Peter Liu - Watering Heaven

The following day, I went on a business trip for three days. When I came home, there was a note that read Goodbye . I never spoke to her again.

I tried to lose myself in work. As a marketing guy, I dealt with people every day, selling them things they didn’t want or need. I’d tell them the exact same lines in the exact same way with the exact same pose and the exact same smile. People would lie to me and we both knew they were lying but it was okay. It was all within the rules, the boundaries of pleasant deception.

One day, while wandering through the city, a phone began ringing. I blinked, saw it was a pay phone. Not sure who it was for, I picked up.

“I’m gonna rape your fucking ass and cut off your legs and tie you up and bitch fuck you all day,” a coarse female voice said to me.

I stared blankly, shifting awkwardly. “Excuse me… Do you know this is a public payphone?”

“Of course I do, you fuck. You think I don’t know that?”

“But you don’t know me.”

“I’m watching you right now.”

I hung up and immediately left. For two days, I gave into all my conspiratorial paranoia and isolated myself, refusing to pick up the phone or step outside. Only when it was over did I realize something: I felt alive.

And it began. I noticed that in the moments when a person thought nobody else was around and they were completely alone on the phone — a few minutes, thirty seconds, an hour — I heard something in their voice. Honey, I’m going to be home a little later. No, don’t wait for me. The inflection, the subtle drop, the quivering in the throat, the unconscious hair sweep. Meaning under meaning, watching from afar, confirming something even if it was a vulgar reality, bare and viciously raw. It was pure in an adulterated way.

Sometimes, people would dial the wrong number and reach me at home. Instead of hanging up, I asked questions, encouraged them to talk. Obsessed with their own drama, some would tell me things about their lives, describing things minuscule as grand, their self-absorbed pain being the most traumatic. They never asked me any questions, almost like I wasn’t there, just a broken mirror hanging invisibly in front of them.

Watching people, trying to partake in their phone calls, I wanted to know if they knew what I did. I wanted to hear the truth in their voices. At work, I couldn’t focus anymore. I’d be given assignments to contact this person or that, and then I’d hear them talk in the same jovial bonhomie that meant nothing. What was the point of talking if everyone said the same thing but knew it meant nothing? So I stopped speaking. People would talk to me and I wouldn’t answer them. They’d be confused, upset. They’d ask if I was sick, ask me to respond, a desperation in their tone. Occasionally, I could hear a residue of truth, a trace that reminded me they were real. But most times, it was only frustration and false morality. It wasn’t long before I left my job. Left my home. Left my career. My family. I grew tired of not hearing them.

II.

I was on a long street with cars, some with headlights on even though it was day. Business suits and suitcases blended into the massive billboards selling trends and beliefs, acolytes and disciples of the corporate church that gave you something to live and die for.

Standing next to the phone booth, I was eating a piece of a bagel someone had thrown away. A man in a blue business suit furtively entered the booth. He had half a mustache, curled oily hair, a suave veneer about him that meandered between confidence and fear. He didn’t close the door, just took out a bunch of quarters and dialed random numbers. I could hear voices on the other side asking, Hello? Hello? HELLO???? He didn’t answer, just stood there, listening. He repeated this about forty times. Men, women, children. Some cursed. Others hung up, terrified by the silence. When he used up all his coins, he came out, ready to leave.

I approached.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“What were you just doing?” I demanded back.

“What is it to you?”

“I just saw what you did.”

“And?” he asked.

I stared at him without saying anything.

He laughed amusedly. “Walk with me through the park.”

III.

“It’s silence I want to hear,” he said. “That single instance where a person is bare and pure and doesn’t know how to feel. The silence that follows. That’s all.”

IV.

“What do you get out of this?” he wondered.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I can tell that wasn’t the first time you’ve listened in on a conversation.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I replied.

“Why not?”

“Words can cheapen an experience,” I said, “misrepresent a truth, especially when you try to describe it exactly.”

He laughed.

As we walked along, I asked him about himself, why he started doing what he did.

He answered, “I got tired of losing things because I wanted them so badly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve never lost anything?”

“What’d you lose?”

His eyes hardened. Then he said, “They say that people only have a few motivations for anything they do. You think people ever do anything without any reason?”

“Love, hate, jealousy… what real reason is there for any of it?”

“The disease is existence,” he said.

“What?”

He grinned. “I’ve never thought nature beautiful. I always thought people made up the word beautiful just so they can look at something forever. What if they discarded the words beautiful and ugly ? Would any concept of physical judgment disappear?”

“No,” I answered.

“Then words don’t really mean anything.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re just symbols for what we really mean,” he said.

“Symbols are important because they give things meaning when they normally wouldn’t have sense of anything,” I said.

“Maybe…” he replied. “Let me tell you a story. I once met this woman by random chance. We were both looking for champagne in the supermarket. She’d just finished graduate school and wanted to celebrate. I asked her who she was celebrating with. She frowned and said no one . She was sad to be alone. I insisted I would do something for her if no one else would. She pretended to be shy, refused initially, but I broke through all the barriers. Back at her apartment, she told me how she’d been studying hard for the last few years. After a few drinks, we made love on her bed. I know most people like to sleep right after sex, but I can’t. I have a hard time with anyone next to me. She was happy because she thought I wanted to talk. This was her most intimate of moments. She told me about her ex-husband, how they’d been together for three years. One night, she came home and found him with another woman. He didn’t apologize even though she would have forgiven him. Instead, he cut off contact and refused to speak to her again.

“She’d lost something pure. And I don’t mean her virginity. A man can fall in love just as easily in the span of a second as he can in ten years. She continued talking about her ex, describing what a scumbag he was, how he went from girl to girl. All I could think about was her wasted love. She’d be suspicious, reluctant of me after a while. We’d probably have a scene a few weeks into the relationship. She’d ask for space and time, demand that I prove myself trustworthy. It was already written. I didn’t want to play my part. So when she fell asleep, I left and never looked back. Truth is, if she would have shut up, I would have loved her. But in this case, as in most cases, the truth wasn’t worth knowing.”