Mingmei Yip - Petals from the Sky

On other evenings, I saw stars peeking shyly at their own images. I would throw down a stone and watch the reflection split into tiny diamonds, like those that had once sparkled on my mother’s pretty fingers. I imagined time itself reflected on the circle of water and, like a kite snapped off from its string, flying away through the opening, carrying away memories of color, smell, and touch.

Whenever I peeked into the well, I felt the evil goddess also staring back at me, her eye hidden. She’d watch my every move and absorb my heart’s deepest secrets. She made me see-by linking the earth and the sky together-another world, familiar yet strange. She was the third eye connecting me to a larger, mysterious universe.

I’d always wondered how it would feel to be on the other side of the world.

One hot September afternoon as I studied, my parents began to fight over my father’s purchase of a pair of expensive shoes. Mother said he would rather feed his vanity than his family. He argued that a poet must retain his dignity. As my parents’ voices began to simmer and boil, I sneaked out to the backyard, went straight to the well and looked down, wondering what I could find this time to cheer me up: a book, a pillow, a doll, a puff of cloud floating in the sky? But in such dry weather I saw nothing except darkness. I looked up and met the angry glare of the sun.

Just when I began to feel uneasy and thought I should go back home, someone bumped me from behind. I lost my balance and plunged into the dark. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious, but I woke up surrounded by a fresh coolness. Yet my head ached and my body was clammy with a cold, searing pain. My clothes were torn, my knees badly scraped, and my toes swollen like sausages. But I was alive! The trash in the well had cushioned my fall and saved my life. I kept thinking how ridiculous to be saved by a heap of rubbish. I could have laughed, except my joints throbbed as if on fire.

I looked up toward the dim light and saw blurred faces leaning over the well, staring down and howling, “Meng Ning, can you hear us?” “Are you all right?” “Don’t be afraid; we’ll get you out as quickly as possible!” I could hear my mother crying and see my father holding her tightly in his arms. The world above looked remote and alien. The people, yelling and gesturing wildly, seemed trapped in the circle of clear, blue sky.

But I was the one who was trapped. I tried shouting back, but the darkness, like a witch, snatched away my breath and swallowed my voice. My chest swelled and my heart jumped like ants in a hot wok. My knees were cut and sore. I wrapped some old dirty rags around them to stop the bleeding. I asked myself if it would be my fate to die, rotting with the garbage, in an obscure hole in the earth. The walls around me exuded the smell of decay and rotten fish. I reached out to touch the stone lining of the well, but immediately withdrew my hands when I felt a stickiness like the blood on my knees. I wanted to cry, but no tears came, only gasps.

I looked up again; people were still leaning over the well and looking down at me, with flashlights and kerosene lamps raised high in their hands. Their loud voices carried down to me, but I sensed hopelessness behind their frightened faces. I could almost see them cupping their mouths and whispering, “A doomed child, what can we do?”

Suddenly, I thought of the Guan Yin statue in my neighbor Mrs. Wong’s house and of how this plump woman used to ask the Goddess of Mercy to protect her ancestral graves, give her a son, even cure a cold. She’d kneel before the serene ceramic figure in its small shrine surrounded by lighted joss sticks and offerings of flowers and fruit. Then she would press her hands together, kowtow, and pour out fervent prayers. Now, imitating her, I put my hands together and whispered an ardent prayer to Guan Yin, pleading to her to get me safely out of the well.

I kept praying, ignoring the talking, arguing, and crying above, and the strong odor of vegetation, mildew, and rot surrounding me. Then something grazed my head and landed beside me on the ground with a soft plop. I picked it up and held it to the side of the well where the light was brighter. From a thin red string dangled a brightly colored Guan Yin pendant. The Goddess of Mercy wore an orange robe; her hands held a flask with a willow branch and her bare feet rode on a big fish that looked as if it were swimming toward me.

I felt a tinge of warmth.

I looked up and glimpsed my parents’ concerned faces. Mother was still sobbing; Father pulled her close to him. Other faces squeezed to lean over the well, looking down while competing with one another to offer comforts and suggestions. I frantically waved the pendant at them, then cupped my mouth with my hands and yelled at the top of my voice toward the opening, “Mama! Baba!” Suddenly hearing that I was very much alive, people got excited all over again. A child clapped. Several old people pressed their hands together and whispered prayers. Teenagers raised their index and middle fingers to show victory. My parents squeezed through the crowd to peek down at me. “Oh, thank heaven, Ning Ning, are you all right?!” Mother hollered and Father kissed her on her forehead, their earlier quarrel forgotten. Then, with my blurred vision, I saw a bald scalp above a pretty face, glistening in the sun. I blinked and strained, but the scalp and the face were no longer there.

The crowd continued to lean over the well, taking turns to keep me company and to throw down a blanket, a sweater, candies, cakes, even several comic books.

Everybody was talking to me to keep my spirits up. One old neighbor yelled, “We’ve called the firemen; they’ll be here any minute!” Another hollered, “We’re getting ropes and a basket to get you out!”

So I sat and waited with Guan Yin in my hand and all the people watching from above. The air was dense yet soft. I kept praying to the Goddess of Mercy until I felt my prayers deep underground and my fear dissipated. My hands pressed together and my lips moved as though I’d been practicing the ritual for a thousand years.

It was very strange, but I had begun to like this small world of my own. The rancid smell ceased to bother me. In fact, I felt soothed by the strange coziness of this space, now completely mine. I could almost feel the wall breathing faintly and wrapping close to me, the trash and withered foliage moving gently and warming my body. I listened to the well’s pulse beating with mine and felt a stab of gratitude both for my privacy below and for the care of so many people above.

When the villagers were ready to rescue me, they threw down more quilts. Voices shouted, “Meng Ning, spread them out under you!” Then came the long rope and the basket. The voices hollered again, “Get in!” Slowly, I climbed inside and curled up like a baby in the womb. The people above began to pull. The ascent was slow, cautious, wobbly at times, but steady. People kept yelling, “Meng Ning, don’t look down!”

But I couldn’t resist the temptation. I wanted to take one last look at the little round corner that had unexpectedly given me moments of peace. So I leaned over and looked down. I didn’t panic as the villagers had feared. Instead, I felt great tenderness for a larger realm that I couldn’t yet name. I recalled the reflection of the floating clouds in the shimmering water, the third eye forever following me when I moved, the pregnant moon, the peeking stars, the murmuring tunes of the grass at night…

Then I was suddenly in daylight again, being pulled out of the basket by my parents, who were crying and shouting, “Oh, Ning Ning! Thank heaven you’re okay!” All the neighbors took turns to comfort and greet me. Right then, the firemen arrived. I was immediately rushed to the hospital for a checkup. The doctor said besides a few bruises and cuts, I was fine, and miraculously, not a single bone was broken. He bandaged my knees, gave me a tetanus shot, and said I could go home.