Miss Sally Min. (invariably) wrote in noircity, @ 2014-10-01 00:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! narrative, - backstory, - challenge, c: sally min |
WHO: Sally Min, feat. family members.
WHERE: Various locales in Personville, Illinois.
WHEN: Vignettes between childhood and Summer, 1954.
WHAT: Meditations on parental figures. (For Backstory Challenge, GHOST prompt – table here.)
STATUS/WARNINGS: Complete narrative, no warnings needed.
Her knees creak underneath her as she leans forward to light the incense, the flame licking at the dark before it makes one ember, then two. The twilight paints the tablets plum and violet, her arms cornflower save for the blush of her fingertips as she places her hands to the floor, her head to her knees. She will drop an offering later. There is no time now to find a slip of paper; she overslept by fifteen minutes, fifteen precious minutes she’s going to have to cram in somewhere in between two articles due by the evening standard and a meeting for the newsdesk. This evening’s prayers will have to do – saying, of course, she’s home early enough to do much more than collapse into the bed. It occurs to Sally, as her room grows gilded with the crisp copper-bronze of sunrise, that it is a funny thing to pray for a pair of strangers, but it is what one does. The things they gave up for you, the reproach rings back. For a girl, even. She licks her thumbs so that the ember doesn’t singe her flesh. The smoke, already curling, unfurls in thick ribbons before it stops. It is a funny process, grieving for her parents, because she wasn’t allowed to grieve much at all. “It was an accident, you see,” Auntie Jane explains one evening, an unidentifiable lean meat flashing hot in the pan. “There is a war happening, Sijia, do you know what war is?” “I know what war is,” Sally replied, in a tone that was already asking for a reprimand but strangely slipped through without. “So they got shot by the folks over there? Those invader folks that Uncle talks about sometimes?” “Yes,” her aunt says quickly. “Yes, the Japanese.” Whatever was in the wok is now on the table, a crock full of rice beside. “It was an accident, and it is sad, but that is the end of it.” “Why?” Sally does not know the ramifications of this question, does not understand why both her aunt and her uncle turn to her with hard eyes, eyes she does not know. “S-sorry,” she manages, and tomorrow there is a new strip of paper, a new accolate for two pairs of faces she can no longer picture anymore. The next morning is better. She remembers to pick a bit of spirit paper from her aunt and uncle on the way home the night before, promising to step in for tea that weekend. (It’s been so long, her aunt says, and she only smiles and pats her hand. I know, I know.) She places the slip in a dish and sets the match to it last, letting the smoke billow and eventually waft out the window and into the morning air. Later that morning, Theodore asks what on blazes is burning and she swats him in the middle of the back. She’s kind enough about it, but he’s knows well enough to buzz off. “No, let me take care of you.” She smiles, bittersweet, and touches her aunt’s shoulder. “Please.” If she were a better niece, she would do this often, but it is a quiet yet well-acknowledged fact that Sally is not. But Auntie Jane allows her to take the tea set back into the kitchen to rinse the tea leaves out, allows her to tidy a bit from the flurry of activity that comes with hospitality. It might be American fealty that she’s showing, but it is deference to her elders nevertheless, and so her aunt slowly grows quiet, the radio drama in the background overtaking the protests in the home. Sally dries the china carefully, places the clay pot just so that it can dry the seasoning into the bowl. She places their utensils back in the drawer, presses the napkins folded so that she might put them in a hamper later. After a moment and Sally decides to take it a step further, tidying up the kitchen in short bursts. Tuck a few bills over here, straighten out some placemats there – it felt a shame to expect her family to do this on their one day off, when all they do is wipe down tables and the like for the rest of their days. It is as she does this that she finds the bundle, crammed awkwardly into a box of bills. It wouldn’t have even passed muster if it hadn’t been for the hasty hanzi scribbled on the front, legible despite its expressive speed. Must be old correspondence mislabeled, she reasons, shuffling through some drawers to find the right spot. But she pauses, for a moment, just to peek. She can’t help it, really, the soft texture of well-loved paper, the buttery cream of expensive stock. She reads the postage stamp (1937, then) before flickering her eye over to the return address. She never expects to understand it, of course – she knew how to read Chinese as well as she would Arabic, or Hebrew – but a few characters caught her eye. I’m not supposed to know these. No, but the practiced carving in the plaques rises up at her. She doesn’t know where one syllable ends and another one begins, but she pictures the line of them together and reads what she reads every morning. Min Peijing. After what feels like ages, Sally takes the letter and tucks it into her pocket. She’ll return it, she tells herself. It just might take a while. It’s not sunrise, but she tucks the plaques away into a trunk, the incense and offering dish carefully in pouches. Instead, she turns on a lamp and pulls out two letters. She holds it to the light and begins. |