Short Story: Only Time Will Tell

I can see the abrasions, the cuts, the scratches; they jar the otherwise smooth and polished surface. They blend into the metal, as if it was designed in such a way, blurring the crisp and clear image. I twist my wrist around, my eyes shifting their focus towards the centrepiece of a new but worn amulet. The funny thing is though; I don’t even look at it for the time. Instead, I just admire its beauty, its history and its wear overtime.

I make sure I keep the face pointed towards the light though, much like a sunflower following the movement of the sun through the day, turning and twisting to survive against its will. He made sure that it was solar powered before he gave it to me. He probably found my love for the natural world when I would wander away from the family on outings, when I was two, wobbling towards the nearest animal – I’d even chase after pigeons. That was the first year I met him; our first family trip to visit the relatives in China. I don’t like to say I choose favourites in the family but I’d have to say that he was my favourite Uncle. I got to stay over at his house that year, where he had tucked me into his enlarged king sized bed, letting me sleep in its oversized madness. It wasn’t much later that I had found out he slept on the couch just to make sure I was comfortable at his house.

That year was a highlight that even now I would not forget but it would be my second last visit to see him. An entire decade later, when I was 14, I returned to China to visit my family again. I was induced in haze of anxiety and excitement, a whirlwind of positive emotions. Instead of the smiling faces that had once greeted me at the pickup area of the airport, all I saw were grimaces and masks of weariness. Everyone was tired, everyone was exhausted, and everyone was crushed.

I was a teenager at the time, in full swing of puberty, rushing with hormones and new thoughts but they still viewed me as the one year old, barely able to walk, rushing after the flocks of birds.

It was hard to tell me what had happened, I didn’t really know – my Chinese was weaker than it had been but I knew it had something to do with his stomach.

My visit to the hospital would be my last visit to him. He had deteriorated from the jolly albeit overweight man he was to no more than part of the human cycle. He had known it too. Although he could not talk, his eyes had responded with apologies that I now wish I had not taken. That was to be the night he would pass away.

When someone dies in front of you, it is an experience like no other. No it is not painful, nor is it satisfying. It is an empty, sunken feeling – a vacuum of drowned tears. It is like running a marathon and later not being able to feel your legs, it is the pins and needles of emotions. There is no shriek and there is no struggle, a drama-less decline. It is an easy process that is equally as hard. Death is still a strange thing.

Funerals are strange things too. When I had arrived at his one, there were so many people. People I had never met in my life, people my family didn’t even meet. He had known so many people and I knew little of him.

The funeral service is how you would predict it. We would walk up and examine a dead body, saying our last words, leaving our last flowers. It was so silent that I remember hearing the breathing; slow and deep. There he lay, pale and cold an empty vessel of the soul. They had told me not allow any of my tears to go inside the coffin for fear his soul would remain restless and wander the earth for eternity so I had kept my distance, my hand constantly wiping my reddened face.

I had the dubious honour of locking the cage away, my weakened arms barely able to guide the hammer down properly to nail in the coffin. I hadn’t cared about the embarrassment that was to follow; I just knew that I had to let him rest in peace, my final and only gift to him.

In Chinese tradition, we would burn paper money for him, which would be used by him in the afterlife. A big circle would be drawn by chalk and a first paper lit, wherein afterwards, everyone would contribute a little and watch the fire burn. I remember my aunt crouching down in front of me once we had all put in our fair share, her eyes dark and empty. She told me he wanted me to have it, opened the black box she was clasping on to tightly and undid the locking mechanism. It had slipped onto my wrist easily – the size, just perfect. I gave her a hug, thanking her with a kiss on the cheek. She stood back up and silence resumed as we stared into the blaze that we wished would scour our memories, our thoughts, my pains.

As I turn the watch once more, the light catches my eye once more reminding me of that fire, a memory seated in shadows. I unclasp the bottom of the watch and slide it off my wrist. It angles itself as I lay it on the desk, rigid and unmoving. It no longer is allowed to follow the sunlight, absorbing its rays for energy. It would have to use up whatever battery had been left inside and when it died, it would have to wait for my return. I’m sure it won’t die out though – not anytime soon, I’m sure of it. The cuts and abrasions are living proof of its perpetuating existence.

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