I saw him again. His skin was the same as always, a parchment map of a long life, with the familiar dark smudge near his right elbow like a forgotten continent. His eyes were baggy, but not with weariness; they were heavy with the weight of things unsaid. He sat up on his hospital bed, a skeletal figure dwarfed by the starched white linen, yet he moved with the same unnerving elegance he always had, back when he was a powerful chairman and the world was a carpet laid at his feet. Now, that elegance was tempered with a humble softness, an inviting warmth that felt like a betrayal. I recognized him right away. Tears pricked my eyes, not of joy or sorrow, but of a pure, undiluted hatred that had been fermenting in my gut for years. He was my dad.
Thinking back, he was the architect of all this. The reason I was drowning in a course that made me sick to my stomach every passing day, its textbooks filled with diagrams and theories that felt like poison on my tongue. The reason I now lived dirt poor, although I was born with a diamond spoon in my mouth, my heritage that was mine to enjoy, was him. He had casually yanked that away. He was the reason why these vermin in human skin disrespected me every day, their gazes like sticky fingers on my skin, their snarky comments like little stones in my shoes. I'd had enough of their fake interest, the way they'd lean in, eyes wide with morbid curiosity, asking how I was "managing." I was sick of it. I'd had to shrink myself, fold my true self into a tiny, tight box, all so I could live in a one-bedroom apartment that wept water through the roof every night, a steady, mournful drip on the floor beside my bed. I was sick of the toilet drain that clogged every week, of the creaking bed that sang a song of my poverty, of the air conditioner I couldn't use, a silent, mocking sentinel in the corner. I was sick of the rice and beans that I ate every single night, the bland, mushy texture a perfect metaphor for my life. I wanted to quit it all. I wanted to stand on a rooftop and scream that I was done. I wanted to open my mouth and curse the very day this man left me with nothing but a name that was once a golden ticket and was now a brand. I wanted everyone who had ever spoken ill of my situation, who had ever smirked at my downfall, to have their tongues cut out and served to them. I wanted revenge. On everyone. On him. On the world.
As I drifted deeper into the venomous currents of my own thought, I hadn't noticed when I, a grown man, had started crying, silent tears tracking paths through the grime on my cheeks. I hadn't noticed when he had moved, when he was no longer on the bed but sitting beside me, his presence a cold spot in the sterile air.
Before I could furiously wipe my tears away, I could hear his voice again, not weak, but resonant, as if echoing from a great distance.
"You'll learn soon enough, my son. This is not the end. Take this. Go farther. Search deeper. Find yourself."
He didn't touch me. He didn't hand me anything. But I felt something pass between us, a current, a spark. With that, I was gone. It felt like an eternity, although it was only seconds. I could feel myself falling through the realms that existed within me, tumbling through the dark, cavernous spaces of my own soul. I fell through the realm of regret, a place filled with ghosts of what-ifs and echoes of my own cowardice. I fell through the realm of hate, a fiery, suffocating landscape where my anger burned like a sun. And then, I fell through the realm of love, a quiet, frozen wasteland, the memory of warmth so painful it felt like frostbite on my heart. It all spoke to me. It drew me closer, pulling back the heavy, velvet curtains to my true nature, my true self. I can see it now. A flicker.
"Sir."
I can see the light.
"Sir."
I know what I must do.
"Sir!"
I rose immediately, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The soft cotton bed beneath me felt like a cloud, floating across a cool evening sky. And at the same time, I knew it would cost more than my liver, if I could regenerate it and sell it forever.
"Sir, Madam is waiting for you. She is in the other room." A valet, his posture perfectly straight, stood by the door, his face a neutral mask.
I nodded, the motion stiff. Memories flooded my mind from the night before, a chaotic torrent: the private flight, the tense talk in the lounge, the silent ride from the jet, and the 'edible' that had turned my world inside out. I swung fast to the side of the bed, my polished loafers brushing against the fine, deep blue carpet below, its fibers plush and cool. The walls around me were not plaster but polished marble, veined with gold, and the ceiling was a breathtaking fresco of intricate engravings that looked like vast, unfurled wings. A massive chandelier hung below it all, a constellation of cut crystal that threw fractured rainbows across the room. It was, of course, shaped like a wing.
My hair was a mess, I smell like a chimpanzee and my breath could be registered under the Geneva convention as a war crime. And still, this woman wished my presence. I wanted to give her a piece of my mind.
"Do you know why we are here?"
Of course I wasn't going to do that. I had neither the funds nor the gall to refuse her, and I wasn't about to be sent home. Back to that place. I've abandoned myself, abandoned my last name by becoming her dog. I told my myself, that I'll get back the initiative in our relationship. The leverage.
"You asking me?"
She chuckled, bit her finger while remaining eye contact.
"Sit"
I obliged quickly, gazing the ground with ultimate priority.
"Staff leave us", she said as the filed out in an orderly manner.
"You've grown a pair, in barely a week. I can make it so that you'll never graduate out any school in the country. I can make sure that no one will ever hire you. Of course after I've fired you and sent you on your way. Then what would you do?" she asked.
"Then I'd start my own business in China"
The absurdity in my own statement sent shivers down my spine. I knew I had to grow a new pair if I really meant to turn my life around, but was this really the way to go about it?
"We're overdue a long talk. Now, about tonight....."
"You said what?"