Young Writers Society

I only ever had three friends in my childhood years—my father, The Man Upstairs That Owns as Many Aliases as There Are Bible Passages, and the stars. I’ve learnt later on in life that it’s better to leave the last two for later conversations and the first in tamed, ordinary description.

The day I was born, my mother locked herself in the hospital closet when the doctors tried to hand little infant me to her, screaming broken curse words when they got the custodian to sledge hammer their way in. She adamantly refused to go home with me, and started spars in the corridors with my father in lightning bolt Chinese. As such my father obediently went home without her, cleaned up the attic while I was laid on the couch, put the baby cradle that was meant for Better-Future-Engineer-Me up there and sang lullabies while he rocked me to sleep. I was at peace the moment my mother began her rampage on my father when she finally came home.

“The child is a demon!” Nelly imitated, waving his arms frantically in illustration. “I birthed a dead infant possessed by a demon, I tell you!” He dropped the act abruptly, shrugging his shoulders. “You’d have a field day with my mother, Dr. Wright. I brought her to several therapists before she died, and some of them needed treatment from their own medical institutes after hearing her banter.”

It was made clear then that my mother would have nothing to do with me, and my father would be alone in raising his child. I remember him instructing me not to go out in the morning out of fear that my mother would find me in her bad moods, giving me picture books and color pencils to play with until midnight. After that, I became a nocturnal creature, walking about into my home, ransacking the cabinets for biscuits and tea. My father would usually come out by then, with his blue night robes and his baggy eyes, a cracked bowl of rice and some other topping in his wiry hands.

He told me once about the first time he started the tradition, when I started eating solid food. I was a year old then, but he still hadn’t figured out what to call me (my identification card even said ‘Wei Zhi’ or Unknown in English, up until that point). He brought two bowls into the attic, both used and chipped but relatively clean. He laid out some rice and pork, leaving some kale he got from a neighbor inside the chipped bowl. He told me I ‘picked up the bowl, sniffed the kale, and sucked my face into the bowl’. That was, supposedly, the first time he hurt his sides laughing.

And that was how I got my first name: Kale.

“Don’t you dare laugh.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“I saw your face, you were going to laugh.”

Haskell abstained from smiling. “No, I wasn’t.”

“There, there it goes, that little tic of yours.”

“Continue, please, Mr. Nelly.”

After that, I grew closer to my father, but farther away from the community around me. My world consisted of a dusty attic filled with spiders and old books, and the home under those floorboards. Of course I was curious of the outside world. The attic window often put on a show of its own, with kids my age dancing about in the streets, store owners rambling of prices with their customers, all happening while I was trapped inside. But I wasn’t interested in human interaction back then. I wasn’t keen to meet anyone, I wasn’t at all a day time child, and I certainly wasn’t interested in walking by my mother. No, I wasn’t attracted to the daylight happenings of the outside world. I wasn’t intrigued by the adventure the afternoons provided under the safety of the Sun—my home was under the refuge of the stars.

My illicit love affair with the heavens began when I was around seven years old. I was homeschooled then, since neither I nor my father could speak proper English, and spent more time in the attic than ever. For reasons even I don’t know, I kept track of the stars each night, drawing their patterns on worn notebook paper. Those were the only moments my window was open, and each time seemed more magical than the last. The stars became my first friends, my first true companions. I’d shred paper from my notebook, writing down thoughts and questions in hasty, childlike han zi, folding them into long slits and wrapping them into paper stars, putting them in a pickle jar.

All of them had the same question written at the bottom of the letter: Can you hear me?

One morning, I accidentally knock the jar off the window sill, smashing it on the streets below. I cried for a solid five minutes, watching as the paper stars crumpled under passerby’s feet. I slept, continuously, until four AM in the morning, when I realized my throat was dryer than the Sahara desert.

I drank the water my father left on the nightstand, and came back to bed. But altogether, I didn’t. I walked towards the window sill, and found the smashed pickle jar where it was before, all in one piece. There was only one paper star left inside. I unfolded it, and found three words, all written in English: “Yes, I can.”

I somehow understood it.

When I looked back outside, I found a man made entirely of light on the streets, looking up at me. “Can you hear me?”He mimicked, tilting his head.

“Of course I can hear you,” I found myself saying.

“Can you understand me?”

“Well enough.”

He shone a bit brighter, as if flashing a smile. “Good.”

He disappeared, slipping behind me into the attic. He looked around, welcoming himself to the mattress. “Kale, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”He clasped his hands solemnly. “Your letters have been troubling my angels. They don’t know how to store paper stars, nor do they know how to unfold them—they keep tearing them accidentally or losing them to the winds. I swear, fifty percent of this years’ falling stars are caused by your hand--”

“Are you a star?” I asked, dumbly.

“No. Why would I be a star?”The man gawked at me. “I mean, several of the other few Mediators envision me as Leonardo DiCaprio, but I’m certainly not a star. I could be, but that’s not my bravado. I much prefer the title ‘Creator of the Universe’.”

“But you got my letters, didn’t you?”

“Yes. It was meant for me, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know. Are you the stars father?”

“Well, technically yes. But then again, I’m also your father.”

“You don’t look like my father.”

“No, no, not in a literal sense--”

“Kale, what’s going on?” The words came out in Chinese, echoing from the staircase. My father came up from downstairs, a torch in one hand and another rubbing his left eye.

I pointed at the shining man. “He thinks He’s you.”

My father widened his eyes, staring at me for a moment. He didn’t seem to notice the living torch sitting on my bed. “What did you say?”

“He says He’s you, baba.” I repeat. “I don’t know what He means, though. He doesn’t look anything like you. Look at him, baba.”

Father closed his open jaw, eyes narrowing in confusion. He walked towards me, sitting beside the shining man on the mattress, pressing my cheek. His hair was whitened by age, wise eyes tired and resting under sagging skin, but other than that he looked like any other storeowner in Chinatown. “Where did you learn that from, Kale?” He asked, again in Chinese.

“Learn what?”

“Kale, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Speak Chinese.”

I thought over his sentence, before realizing something I should’ve from the beginning—I was speaking English.

Father rested his hand against my shoulder, and asked: “How did you learn?”

I opened my mouth, looking back at the shining man. The shining man shook his head, crossing his arms. I closed my mouth again. “I don’t know.”

The shining man grew a little brighter. He touched my fathers’ back while he was distracted, dipping his hand into the space between his two shoulder blades. “What do you mean you don’t know?” My father said, incredulously. The shining man fished out a glowing tea leaf, waving it about in front of my face.

I gaped at him, eyes wide. Father followed my gaze, but saw nothing. Felt nothing. “Is everything alright?”

“I’m tired, baba. I’d like to go to sleep now.”

“But why were you--”

“I’d like to sleep.”

Father turned back to me, dropping his head. He nodded, standing up. “Alright then.” He walked towards the stairs, leaving the room. His voice echoed from the floor below; “Take care.”

I looked back to the shining man, staring curiously. “What did you take from him? You didn’t hurt my baba, did you?” I bent down, studying the tea leaf in the man’s pale hands. “What is that?”

“His soul.” The shining man wriggled a bit on the mattress, leaning to face me. “A piece of it, at least. Don’t worry, he’s not hurt. I’m just taking a little sample of his thoughts is all—his inner most desire.” He reaches for my hand, prying the fingers apart. He lays the leaf on my palm, rubbing it against my skin. It felt like calm breezes in the spring, medicinal herbs, faded memories. It was all that my father wanted in life. All that was taken from him.

I rubbed the leaf between my thumb and index finger, not noticing the hand protruding into my ribcage. The shining man shrunk a bit, taking a form of something more…human. Back then, I didn’t notice what he had become; the bleach haired man with bloodshot eyes, fragrant with the smell of coffee beans and hospital corridors. It was only twenty years later I realized who he had become.

He was me.

“You imagined yourself grown up?” Haskell asked, noting the incident down.

Nei Li shook his head. “I must’ve been a psychic if I had.”

He opened his hand, letting the paper star inside bawl out into mine. I unfolded the paper, unrolling the message inside: ‘Hope’.

“What’s Hope?” I asked, sitting down beside Older Me.

“Your greatest desire.” Older Me replied, blankly. “The one thing you want the most in the world. From now, until forever.”

“But what is it for?”

He smiled. He stole the paper from my hand, folding it back to its paper star form. “You’ll know,” He said, enigmatically. He pushed the star back inside, patting me gently on the chest. “One of these days, you will.”

I clutched my chest, trying to feel the nonexistent dent inside caused by the star, to feel the life underneath the bones and muscle. “Will I ever get it?” I asked, looking up to him again.

“Now, that would be ruining the surprise, wouldn’t it?” He smirked. “And I’ve always loved surprises.”

And that was the first time I ever talked to God.