Winfred Wong: Son of the Tank Man

“Coming!” I yelled, walked over to open the door and saw a fashionable man with a greedy look, one hand securely holding my sister, who was apparently drunk, her forehead and cheeks red, but was still half conscious, with his arm round her neck, the other hand clenching a key with a leather key holder that had my sister’s name etched on it.

His greedy look then instantly turned into a shocked expression like he wasn’t expecting to see someone behind the door, and by then it occurred to me that it was my sister who rang the doorbell. It wasn’t the first time she had been brought back by a complete stranger, and I’d seriously warned her about how dangerous it was for so many times that I couldn’t remember. But she just wouldn’t listen.

“I will take her from here. Thank you for escorting her back,” I said calmly, grabbed the key in his hand dexterously as if robbing him, pulled her into my arms and away from his hand, took a big step back while dragging her and slammed the door shut, all in one single fluid motion, before he was able to react.

“I thought you won’t be back until later. Today is Friday, isn’t it?” I said to her.

“Put me down!!” she piped, with a repulsive odor of alcohol puffing out from her short breaths, wrenched herself free of my grip, elbowed me away weakly and reeled her way in, stumbling and almost falling, and I had to grasp her arm to assist her to get to her bed, though the fusion of smell of alcohol and cigarettes on her was so nauseating that I had to cover my nose in order to be able to proceed.

“Leave me… alone!” she roared suddenly, flailing her arms wide to push me away, then flailed widely again as she sought to maintain balance as I lost my grip on her arm, but she still fell down flat on her rear, right in front of the bunk bed and next to the dining table, luckily it wasn’t too bad a fall.

“How many times have you been drunk this week!?” I whimpered.

“N… O…” She struggled to get up, but to no avail, as she could barely move with her weak-as-grasses feet. It was a rather ridiculous but hilarious scene to see her getting up and down continuously, and I chuckled as she eventually gave up on it and passed out, drunk, but then my chuckle gradually fizzled out in silence when I started to worry about her. And I imagined what would’ve happened if I wasn’t home at that time.

The next morning was windy and peacefully soundless with only nourishing chirping of birds that sounded like a violin serenade reverberating across the azure sky, where thin streaks of cloud spread and slowly unfurled into a frizzy row of transparent vapor.

Grabbed the U-shape handle of my silver suitcase in my hand, I was fully ready to set off when my sister began to snore louder than a pig while asleep, just like what she would always do on a typical Saturday morning, but still, I had to leave. Every time when a vague thought of staying sneaked up into my mind, it would vanish into the black void of space right away as my resolute to leave was so unswerving that it didn’t allow me to give in to anything. I just couldn’t stand the people in this place, they were all so hypocritical, so short-sighted, so dull-witted, and so unsympathetic. And I left, without even leaving a trace of primordial regret, nor a notice.

That said, I remember I had cold feet about it a couple of times the night before when I was hauling her up to her bed and I decided to sleep on it. Leaving a place where I had spent all my life in wasn’t as easy as resigning from a position after all, and that unswerving resolute to leave hadn’t come to me until I woke up that morning. And this is what Kaylen has asked me when we were on a road trip nearly a month ago to a pond filled with some sort of golden liquid crystals, he asked, “Have you taken her into account when you were thinking about it?” I think I didn’t give a straight answer to him and just equivocated to get away with it. But yeah, back then, I didn’t really care much for many others besides myself.

So, lugging my suitcase behind on an unoccupied sidewalk, I sauntered to the usual bus stop and waited for the airport express bus, which approached in less than ten minutes. The bumpy ride to the grand airport erected on an outlying island was kind of poignantly nostalgic as I knew there wouldn’t be any red double-deckers in Felomeim, where, as far as I knew, cabs was the main public transport.

And as soon as I got off the bus when it came to a stop in front of the giant, see-through main gate of the terminal, I headed to the check-in counter to get the boarding ticket, then went to the departure level, lined up, put my carry-on luggage through the x-ray machine and slithered through the narrow metal detector. According to the information printed on the colorful boarding pass, there wasn’t much time left before the scheduled boarding time, so I scurried for it. Upon my arrival at the boarding gate, the final boarding announcement could be heard calling my name, and just my name, and, after showing the gate agent my pass, I hurried aboard the plane and was then urged into one of the five available seats on the first row.

Knowing it would be a tedious three-hour flight, I drifted off to sleep shortly after the breathtaking takeoff, making up for last night, and the next thing I knew was the rapid deceleration on the runway, which roused most of, if not all the passengers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve arrived at the Felomeim International Airport. The door will be opened once the plane came to a complete standstill. Until then, please remain seated with your seat belt fastened.”

It was an announcement made by the captain, his accent made him sound like he was slurring every words together, like one whole sentence was one single word, probably because he omitted the little pauses between words. As the aircraft came to rest and the door creaked open, I, taking advantage of sitting at the first row, darted to the exit and waltzed through the grim jet bridge with a developing glee kindled by my illusory enthusiasm of feeling like going back home for the first time and marching into a new chapter of my life, and thanks to that, I wasn’t even perturbed even though I still hadn’t worked out where I was going to stay for the night when I queued up for the immigration clearance for foreigners, where only three people, including me, were lining up, and I proceeded forward when the officer at the counter beckoned at me.

“Hi, I am –” I said to the clearance officer, who had an impish poker face, behind a counter that looked like the reception desk at the office, as I had my papers ready in my hand.

“Documents,” he said in a solemn tone with a weird intonation that resembled the aircraft pilot’s.

“Of course.” I handed my documents to him, with both hands, sincerely.

After taking a brief look at my passport, he took out a document holder from somewhere and began reading aloud, “Now, repeat after me. I hereby swear, in my name and that of all my descendants,” he paused when he realized I wasn’t speaking. “Repeat AFTER ME. Are you deaf?”

He raised his voice menacingly, but his accent made it sound extremely amusing, and I had to hid my impulse to roar with laughter behind an awkwardly freakish giggle, which prevented me from speaking normally.

“I’ll have to arrest you if you keep on laughing and don’t start to comply,” he threatened in a low voice, his eyes protruding beneath his monolids, so I bet he meant it.

And although I found it very ludicrous, “I’m… I’m sorry. I hereby swear, in my name and that of all my descendants,” I acquiesced to his demand and pushed myself to repeat his words, yet the hardest part was not to laugh between breaths.