothing’s serious just yet. Alicia was taking O’Levels this year, and she’s woefully unprepared. She started a bakery with a colleague, and it’s going well.
Joining their lunch below the table was Pineapple, the latest stray dog to seek refuge here. They gave him all the chicken bones a dog could ever dream of.
It was quite the feat that the old gang could keep the house functioning over all these years and upgrade it to keep with the times. Her old bedroom was now a computer room, filled with those gaming computers with the rainbow lights Alicia wished for. The TV had a resolution high enough to not hurt the eye, and internet access; it was better than her TV! Most importantly, they replaced the claustrophobic dog crates with a chain of linked fences that could stretch as wide as the dog needed.
Either out of sentimentality or oversight, some parts of the house remained unchanged. The ceiling fan, eroded to an ugly brown, still spun so slowly it held no purpose. The toilet still had a faulty lever, and still needed to be flushed with a full bucket of water.
Insects were still omni-present, and the bug zapper still sat on the top of the fridge. One time, her brother zapped a large beetle and somehow set it ablaze. He cheered as if he scored free ice-cream.
Speaking of the devil, its bell echoed in the distance, and one of the gang had already left the table. He didn’t ask anyone what flavours they wanted; he didn’t need to.
Each with an ice-cream and tissue in hand, they dumped out the mahjong tiles and shuffled them. Alicia tried playing once, but she preferred stacking them into pyramids and towers. The clacking thud they made always made her flinch.
It didn’t take long for them to address the elephant in the room: where’s Alicia?
Serena told the story again. They played a few rounds as they absorbed the news, until one thought of something to say, “Like mother, like daughter.” He laughed.
That was Ah Kang, the wannabe comedian. She smacked him until he apologised. The rest of the table said what she’d already heard a million times from Wei Xiang and Dr Ling.
Next to contribute something new was Ah Xing. She aged like fine wine. She was the rebel amongst the women in the village. It was rebellious to not want children here. “At least you went looking for her.”
“Yeah… I guess.” It still felt like it happened yesterday. “You know… that’s the worst part about it! They didn’t even look for me! If they tried to but couldn’t find me, then that’s a different story, but…” she groaned.
“We went looking for you. Your siblings too. We searched everywhere, even the train station.” The last one at the table to speak was Ah Bai, who left the village, but returned to look after his aging parents.
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“Thanks… and sorry.”
“No, no, it’s okay. We were all young and stupid, and your parents were crazy!.”
“Now I’m old and stupid.”
“Clearly.” Ah Kang joked. She smacked him again.
They continued playing. Pineapple sat underneath them, and everyone took turns scratching his belly when they took breaks. Because she played the least, she played the poorest, and only won twice today.
After dinner, they folded up the mahjong table and bust out the karaoke machine. They sang songs, and reminisced about all the previous times they heard it.
Serena sang these songs in her car every day to work. They sang it in their living room. None of them were tired of it. Alicia would never understand true music like this.
After their voices went hoarse, they went for supper. Alicia never grew hungry past nine, and hence never experienced the joy of supper; a pity. They ate the unhealthiest burgers known to mankind, flooding in oil and salt, then promised themselves to exercise tomorrow to lose the calories.
No one would exercise tomorrow.
As they threw the packaging away, Ah Bai noticed a red spot on Pineapple’s stomach. On closer inspection, it appeared to be a mosquito bite. He reached for the mosquito repellent, only for Serena to swipe it away.
Human mosquito repellent were harmful to dogs, idiot. Just leave it be and ensure Pineapple doesn’t scratch it. It will heal on its own.
“How do you know this stuff, anyway?” Ah Bai sounded ticked off.
“Who are you kidding? This is Serena Liu Yi-Sheng (doctor) you’re taking to!” Ah Kang chimed in, licking grease off his fingers. “Of course she knows dogs can’t use mosquito repellent!”
“I’m not a doctor. I can’t practise medicine.”
“You can practise on Pineapple!” He smirked.
Ah Xing nudged Ah Kang, who had hit a soft spot. “It’s not the end of the world, Yi-Shan.” Easy for them to say. Mahjong, karaoke, and gossip were enough for them.
To prove her point, she told them about Wei Xiang’s clinic, and the reason behind the fight that drove Alicia away. She omitted it earlier to save face. Now, she couldn’t care less.
Silence ensued. Even Pineapple stopped barking at motorcyclists driving by. They’ve ran out of things to say about this decades ago.
“At least you went looking for her.” Ah Xing repeated. “Instead of falling into self-delusion!” She frowned.
“Huh?”
“Oh yeah. Prepare yourself. Your crazy parents came up with some noble story of how they were ‘letting you go’ and ‘letting you find your own path’ ! They said it was all for your own good! Ugh!” Ah Kang and Ah Bai supported this notion of disgust.
“Huh, I didn’t know that.”
“They told themselves this story until the very end. They said that you’ll find your way back to them, and spent their last days waiting, waiting, waiting…”
“Oh.”
They called it delusion, but Serena called it truth. It was crazy to spend the rest of your life in denial that they didn’t love her because they gave up on her. But it was insane to believe they loved her because they gave up on her.
Her parents were insane, and so was she that day. Like mother, like daughter.
She drove back down the highway after a round of Kaya toast at the coffee shop next morning. She turned right and entered the heart of the forest. The rocky path made for a ride so bumpy she grew concerned for the state of her tyres; but she pressed on.
Past the shack, up the slope, and right by the tree with a carving etched on the wood stood a broken fence. She killed the engine and yanked it open. The rocky path made every step a calculated risk, where one wrong move would send her into mud.
After killing ten-or-so mosquitoes, and regretting not bringing mosquito repellent, she arrived. Before another tree with a carving sat two headstones.
Still nervous, she stalled the inevitable by clearing the branches, leaves, and rocks off them, and washed it with a bottle of water. The nerves cleared once the water ran out.
She cleared her throat, “Ma. Pa. I’m here.” Twenty years of distance sat on her lips, which trembled under its weight. “You have a granddaughter. Alicia… Yes, I kept the baby!”
The bragging continued for as long as she could. Alicia’s Sec 4. Alicia was out there in the real world, surviving all on her own. Alicia had the courage to run away, just like her. She started a bakery, and she intends to plagiarise every recipe Ma came up with, and give credit where credit’s due; none was due. She has…she has amazing colleagues like Cher—like Kelly and Gen. And sure, she had achieved little, but who cares? They’re dead. No one could hear their disappointments anymore!
Take that!
She reached for water, only to remember she wasted it all cleaning their dumb headstone.
“I can’t believe you thought that was a good idea, and I can’t believe it worked! I found my own path!” She chuckled, “You have a pretty fucked up way of caring about people, you know that? Even if you love me, and even if it worked, it’s still so—”
She shook her head. The pot calling the kettle black.
“Thanks, I guess.” That came out more sincere than expected. “Siao! (Insane)”
Serena promised herself to never be insane again.
She drove back to the old house and tasked the group to cut out a dog cone for Pineapple from some spare cardboard. It ended up being a large circle, with a hole just big enough for Pineapple’s head to fit through.
With the makeshift cone on, Pineapple couldn’t reach his mosquito bite. It worked for now. She instructed them to give it to any dog who scratched themselves too much.
“Yes, doctor.” Ah Kang joked. She didn’t smack him.
They played mahjong until her phone detected a dip in traffic, and she bid everyone farewell, promising to bring Alicia here when she finds her.
It was midnight when she arrived back home, and the next morning when her grey life resumed.
Until Alicia returned colour to it. Over the phone, the girl asked in a feeble voice, “Mom… Can you come pick me up? I want to go home.”