Peter Y. Niu grew up in three countries and now lives in Shanghai with imaginary cats.
Home
Where are you from? He asked us. Char-coaled brow, face bronzed by poor skin care, smile crooked. We gazed into a dusty mirror. We heard his snicker, after we had spoken in tongues and broken words, after our wallet stripped bare and he thought us gone, walked away in our cheap knockoff sneakers.
It was the rebel act of a wayward son. We had loved a girl with fair hair and a nose ring, and eyes the color of skies before they muddled it with ashes, a girl who loved us too, flesh and all. They glanced at our interlaced fingers and their sly titters cut us to the bone. She’s not someone to bring home.
This home. A home into which we were born, from which we were sent away, before we could be stuffed by their proper ways of salt and snow, harsh liquor and flattened knuckles. Into the sun, the ocean, the wine, and the olive scented humor we were tossed.
This home. Anchored by its name. Burdened by its name. Shackled by its name. Their children called us uncle. They called their driver uncle. They called the dentist uncle, the garbage man uncle. We had a name once. We took on a name once.
This home. Wherever we charged our laptop, that’s our home. The place below the Vietnamese buffet, with a mattress that smelled like spring rolls. The place that took three trains and four hours to get to, where sewage leaked into our breakfast. The place corralled between rows of lawns trimmed with the regularity of nose hair. The place near King’s Cross, with a king’s bed, that we shared for three nights with our first girl.
This home, upon which we now intrude with our funny bleached ways. We bought them gilded houses and big cars. We partook in the venerable rituals timeworn as their currency. We built cages around our lives. They took our compliance as submission.
We are fickle leaves blown adrift, returning to the root, returning to the grave.