The Light at The End
by Alexandra Yang
Copyright © 2014 by Alexandra
Yang
This book is work of fiction.
The names, characters, places are products of the author's imagination or have
been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to
person, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental.
All rights
reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or
other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of
the author.
I remember the roaring waves
screaming at me as I stood there. Frozen. I could hear them whispering my name.
Annaliese. Annaliese. They were telling me. Urging me. Let go. Jump in. They
told me if I did, I would be with them forever in an endless journey of
freedom. I wouldn't have to worry anymore. I wouldn't have to be scared.
The waves continued to crash,
but it calmed a bit now. It looked so peaceful. It looked so relaxing. They
would be alright--my family, my friends, and Matty. I would be alright. The
stale tears on my cheeks began to dry as I slowly shut my eyes. I could feel
the warm breeze in front of me and the infinite stars' gaze upon me. Those
memories suddenly came rushing back.
It didn't look as bad as I had
imagined it to be during the long car ride from the false four-seasons
Minnesota (it was either summer or winter there. Seriously.), but I was wrong
of course. My family and I settled in a small city full of white people which I
felt a bit nervous about due to growing up in a mostly-Asian community with
still some type of diversity.
The duplex my father had
pre-rented (if that's even a thing...) was surprisingly owned by other Asians.
It had two tiny bedrooms, a half-torn down bathroom which was always a hassle
for the six of us, a suffocating kitchen with old grease stains on the wall and
missing tiles, and a decent living area along with a broken heater.
First nights are always
uncomfortable. We only had mattresses to place on the floor with some pillows
and thick blankets and our bodies to keep each other warm. My two oldest
sisters, Sophie and Katherine, my youngest and only brother, Vito, and I shared
the biggest room with that random ugly wallpaper of a lake scenery just
plastered on one side of the four walls while my parents had the second room
which was much more spacious.
Early next morning as everyone
was still sleeping but had their eyes open and could hear stuff, a fat rat-like
mouse ran straight across Sophie's back (who was the only actually dead
asleep). I witnessed it and screamed, causing everyone else to get up, too.
"Eww! Watch out for that big ass mouse! Sophie!"
She woke up in confusion and slobber all over her mouth. We all immediately got
to our feet and surrounded the fat-like mouse where it had scurried to the
corner of spider webs. That was one morning to never forget about that house.
My mother had a bad habit of
registering my siblings and me (except for Sophie because she dropped out years
ago) for school late. School was always different yet the same. Transferring
over and over again had soon embedded the emotions of emptiness in my mind and
turned my heart to stone that I never became nervous anymore. There was really
no point. Nervous, shy, and the not-fitting-in thought that most normal
preteens go through as they try to figure out why they're in school and taking
math classes was of no use for them in the future. You know, one of those
"phases". For me, I learned that if I expressed no emotion on my face
whatsoever, people wouldn't talk to me or ask me the usual personal questions
like what’s my name, where’d I come from, and so on. And it worked well.
Actually pretty well that it caused a sense of intimidation. No one talked to
me. Only stared. Gave me good and bad looks. I liked it that way.
The people there had different
colors. Very few black, brown, and yellow. White was the majority of color
there. I decided to question a random teacher one day about it.
"Why do you guys consider other races 'colored' people?
People of 'color' meaning not white." He hesitated for some moments while
staring at me, probably thinking I was asking him a trick question.
"Well, you see, uh..."
"Did you know that white is a color and can be used to
create other colors?"
"Well, yes, certainly--"
"So how can you separate yourself if you're a color,
too?"
Again with the hesitation.
"Shouldn't you be going to your next class miss?"
Katherine and I were in our own
colored group because it appeared that the rest of the colored groups tended to
stay within their own colors. Sometimes they'll approach us and try to hit on
us. Having a white colored boy stalk me two hallways down was a little
frightening. I didn't how to react when he loudly whispered, "sexy",
right behind me while giving this hideous grin. I made an awful face, and then
he walked away.
Regan Hutchinson was quite a
weird girl. She was weird for talking to me. Her skin was very pale like Snow
White's with solid brown freckles spread across her face and arms and had a
weird color wheel of hair that presented brown, black, and some red. Very
weird.
We started talking since we had
a lot of classes together. We then started walking together to those classes,
too. We even began sitting at lunch together and eating together. And we one
day went to the girl's bathroom together to take pictures on her phone. I
wasn't sure if this was how all girls did in the bathroom, but it was something
that made me feel weird. But a good kind of weird. She started asking questions
about my culture to the point where I was teaching her some of the language.
"Ann, 'Ga Wa Achi'?"
"Talking to you."
We had this computer class that
required us to use our creativity and brains, not just our fingers for
keyboarding. Regan and I partnered up on an advertising project Ms. Jewels
created and assigned. She was first presenting a power point with examples and
was talking a little bit about Japan's culture and how they use suffixes.
"For 'teacher', it is 'sensei' with a little dash. So
here, you guys would call me, 'Sensei-Jewels'. Get it?" At that instant, I
turned to Regan and let out a quiet laugh as so did she.
"Oh my god, that is so wrong," Regan said,
smirking at the screen.
"I know. What an idiot!"
After Sensei-Jewels finished her
power point examples, we moved on to video clips of more examples which were
student projects from the past. One particular video drew my immediate
attention. It was called, "Order your Asian today" with a group of
white kids pretending to be Asians while making different faces each time a new
"Asian" person was shown for buying.
"Wow, this is so racist, Ann!"
I did nothing but stare and watch the advertisement as it
continued to play. I then got up from my seat, walked toward the portable television
set, and knocked it over after the video had ended.
My parents weren't mad at me.
They were just in shock, like Katherine, who admitted that she would've done
the same. The principal couldn't suspend me and Sensei-Jewels
couldn't give me
detention or "write me up". I made her play the video to my parents and to the
principal on Sensei-Jewels' computer. My parents yelled at them calling them
racists. All they did was give an apology and promised to delete the project. I
wanted the kids who made the project come over and get on their knees while I
whipped them with a steel belt. They were unfortunately already senior high
school kids.
"That is the most stupid, ignorant, and racist thing I
have ever seen at a school," my mother stated fearlessly.
"I didn't think it was going to be a problem,
ma'am," Sensei-Jewels said in shame and embarrassment. I could hear the
shakiness in her voice as I stepped in next.
"You know, Sensei-Jewels, to make you look even more
stupid, the suffix 'sensei' is actually supposed to be used after the name.
Like 'Idiot-sensei, you should get your facts straight before trying to teach
your students false information about a culture you have little clue
about'."
"I can't believe it...we won't be going to high school
together then," Regan said, frowning at me.
"I know...at least you'll have some people you already
know to be there with you...unlike me..."
"Yeah, but, they're not Asian, they're not you!"
I softly laughed.
"Good luck down there...and be careful of those
tornados."
"Thanks. I have yet to see one actually."
"I'll always remember you, Ann! And your awesome
drawings! And your awesome self! We'll chat on messenger or Myspace,
okay?"
"Okay," I plainly said, slightly smiling.
Even though I knew we were never
going to do any of that networking because Regan already had her other friends
who were closer to her than I was, I still managed to hug her and say my final
goodbye. And I still managed to feel somewhat sad about it.
I didn't remember the time my
mother came home, but it was awfully late. I did remember my father chugging
down the cans of beer earlier--as he always did.
I heard them talking to each
other. Mumbling words I couldn't make out, but I knew they were talking about
money stuff. Money stuff that made my father angry. Very angry. His deep voice
escalated first--as usual. And then my mother would try to keep him quiet from
waking us up. We were already awake, pretending to sleep, covering our ears,
hiding in our blankets. Even Kiba, our American Eskimo puppy, was trying to hide
as he cuddled with Katherine.
Minutes passed, and they died
down. They went inside their room, shut the door, and went to their separate
sleeps.
I had already adjusted to Union
Intermediate High School's horrendous environment. I never would've imagined so
many fights on my first day already. I witnessed one out of the ten that
afternoon. Black girls were swinging their fists with fake nails and greasy
shiny black weaves were scattered all over the floor. As usual, other students
were crowded around whipping their phones out, causing security and teachers
unable to break them apart. I, on the other hand, never cared to try and at least
catch glimpses of the fights. I always just rolled my eyes and avoided them as
much as possible. I was glad I didn't have any relations with those people.
During lunch, a random, fairly
small hand tapped me on my shoulder as I was walking toward an empty
table. Startled, I turned around to see,
and to my most surprise, a black girl. She looked about my age and height and
had long oiled curls of black hair with a few red streaks which looked pretty
cool honestly. Two big silver hoops were dangling down her ears. She wore a
jean jacket with a red undershirt and faded denim jeans along with mud-brown
boots.
"Are you sitting anywhere?" she asked. I was too
in shock by her voice to reply quickly. It was really soft and quiet. Just like
mine. I allowed her to follow me to the table where we sat awkwardly next to
each other, not making any noise or trying to break any ice. Suddenly it did
break.
"What's your name?" she questioned me.
"Anna," I answered bluntly.
"Are you new here?"
"Yeah..."
"Oh, me, too. I just started today."
I was too amazed at this point
by her voice and "accent". She didn't sound "ghetto" like
the rest of the black girls. Questions began running through my head as well.
Why was this girl talking to me? Why did she choose me to follow of all people?
Why?
"Oh. That’s cool. I started yesterday," I said.
"What classes do you have?" She handed me her schedule that was
neatly tucked in her binder. As I started to compare her schedule to mine, I
noticed we had a class together: U.S. History.
"Hey, we just had this class. You were in there
right?" I asked, handing her schedule paper back.
"Yeah. Coach Connor?"
"Yep."
"Yeah, I was in there. I think I noticed you across the
room. You sit all the way in the back behind this white dude right?"
Wow. She obviously paid more attention in that class than I
did. I would have never noticed myself if I was someone else like her.
Her name was Tiana. I discovered
things about her that were similar and not so similar to me. Beside the fact
that we both had quiet voices, she really liked "Asian" stuff. I
mean, REALLY, and I liked "Asian" stuff, too, but her Asian fetish
was mind blowing to me. I didn't even like my own culture, but I did like the
Japanese culture as she did. That was her favorite. And she was always
fascinated at other Asian cultures if she were to discover one. One like mine.
"Hmong? What is that?"
"Just another Asian culture with too many problems
within themselves."
"Interesting. I've never heard of that before."
"That's because we're not popular and we don't have our
own country and we don't have our own written language like Kanji's or
Hiragana's or any other symbols. We pretty much suck. Try guessing how to
pronounce this word spelled 'H-L-U-B'."
We both laughed.
"How do you say that? Huh-lub?" she asked while
still chuckling.
"It's like saying 'Loo'."
"Ohh! What does it mean?"
"It means love. The most common Hmong word Hmong people
know how to 'spell'...or at least the only one I could spell."
"That's awesome."
"I guess...I don't know how to spell anything else
except 'you' and 'I' or 'me'. I'm not even good at speaking it either."
"Ann, it's still awesome that you're Asian though...I
wish I was..."
"Happy birthday, Tiana!"
"Thanks, Ann-Ann!"
"Happy birthday, Ann-Ann!"
"Thanks, Tiana!"
My parents never celebrated my
birthday along with my other siblings. Not that we were against it, we just
never had the money to do it. We prayed each year, asking God if it's time yet
to celebrate and have presents and cake. But God never answered, and we never
got the presents and cake.
Tiana and I celebrated our
birthdays at school. We sang the song together on the table we went to each
morning. Before going in for the blow, a group of black students interrupted.
"Shut the hell up!" one yelled across. And the
others laughed.
"No one give a damn 'bout yo birfday!"
More laughter.
We blew out our candles and ate
our cupcakes as we watched the passerby's and watchers watch us. What a great
day to celebrate our birthdays. Something was always better than nothing.
"Merry Christmas, Ann-Ann."
"But I'm not Christian..."
"Who cares? I'm not either."
"Oh...well then, Merry Christmas, Tiana."
Tiana always bought and
constructed little gifts for me. Even on non-holidays. They were usually
oriental and colorful with little items neatly concealed inside some type of
box. A cheap bento-like box, a decorative to-go Chinese box, or just a regular
gift box. Every time she presented those gifts to me, I always felt bad. I
didn't have money to buy things she liked or even had things she liked, so the
only gifts I gave her were drawings. She loved Japanese anime and manga so I
decided to just draw her those. I started drawing more frequently
because I knew she was going to like them. And she did. She always did.
"Ann, we should like, make a video game or something.
You'll be the artist who draws everything and I'll be the producer! Or we can
make our own anime!"
"That sounds pretty awesome actually."
"Let's do it. We'll go to the same college and be
roomies and work together! Deal? Promise?"
I smiled with confidence. For once, I had something to
strive for. To work hard for. To have something I can possibly be proud of.
"Promise. And deal."
Valentine's Day was never my day
or Tiana's, but Tiana and I met a boy in our first year of studying Chinese 1
just last week. I never knew his first name, but only his last. Singleton was
what we called him. He was short, "light-skinned"(the term I learned
about the different shades of black people), and constantly had one ear phone
in his ear while the other one sat around his shoulder. Tiana began talking to
Singleton in class and followed him like a little puppy to some of his classes
during passing periods. I tagged along of course because I didn't have anyone
else to walk and talk with. As I observed the two from the shadows which was
literally just two feet away behind them, I could tell that Tiana was really
liking this kid. She never told me why. I never asked why. She just did. And I
wondered if Singleton liked Tiana, too.
We sat at our empty lunch table.
Tiana was folding an origami crane with pink construction paper as I tried
finishing some homework assigned that day.
"Ta-da!"
She held the blushing crane in front of me.
"Cute," I plainly said, returning to my homework.
She frowned.
"I'm gonna give this to Singleton after school. I wrote
a little something inside, too," she whispered while winking at me. I
slowly looked up at her. She had a wide smile on and right then and there, I
caught a tiny sparkle in her eye.
"Oh...good luck with that."
"I'm just gonna give it to him really fast and then we
can go on the bus, okay?"
I hesitated.
"I'll wait at the bench."
Tiana didn't speak or laugh
much. She wanted to switch sides during the bus ride this morning and look out
the window. I glanced over a few times at her reflection. Her eyes were puffy
and red. I frowned.
"It's okay," I gestured. She sighed as a reply and
continued gazing out the window.
"He won't be your last. There's plenty of fish in the
sea and you still have college to look forward to," I said, trying my best
to comfort her. She sighed again.
"I know...It's just...we had so many things in common,
and...I thought he felt the same way..."
"Well...it doesn't matter how many things you two have
in common. You can have a crap load of similarities and still not end up
falling for each other."
Yesterday after school, Tiana
returned to the bench. The pink crane was still in her palms, trembling a
little.
"What happened?"
She shook her head. I turned and looked where Singleton was.
He was in a large crowd with his arm wrapped around a girl. He was laughing and
smiling. I cringed my teeth and felt my cheeks warm up. I suddenly snatched the
crane from Tiana, crumbled it and disposed it in the trash can.
"You don't need that."
Tiana wiped her eyes and hugged me.
"I'm such an idiot!" she exclaimed. I smiled and
patted her back.
"No...He's just not the right one."
"Boys are a bunch of dogs..."
I paused for a brief moment.
"But you'll find a good loyal dog one day. All it takes
is time so don't rush into things, okay?"
She broke away from hugging me and nodded.
Tiana started to skip school a
lot. Sometimes she wouldn't show for a week or so. She told me she was either
sick or had to stay home to baby sit her two little sisters
while her step dad
and mother were at work. But her mother recently just quit her job, so I
thought maybe she had found a new one.
She decided to come to school one
morning, but was a little late. She didn't talk much or smile the whole
morning. She just kept to herself at our morning table and only greeted me, but
didn't say anything after that. As we walked to our first hour class, both silent,
she finally stopped and tapped me.
"What's wrong?"
Tears began filling in her eyes. She looked up at me and
brushed her hair away from her face. I stared in disbelief. Deep scratches and
minor, but noticeable bruises appeared.
"M-my mom..."she stuttered, "and I have been
fighting a lot..."
No words came to mind and couldn't be said from me. All I
knew was that she needed me most. I hugged her tight as she sobbed quietly.
There was a new girl who started
and had the same English class as me. Her name was Lakeesha. Lakeesha was big,
tall, and one of the "ghetto" black girls(you can tell immediately if
she/he speaks their own English slang with words you've never heard of but
makes sense a little actually, and they might have a lisp or have trouble
pronouncing words so they make their own words i.e. "fenna"). She sat
behind me and conversed with me about her ex-boyfriends and "boos". I
just sat there with my I-really-don't-care smile and nodded politely. Although
I may have not cared about her disturbing sex life, I found her to be quite
funny and super friendly.
"That new black girl is also in your class? Which one?
Computer Art?"
"Yeah. She's been staring at me a lot lately. Like, a
lot."
"Oh..."
Tiana was always telling me
after school that Lakeesha just liked to stare at her and throw her ugly looks.
She didn't know why, and I didn't know why either. It's like there was
constantly something on Tiana's face that was both mysterious to Tiana and me.
We tried figuring it out, but Tiana figured it out before I did.
I was walking steadily, just out
of my third hour class, and was soon trapped from proceeding to my next class.
Annoyed as hell, I gave a big sigh and began pushing my way through with my
textbooks in hand. A crowd had formed that blocked a hallway leading to one of
the staircases that I needed to go up on which were normally crowded, but this
time, it was seriously crowded. I pushed and shoved carefully. Being the height
that I was, I knew I would get pass easily without anyone really noticing me or
trying to start an unnecessary fight, and fights were the last situations that
I wanted to get involved with. Knowing how the crowd was positioned, I
automatically knew it was indeed a fight happening. As I finally reached the
top of the stairs, I saw her.
"Everybody move! Get out of the way!"
"Move! Move!"
Various staff members and two
big security guards were shoving students from left and right to reach the
center of action where my unfortunate best friend, Tiana, was locked in with
Lakeesha. I myself tried pushing and shoving my way through to try and stop the
fight, but the students were not budging, and being the body type that I had at
that time, wasn't helping either. I didn't know what I was thinking. I could
get myself seriously hurt as well if I tried to stop them because it just
looked like two animals fighting for a piece of meat, but then again, my best
friend was getting seriously hurt. I was soon disconnected from the crowd and
the staff people finally broke them up.
We were all soon ordered by the
principal to go to our classes. As I obeyed them, I watched Tiana get taken
away from the blonde vice principal. She didn't see me, so I continued on with
my classes, but all I could think about what just happened.
I decided to visit Tiana and
check up on her after her assigned suspension for one whole week.
"You're looking better," I said.
"Yeah...She only gave me a few scratches. Dude, I was
beating her ass. They keep on saying that I was the one, but no, it was that
bitch."
As bad as I felt, I laughed with her.
"And I think I accidentally punched that vice
principal. Ms. Conway or something. I was like on top of that jealous beast
just punching her in the face, and then Ms. Conway came and tried to pull me
off but then I punched her away. I really don't remember but that's what she
told me."
I gave a weak smile and then embraced her warmly.
"I'm sorry...I really am useless..."
"No...You're awesome Ann....Thank you for always being
there."
I walked back home later that
evening. I grabbed my sketchbook, mechanical pencil, and began drawing away. I
wanted to draw something for her. And I loved drawing. I really did.
It was a solemn Friday night in
the Yang household. Everyone was contained in their own worlds with the same
activities of freedom from a long week of school and work. My father was on his
way home from extended truck driving hours to finally relax for one night
before heading off to work the next early morning again.
He soon arrived, but was a
little late than his usual time. The rest of us didn't talk or ask about his
day except my mother. My mother always tried to please my father with
embarrassing kisses and flirting, along with a master-prepared meal. This
particular night I noticed something off about my father. He weakly
acknowledged my mother's efforts and brushed her off smoothly to go sit in the
cool abyss outside alone. I felt this was nothing new, so I continued my
studying of manga books and drawing.
My mother had joined my father
outside where I could faintly hear their discussion. My siblings and I didn't
know exactly what they were discussing, but they came back inside and ceased
their talking for a while where my father suggested they both go out for a
walk. I looked up at the clock. It was ten.
"Where are you guys going?" Katherine asked.
"Just for a walk," my father said.
I watched them both. As my
mother closed the door behind her, I saw her expression. Her face turned pale
for that brief instant and her smile faded immediately as she disappeared into
the darkness. I saw behind her my father who had begun walking into the
shadows, waiting. I couldn't tell if it was impatience or contemplation of
thoughts in his mind. He seemed calmed, but uneasy about something.
Something that he never told anyone. Something that he always bottled inside.
My siblings and I continued
about with our individual activities. Noticing the clock, long seconds turned
into brief minutes. Shortly and unexpectedly, those minutes were disrupted
violently by a loud banging on the front door that frightened and confused the
hell out of everyone.
"Open the door!"
More loud banging.
"Open the door! Hurry up!"
Closest to the door, Vito nervously and quickly unlocked and
opened it for our mother.
"Hurry! Shut the door!...Lock it!...Lock it!"
She burst inside the house, landing weakly onto the sofa
where I had gotten off on. My mother was panting. Panting so heavily, so
uncontrollably, that I felt my own lungs collapse.
"I can't...I can't breathe. Water."
Katherine was closest to the kitchen and she swiftly went to
go pour a glass of cool water for my mother. After my mother fully devoured the
water, she was beginning to calm down slightly but was still out of breath.
"What the hell happened?" Sophie demanded, trying
to keep her voice firm, but the fear remained.
"Your dad...," my mother began," he tried to
kill me!"
Everyone's face flushed white. I looked at my siblings, and
then I looked at my mother. They were all speechless. I felt my own heart sink
inside my stomach. A tight knot crawled up my throat.
"What do you mean?" Sophie asked, beginning to
panic.
Suddenly, the doorknob on the front door began to wiggle.
"Open the door," my father called from outside.
His voice was calm. Just calm that it appeared a bit eerie through the door. He
began pounding on it now. I was always afraid of his strength, and how much
strength he was putting in his voice and fist gradually climbed.
"Everyone... go to the room," my mother weakly
said. We all hustled to the bedroom that Sophie, Katherine, and I shared which
was the only big room in the house. We left the lights off and sat in silence
as we cautiously tried to look for and hear my father anywhere. He had already
stopped the pounding on the front door. A few heartbeats later, he suddenly
came around back and started pounding on the window in the room.
"Open the door for me. I have work tomorrow," he
casually said, continuing to knock harshly. I glanced at Vito. He was slightly
crying to himself with his fists tightly curled. I could tell he was just as
frightened, but with a lot more anger.
"V, help me put up the mattresses against the
window," Sophie quietly said.
My mother was still breathing hard, still panting crazily.
"What the hell happened out there," Katherine
asked her. Katherine was always the mentally and physically strong one out of
the four of us. She had already stopped her tears and firmed her voice again.
"I thought...I thought I was never going to...see you
guys again..." my mother began. She was crying uncontrollably now. "I
saw...my life...flash before me and--"
"OPEN THE DOOR!!"
