It is what it is.
Life is difficult, isn't it?
“It is what it is.” – He said to himself, wiping away tears.
Lee inhaled, but found it hard to breath out, the air came trickling along his tear drop. He tried to stand up but couldn’t, for his back ached in protest of the decade-old mattress. It was the few inheritances he got from his family, and it served no more than a thin barrier between him and the cold floor. Lee had thrown up on the sheets often after a night out drinking, like last night. He had a class this morning, but to show up halfway in this situation, he’d better not shown up at all. The midday Sun of this country was deceiving as everything else, its promise of warmth was surface-level, artificial, and Lee would have covered his window if his curtains weren’t riddled with holes. The Sun barged in as it pleased, enlarging the dust fluttering around the tiny room like krill in the ocean. It did help to alleviate the damp smell that has stuck to the walls, but Lee’s mood was unsalvageable. He managed to finally open his eyes after a few minutes, looking and the dust-krill and wondered if he could swallow them for sustenance like a whale. Thinking of food made him hungry, so he reached out for the Coke bottle (which hadn’t held Coke in a long while) and started chugging. Water got into his nose, and neck, and face, and the sheets. He cried again.
***
Lee woke up early today. Dressed in his best suit, he opened the window to look at the foreign city. The air was fresh, and he smiled. It was Lee’s first day as a university student, the first day he woke up by himself without the nagging of his mother, the first day of a new life. He grew up poor, and it was a surprise to no one that his raison d'être was studying. His father, a janitor at the village’s school, begged anyone who would listen for books, for he believed that education will get himself and his family out of poverty. In secondary school, Lee and his brothers slept on the heaps of novels and textbooks their father brought home. Once, Lee remembered arguing with his father because of the books. He had lost the reason why, but he could hear his sister hugging him, her voice shivering:
“It is what it is.”
That’s the first time any of them had stood up to father.
***
Lee met Yu at his second try for the bus. The first, he rode the wrong bus all the way to the countryside, ruining his promise for a perfect attendance record. He would have caught the wrong bus again if Yu hadn’t stopped him.
“You saved my life.”
“It’s cool.” – Yu smiled, her hand waving away Lee’s apologies and thank-yous.
She sat down next to him on the crowded bus, and Lee found himself wishing he could melt into the wall and praying no part of him accidentally touch her, for fear of being called a predator. He heard those stories all too often. To distract himself, Lee took the map out of his pocket, but all he could see was the girl’s little hands on her lap, her short skirt, her supple thighs…
“Do you happen to know where the University is?” – He used an honorific, showing respect to an older lady.
“Say it to my face, why don’t cha?” – She smiled. Her eyes smiled.
“I do apologize. I’m a freshman, see.” – Lee wished he hadn’t open his mouth.
“Me too, bud. Who uses a map anymore seriously? Don’t you have a phone?” – Her beautiful eyes widened with surprise. Lee felt his face red hot.
“I do not.”
“Nevermind that. Come, lemme show you.” – As if trying to fill the awkward gap the question created, she inched closer to him.
Lee didn’t remember what Yu said, except for her name and how the sun light caressed her flush cheeks. Little did he know at that moment, Yu was going to be a part of the rest of his life.
***
"I can get home just fine."
Lee stood up and reached for his thick coat, shouting to the bathroom.
“Oh no you don’t.”
“Just sleep. No class today anyway.” - Yu poked her head out of the door, the smiling eyes the envy of moons and stars.
Lee forced his lips into a smile, shrugged, opened the windows. Her curfew was drawing close, and their walks were usually longer than they had to be. He took a swig of the Coke they bought to celebrate the end of exam week.
The couple walked side by side along the alleyway, by chance lights from a random house would engulf them, their shadow stretched as tall as themselves, stretched further into the night, and disappeared. Lee had a habit of turning around to catch them before they do, the mysteries and secrets of darkness had always welcomed him with open arms. There was a familiarity in the void as it spoke out to him.
Cold. Wet. London. Lee dug his hands deep inside the coat, but a few frostbites couldn’t stop him from giving Yu the occasional pat on the head, or squeezing her to his side. Yu would pretend to run away, only to stop a few pace ahead and rush back to his opened arms. Words weren’t necessary, redundant even.
The bus was long gone, yet Lee found himself looking at the direction. Alone, the trip back to his flat felt like walking through quicksand.
***
At home, everyone ate late, worked late, slept late.
Father left from 2a.m., and wouldn’t be back until 8p.m. After a shower, he dangled on the hammock, eyes stuck to the ceiling. The heat stewed the village, drenched it in sweat, releasing the scent of burnt hay and grass, bringing along memories. Nothing brought nostalgia like a smell. To father, nothing haunts him more than burnt hay and freshly cut grass. He was born in the village during the war, and while people moved South for better jobs, he stayed.
“For the farm.” – Father would scream at anyone who asked. No one asked. He screamed anyway.
He was a short-tempered man, picking fights with the local kids that trespassed his farmland. He wasn’t alone, however. There was mom, who would help her husband throw rocks at the kids unprompted. Until he hit someone. The kid’s head bled, his neck dangled helplessly on father’s lap. Father cried, his lips struggled to say “sorry.”
The kid didn’t make it, his remains burned with the hay on a windless day. The other kids moved Southward, and still father stayed on that hammock.
Father thought of many things on that hammock, even before the incident. He thought about how difficult it was to love. He met and married mother, a woman from the West, but days after days he felt the weigh of hatred from his parents, who hated him for being from the North. Father loved drinking, but rarely did he drink with mother’s family, nor had anyone seen him drink with anyone else beside his wife for that matter. And thus they did not talk to him, about his farm, about the weather, about their children. And thus his kids were playing among each other until they grew up, never having much interactions with the other villagers.
He wanted that to change, but there’s a difference between “wanting” something and reality. Because he couldn’t study, he could only “want.” But his kids were going to be different, any one of them, and the cycle will end. So he brought the books home, and forced them to read.
That was why he couldn’t stand when his son, Lee, said books were useless. He decided then and there.
“Kids, I’ll visit your brother tomorrow.”
He never made that trip. But they are together now, he and his wife.
***
It’s been days since Lee ate. He forgot. He kept forgetting. He hadn’t left the house either, so there was little he could eat anyway. Caged, his soul withered away as his body deteriorate. He was craving even the artificial sunlight, for as soon as night fell, and the houses spewed smoke from their chimney, he cried. His father died, a plane crash.
Hearing the news, he was petrified, wishing for Medusa to quickly end him. That would have felt better than living with the fact. He wasn’t ready, and he never will. His sister cried on the phone, his room shrunk and expanded.
He left the foreign country for home, leaving Yu behind. There was nothing he could say. Words were redundant. There was little chance he would come back, with his little brothers and sisters too young to leave the village.
“It is what it is.” The books and the internet and the people and his sister would say. Life happens, be strong, power through it. But to Lee, Lee didn’t want to be strong through lost. Life was supposedly giving him a gift he couldn’t refuse. He would rather be weak. But he couldn’t do that either, with his brothers and sisters relying on him. He was too exhausted to end his own life.
***
Yu looked over a bridge, the river below frozen. She reached out her right hand, the one Lee used to hold, yearning for the shock from the ice. She cried a lot when he left, the awkward boy on the bus. She wished he would come back, but she knew he didn’t have it in him. Yu wished she could jump and magically appeared in front of him. It is what it is. She smiled.
***