The House of Life 1

by Vann Chow

  Behind them, we could see the silhouette of the two friends standing side by side of each other in a vast green plain, both lost in a trance momentarily in the beautiful landscape that contrasted so drastically to the stormy, thunderous reality outside the clay bottle where they had come from. Further on their left there loomed a small hill, strangely sculpted by years of cultivation into eccentric steps of plains and shaped much like what one would see in a contour map, as if the mountain was a gigantic staircase, each step at least three or four feet above the other—Ian and Chad had only seen such rice fields in the mountains of Thailand, or China on television from the National Geographic channel.

  In the absolute silence, there came the sound of a slow motor vehicle. It startled them. The source of the sound seemed to be not too far away behind them. Yet the slow steady rattle of wooden wheels against the soft muddy ground that could very well be a plow told them that the operator of this vehicle had not discovered their presences. In a silent consent, Ian and Chad crawled slowly under the tall wheat bushes and edged towards the source of the sound.

  There before their eyes was a young girl, about ten-year-old, in a two-piece work uniform made out of an unlikely choice of pink silk sewed with red and white chrysanthemum, sitting joyfully on the back of an enormous black bull pulling a plow. Behind her a small grass hut emitted a swirl of white smokes through an opening at the side. She saw Ian and Chad at once. Their shirts and pants had pieces of broken leaf blades and grains adhered to their now sweat-drenched clothes.

  “Ah Ho, stop!” She cried out to the black bull and immediately it halted to a stop. She jumped off the animal, sized almost as big as a Hummer, in a jovial mood and greeted the guests with a crisp “Good afternoon!”

  “Hi.” Ian said. “We…” He paused again to look at Chad, searching for the right words to say. Chad looked back at him in a dumb expression that said something like “I didn’t do it.” Or “It’s your fault.”

  “We are lost. Could you please kindly tell us where we are?” Ian said.

  “What’s your name?” The girl asked bluntly.

  “I’ m Ian Bennett.”

  “A ghost’s name!” The girl said. Ian and Chad laughed at her comment. Just like in any culture, people had special ways of describing foreign people. The Chinese called them ‘Guai Zi Lao’ or ‘Yang Guai Zi’, which all mean the same thing essentially— ghost. Ian wasn’t surprised at her reaction. He did get that a lot with his British last name and western facial features. With good intentions, he tried to correct her.

  “It’s not a ghost’s name. My birth parents are not born in Hong Kong.” He explained. “My new dad is a Fung though?”

  “You’re a ghost in either case!” The girl giggled. “And who are you?” She stared at Chad in perplexed gazed.

  “Chan Ka Ming,” Chad replied with his Chinese name. He supposed that in this kind of provincial place people would not introduce each other by their English names. “And what’s yours?”

  “I don’t have a name.” The girl replied. “You two look so weird.” Eying them both in a squint, she must be referring to their rather modern clothing as opposed to her more modest, traditional ones.

  After a long awkward moment in which Ian felt like her eyes had pierced through them as if they were transparent, she spoke again.

  “We are not expecting anyone with your names today.”

  “You have a list or something?” Chad asked.

  “Did Uncle Cowhead and Uncle Horseface not explain to you why you are being arrested?”

  “Who do you mean?” Ian asked.

  “The men who sent you here,” replied, the girl.

  “Those two men who captured us!” Chad exclaimed. Ian immediately took on what he meant. He had heard those names before. According to Chinese folklore, there were four types of ‘Hell guards’—Cowhead, Horseface. Black and White Missionaries.

  “No way!” Ian said.

  “Does that mean we are dead?” Chad started to panic.

  The girl giggled again and said, “Not unless you are caught by Mr. Black or Mr. White. You’ll know that you are dead immediately if you’ve seen them.” She giggled again. “Haven’t you two heard from your bedtime stories?”

  Without warning the little girl’s appearance transformed drastically before their eyes. Originally barely brushing the nap of her neck, her hair grew out from the scalp of her head like water gushing out from a shower head. Its color jet black as though it was a waterfall of polluted water after an oil spill; Her bangs had extended also to shoulder length and parted itself like magical ribbons into two sections revealing a pair of lips as pale as the moonlight, then her protruding big nose poked through the curtain of hair, then a new set of eyes, bloodshot and heavily veined with red vessels, its irises dissolved completely into the dominating whites of her eyes, exposed themselves from behind the veil. It was a frightening scene. Ian and Chad stood transfixed, staring befuddled at the face that had belonged to the little girl a second ago and realized that her head had shape-shifted into a monster’s. It bored a face that was as colorless and pale as the painted one of a geisha girl ready to perform, without any hint of healthy glow from the swarthy girl who worked in the field. Her lips had now straightened out into two thin lines and the corners of her mouth, like a crack in glass, had now spread further and further down below her jaw, contributing to a highly unpleasant face that would drain the blood out of any one who dared to rest their eyes upon it any longer.

  More horrifying was when the head tried to speak—a tongue, longer than the tail of a squirrel, bloody red, wriggled out from behind her now corroded teeth dotted with cavities and hang itself out like an overheated dog trying to cool himself down after rounds of throw-and-catch with its master. The weird creature hissed and a foul breathe of dead animal whiffed out from its inside. Just when Ian and Chad were losing their bearings something pulled them back. It was the voice that came out from it. The same voice of the child giggling, ridiculing at their apparent bewilderment at the sight of her change.

  “I told you that you would know if you’re dead once you’ve seen this face.” And once she finished off this sentence her head, like playing dough, was molded by an invisible hand into the original face of a sweet little child.

  “Should I be glad that we’ve seen Cowhead and Horseface instead?” Chad said sarcastically at the girl. His voice now hoarse with anger. “Stop fooling us! We’ve enough of this demonic bullshit? Who’s the boss around here? Tell him to come out and talk to us face to face!” He rushed forward to grab the girl by the collar of her work shirt and held her up. Dangling off of Chad’s grip, the little girl’s two feet thrusted hysterically in the air, crying for help in a barrage of inarticulate sounds for someone to rescue her.

  Her loud cry was reciprocated by a sudden uproar from the far side of the crop field. Crops that covered the field now swayed by the movement of something huge underground.

  “What is it?” Ian exclaimed. Chad’s grip on the girl’s collar loosen and she immediately slipped out of the hand of her predator and ran towards the grass hut.

  “That little punk! Come back!” Chad shouted after her.

  “Forget about her. Something’s happening!” Ian said to him.

  He was right. A wall of water had broken into view from the horizon and was now sweeping towards them across the field, carrying with it big pieces of broken trees trunks, leaves and washed-up debris. The earth they were standing seemed to tip beneath their feet. The black bull which was left behind by the girl started to run in circles in a mad trance, it too aware of the imminent danger.

  “GET OUT OF THERE!” A voice shouted through the deafening noise of the crashing waves rolling angrily towards their way. An old man in a farmer’s clothing had come out from the grass hut, he beckoned Ian and Chad to the house and he himself started to tug at the end of the rope that was tied around the bull’s neck so it would stop thrashing around. “GET INSIDE THE UNDERGROUND SHELTER! QUICK!! OVE
R THERE!”

  There was no time to determine if it was a genuine offer or not. They both knew they had to go somewhere or they would be drowned. Chad and Ian started to run towards the house. There was no door to the grass hut. They barged in and immediately they saw a young woman, holding up a trap door from the underground shelter, signaling them to climb inside for shelter. Ian looked behind him. The man who tried to save their lives did not follow them in. Through the window of the hut, he saw that the man was still outside on the field wrestling with the agitated cow that was hopping around madly.

  The wall of water was coming dangerously close. Ian knew he had to do something now or never. Without further ado, he turned around and ran out of the hut again to save that man.

  “Idiot! Where are you going?” Chad shouted from the top of the ladder. He hesitated for a moment then he decided that nothing was more important than his best friend and he too wanted to go back out. Just as he was about to step out of the hatchway he felt a tug on the leg of his pants. Through the little light there was he saw that it had belonged to the woman. She didn’t say anything but there was something in her eyes telling him to stay. Under the dim light, Chad looked around her to find that there were small children crawling on the ground playing with their fingers and murmuring gibberish. On the far side, there sat the same little girl on a rock, sobbing, possibly out of fear for what he just did to her, her head sunk low in her wrapped arms that were hugging her knees. A weird thought surfaced in his mind — if he too died outside, no one will be left to take care of this woman and her children.

  Outside, Ian had rushed to the man’s aide and started to push the adamant black bull towards the direction of the grass hut.

  “Go back inside! Let me handle this!” The man cried when he saw Ian.

  “No! Either you let me in on this or we run together without the animal.” Ian announced his determination firmly and pushed the cow even harder. To his dismay the creature did not even move the slightest bit. Towering above them not two feet away now was the biggest wave Ian had ever seen in his life. His pupils dilated at the final moment when the fast-moving wall of water came tumbling down on them. The terrible force punched every inch of his body and lifted him off the ground. He felt limp under the terrible pressure and the world around him became a blur. No longer could he hear the thrashing waves of water plummeting down. It was an absolute silence inside the water. Instinctively he opened his mouth to gasp for air but had only choked. It suddenly occurred to him that it wasn’t water that was drowning him. It was wine that was drowning him. Each gulp of liquid he was forced to swallow in his struggle was loaded with a heavy taste of fermented grains. He felt funny as carbon dioxide bubbled through his intestines. He would never have imagined dying this way.

  Reading of Rights

  A beautiful melody made up of a string of single piano notes resonated inside his skull and did not go away after he was fully awaken from the deep coma that had followed after he was swept away by the wave. He felt around with his hands. The moist ground and crisp rustling told him that he had been lying unconscious on his back on a grassland all these time. Alive or dead, he didn’t seem to care as much as he thought any person who had experienced similar circumstance would. Apart from the bitter aftertaste of the waves, he felt pretty much like how he did every other morning. His mind was still dwelling on the image of this girl in his dream—a glowing silhouette of Elise, who since the MTR incident that same morning had occupied his mind—was seen against a breathtaking view of layering mountains under a hazy morning fog over a terrain that extended almost to infinity below the elevated hill on which she was standing. The fabric of her white silk dress caressed her soft skin in the bellowing wind.

  Who are you? He whispered to the girl. What’s so important about the notebook that had gotten us in so much trouble? Ian felt as if the whole time he was standing right there behind her wanting to open his mouth to ask but he couldn’t bear it. He wanted nothing more than to just observe her graceful presence and to disturb this beautiful picture would be an utmost blasphemy. An idea came into his mind. He imagined that he was a tiny seed carrier from Salsify flower, floating carelessly in the air towards the fertile ground where he was destined to lay his seeds on and perpetuate. It floated freely in the wind and eventually it landed, bouncing lightly for a couple times on her smooth skins before that. Like a bead of water, he trickled down the slippery surface along the perfect curve of her body. Ian’s mind wandered off to the place of complete secrecy. A gust of wind zapped across the mountain plains and this howl of nature brought with it the sound of the piano and lingered in his ears. He was filled with an insurmountable sense of tranquility and wished to never be awoken again.

  Then he felt a slap on his face. He bolted up straight to curse at whoever disturbed his sweet dream but only to find Chad, eyes swollen, face covered with tears, squatting next to him in distress. Ian stared back at him in a stark expression. Genuinely joyful to witness his friend came back to life, Chad sobbed even harder in a way he had never done before. Ian started to remember the horror of the flood. Forgetting all the social constraints that attributed display of emotion in men as a kind of weakness, the two men hugged each other tightly as happy tears wet the other’s shirt.

  “Don’t ever die on me again!” Chad cried. His arm wrapped like a football player holding onto an intercepted ball, guarding it with his life from those who tried to pry it away from him. His right arm thumping Ian’s back lightly and one could say it was as if a parent was trying to punish their misbehaved kid for wrong-doing but couldn’t quite bear with the heartache for hitting the child. It was a wonderful moment in the lifetime of this decade long friendship.

  “Mister. You'll need a change of clothes immediately so not to lose any more temperature,” a caring female voice said behind them. Ian turned around to see the same woman from the grass hut was speaking to him. Behind her he saw no less than a hundred people, standing in a semi-circle around him — a motley crowd dressed in rags and their faces smeared with dirt under the unanimous disheveled long tangling hair that each of them possessed like a band of beggars in uniforms. There was a glaring separation of classes between the woman and her children from the men around her.

  “Thank you for your offer, but I am quite all right. In fact,” Ian took a moment to confirm his strange sensation. “In fact, I am feeling hot as if my insides are burning. I feel…energized.”

  “Oh, mister! You have to trust me, that would be the symptoms of catching a cold.”

  “It must be the rice wine.” A man from the crowd suggested.

  “He’s gotten the power, hadn’t he?” Another man who stood at the far back responded.

  The Power?

  “Hush!” The woman quieted them almost instantly, as if these ridiculous theories are forbidden information that was not supposed to be shared with the two newcomers. “It is not your place to speak! All of you go back to work immediately except you two.” She commanded the two men standing closest to her. “Take our guests into the guesthouse and supply them with whatever they may need.” Then she turned to tell Ian and Chad that she would be with them shortly.

  “What happened to that man who tried to save us? Is he still alive?” Concerned, Ian asked the woman. Some of the men around them lowered their heads in despair, the body language of sympathy for a lost life, a lost colleague, possibly a lost friend. Yet this sympathy wasn’t shared with the woman, who made a cold laugh that almost chill the blood of those in presence. “He who cannot fulfill his duty is not worthy of our pity, isn’t he?”

  “He died,” Chad put her cruel words in translation. The bull’s horns pierced his body in a mad struggle before it was drowned. “Don’t fucking ask me to describe it.”

  “He wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for me! Arghh!” Ian pulled his hair in an unabashed sense of guiltiness.

  “Mister, this is not like the world you’ve come from. Men who work here could only live as long as thei
r jobs are fulfilled at the end of the day. If the tender of one hundred bulls has jeopardized one bull, he is still held responsible.”

  “I don’t know who he is and what his duty is in here.” Ian said. “But you need not be so cold about it.” He murmured under his breathe. “Someone just died in your field in a freaking tsunami. Where I came from, people who live across the sea in America mourned longer for the Indonesians who died two thousand miles away.”

  “What do you think this place is, mister?” She took offend at Ian’s insinuation. Ian didn’t know what to answer. “A farm? An urban getaway for the rich? Nature’s playground for us to run wild and get in touch with their inner selves? Take a guess.” She paused for the dramatic effect of what followed.

  “None of them,” she sneered at their attempts of even trying to make a choice. “This is a labor farm! A form of prison. A highly structured correction facility with very strict work schedules for each and every one of our inmates. They are each assigned with specific tasks that would help them grow emotionally and physically. Discipline and accountability are two things that we cannot allow the slightest infraction. This man deserved to die. That’s why I sent him out to get the bull — it wasn’t an accident.”

  The revelation, highly discomforting, made Ian and Chad gasped. They felt sick in the stomach for being locked up in a place like this where the things and the people didn’t make any sense. How could such a wonderful environment be the very place where hard labors were inflicted and punishments were culminated in death?

  “How do you know there will be…” Before Ian could finish his question, it seemed that she was already waiting to hand out the “Why’s.”

  “Ebb tide and flow tide. Twice a day. Runs like clockwork.”

  “You called that big ass wall tides? We called it tsunami. You know that word? T-S-U-N…” Chad chimed in. He didn’t really know how to spell it but he didn’t think the woman would notice.