Why Mama?
The room slowly transitioned into a mixture of blood orange followed by a bright yellowish light. My eyes were wide and staring through the large window wall. My chipped baby blue nails gripping the leather chair. Before I could fully grasp what was happening, my thoughts ventured back in time.
“Mama.”
The light brought me back to my monkey themed bedsheets. The ambulance was outside my apartment complex. The dark room was filled with various red lights. Some from the ambulance, some from the police car. The booming sirens did not bother me. Knowing the police were outside always made me feel safe and allowed me to sleep throughout the night. However, that night I could not sleep. My mother was on the phone with one of her neighborhood friends. She was talking about me. She was talking about her. She was talking about the private catholic school that was too expense for both of us to go. She had to pick one. I laid close to the cold wall praying that she would pick me.
“Haha, you kno’ I gotta send the pretty one so she can find a good husband!”
The ambulance was leaving. She didn’t pick me. She picked her. The one laying in the Cinderella bed that I was “too dirty” to have. I could hear her whispering to me. I told you she would pick me, hehe. I perfected the art of silent crying that night.
That fall my sister got to wear the cute catholic skirts and sweaters and I got to walk behind her. I would daydream about stepping on red leaves and feeling the cotton pleated skirt hit my skinny thighs. At night when my mama and my sister were asleep, I would try on the catholic skirts. I did little dances as if I was Annie the orphan. Something about the power of the skirt that blurred out all my insecurities. When I heard my mama get out of bed, I jolted to my bed like a rodent running behind the NYC trash cans. The illusion was over.
Mama would brag about my sister all the time. She talked about how smart she was, how funny she was, how soft her hair was. Everything that my sister did was an act equivalent to the workings of Christ. I was lucky if I could avoid my mama’s insults. Mama was a mean girl. She would soak up all the praise from her friends and the men by the corner store, but would vomit out hate. No woman was as good as her. She considered herself Flatbush’s Beyoncé even though she had no singing ability. On Sunday mornings, Mama would sing and clean the bathroom. My sister and I would mock her dry vocals. On Fridays nights, Mama had her ‘friends’ over. They were all male. One guy asked about why she isn’t with her baby’s father. I was in the corner of the living cleaning the cat’s litterbox. She looked at him and said, “He thought I cheated because that one came out a tar baby.” The guy did not seem comfortable after that. He, unlike the other men, did not spend the night. I felt like I should be scooped out the litterbox. Mama made me feel like that almost every day regardless of the time of year.
I remember it was Christmas Eve and my mama was sitting on the couch doing my sister’s hair for the Christmas party at my grandma’s house. She had straightened my sister’s brown coils to show off her length. “A lot of ya Aunties gonna be jealous of ya girl,” mama said to her. My sister flipped her hair back and forth in the mirror. I went up to mama with my hair products in hand eager to get my Christmas makeover. Instead my mama’s face scrunched up like a homeless man just asked her for some change. “Ain’t nobody wants to deal with dat.” I ran back to my room. The following morning, I woke up to a wet pillow and an empty house. They had gone to the party without me.
Nowadays my sister and mama claim that they did not want to wake me up that Christmas. My sister always makes the excuse that I never wanted to hang out with the family. They never bothered to ask why I didn’t want to spend time with them. Of course, they found a way to insert me into their life when it was convenient for them.
“I don’t know how you can drink that stuff,” my sister said, commenting on my strawberry Bubble Tea. She couldn’t understand how I could mix milk with tea. I used to reply to those comments. Now I don’t. We sat in her favorite café in Brooklyn. The atmosphere was light. Small round wooden tables accompanied by thick black high chairs. There were accents of fake plants in the corners of the cafe and abstract art on the walls. The smell of avocadoes and overpriced coffee beans invaded my nostrils. Tumblr quotes engraved into the dark grey walls:
“A life without cause is a life without effect” -Barbarella
There was a newspaper stand filled with the New York Times, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal. One of the headlines read: Old tensions raise between East Asian Countries. TAP.TAP.TAP.TAP. My sister was trying to get my attention. She was trying to convince me to do two things. 1. Transfer from my PWI college to attend Howard with her and 2. Not go to South Korea this summer. Neither of which I had any plan of doing.
“Trust me, I went to a predominately white school. They will treat you terribly.”
I didn’t reply.
“Don’t you want to be with your own?”
I didn’t reply.
“Plus, I heard South Koreans are racist.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to be there. I would have rather been home watching Princess Princess anime or Kawaii Brownie. Kawaii Brownie is my favorite Youtuber. Every time I clicked on her videos, it felt like bubbles and red hearts were bursting out of my laptop screen. “Anyoung haseyo, my Kawaii brown girls.” I adored her. She was perfection. Kawaii Brownie skin was as smooth as a Hershey chocolate bar. She always had the latest Liz Lisa collection and her room was laced with hues of pastel pinks. Her kinky locs were dyed to a sunny sky blue. Kawaii Brownie wanted to show us that our hair can be Kawaii. We can be Kawaii. I never believed it until I saw her. Once I discovered that she lived in South Korea, I knew I had to go. Hopefully I would meet her.
“I want to study abroad in Korea and learn Korean. I don’t see why you and mama have a problem,” I said as I scrolled down Ebunnybee’s Instagram page. I could tell my sister was trying to peek at my phone. She continued to talk about why she thought my decisions were wrong. Something about how my community needed me here. Something about how Spanish was a more useful language. Something about HBCUs. “Look you can join my sorority. We are Alpha Kappa Alpha. Look at this performance! You can’t tell me we ain’t bad, haha.” My sister slid her phone to my side of the table to show me this video of an AKA performance. It was a line of girls, who looked like Beyoncé impersonators stomping and flipping their hair back and forth. I slid the phone back to her without lifting my head up. My sister took a deep breath in frustration, “C’mon, Lillian give a little. I think Howard would be great for you! Plus, we get to spend more time together.”
“I don’t want to spend time with you,” I snapped.
This time I was looking at her. She was looking at me. If you saw us in person, you would not think we were sisters. She sat there with her arms folded over her Black Lives Matter shirt and I sat there with my arms folded over my Princess Zelda shirt. There was a silence between me and her. Something in her eyes made me turn back to my phone. After a few minutes, she shocked me with, “You can’t blame me for how mama treated you.” I thought about it for a while.
“Yes, I can,” I mumbled.
“Whaa?”
“YES, I can!”
“How?”
“Because you laughed at me!”
She was confused. That entire family was confused or just playing stupid. They always pinned her against me and she enjoyed it. I knew she enjoyed it. I knew since the day mama, mama’s friend Tracie, my sister and I were in that beauty supply store. The four of us stood in the lotion aisle looking for a product that was good for a family of three. Tracie picked up a bottle of lotion, looked at me and my sister, then handed me the bottle. The only words I could read on it were lightening cream. As loud as an ice cream truck song, Tracie laughed revealing her yellow teeth, “Here! So, you can be pretty like your sister.” Everyone started laughing. Mama laughed the loudest causing the employees to peek down the aisle. Blurry eyed, I looked at my sister. She was laughing too. I ran out the store and into the busy Brooklyn traffic. Cars beeped aggressively and old women shouted at me. I ran into the 99-cent store across the street to hide behind all the plastic knock off toys. An old Asian woman tried to comfort me. To cheer me up she handed me a doll with yellow hair, a big red bow and a cute blue skirt. It took a while before I learned it was a Sailor Moon Doll. I was hooked on Sailor moon from then. My sister told me that she didn’t know what she was laughing at back then. She’s woke now. I just shook my head.
She went home feeling defeated for the first time in her life. My mama yelled at me for giving my sister a hard time like I expected. Mama called me ungrateful as usual. I just tuned her out with my TV. The news was on: US President cancels visits to Seoul amidst extreme tension. I turned off the TV when mama was done yelling. Nothing was going to stop me from doing what I wanted to do. And I did.
I was in Seoul. Sitting in this old dorm chair by the window, watching the buildings light up in flames and bombs soaring down from the sky. There was a vibration on my leg. I looked down at my phone.
It was Eva. My sister.
Usually I don’t pick up because I didn’t have the desire to, but now I don’t have the time.
The flames were spreading.
Colleen’s body
For a moment, the city fell silent and I felt that death had consumed everything. Then the wind blew and pushed the ashes, bent metal, broken glass, and crisp body parts down the cracked street. The sight of pale torn fingers latched together by a sliver of skin spooked me from my hiding place. It was a large block of plaster and brick from a building that fell in the bombing. Seeing the white spots on my arms and clothes made me wonder if hiding under rumble was a good idea. It’s not like I had the opportunity to think straight. There were metal plates and poles still burning and chunks of stone collapsing and colliding from every angle. A myriad of fumes from burning rubber and gasoline filled the air. No more savory street meats to drool over. People no longer pushed past me on their walk to an office, university or home. Instead, I stepped over a sea of bodies that did not survive. How did I?
One of the bodies I recognized. Colleen Simmons. She was from West Virginia. She came here to study in Seoul like me. She wanted to be a diplomat. When I met her, Colleen’s hair was a beachy color. Now it was a strawberry blonde from all the blood. “My mom was freaking out when I told her I was going to South Korea. Ugh, she babies me too much,” Colleen had said when we were at orientation. She was the only girl out of fifty who decided to sit next to me. I asked her why her mom was worried. With all the gun violence happening in America, some would feel safer in South Korea. Colleen told me how her mom was a politician and regularly kept up with the global news. Colleen’s mom was nervous about the rising tensions between Japan and South Korea. It was a conflict that I chose not to see.
“Think about what happened with the Kuril Islands, Collie? You think the Japanese government is going to stand for that?” Colleen pretended to be her mother when she said this, with one hand curled up onto her hips and the other hand wagging her pointer finger in the air. Colleen was a sweet gal. I laid with her body for a while. It was colder than the ground. I wondered what her mom was thinking at this moment. Could she tell that her only daughter was dead? Did Colleen and her mom have that kind of a connection? Is my mom thinking about me? Probably not. This might be the only news about me that might bring her joy. I could see the disappointed look on her face if she was to find out that I am still alive.
Then there was my sister.
She was calling me. The entire time the city was being lit up like a thousand gray birthday candles, my phone was vibrating. One time during the chaos I peeked and saw her caller ID: Devil of a Sibling. I didn’t answer it. I couldn’t answer it. I needed to preserve the battery in case of an emergency. This was an emergency. I reached for my phone to see the time. It was 12:48 in the afternoon. It was 10:48 at night back in New York City. Maybe I should call my sister. She would probably tell me how much of an idiot I am for traveling to Korea and I should have listened to her and stayed in the States. Maybe.
There was still fresh blood leaking from Colleen’s body. Just as I was about to wipe the excess blood back on to her Urban Offitters skirt, I heard a loud rattling sound coming from above. A helicopter. I jolted in the alley, tripping over Colleen’s pale lifeless legs. From the darkness, I peeked into the grayish blue sky. The helicopter was black with a paddle like shape. On the tail of the helicopter there was a red star with a yellow line passing through it. It could not have been American, which is what I was hoping for. A loud horn on the helicopter went off and I heard the voice of a man. He was speaking Korean.
“Survivors, if you out there and if you are able, make your way to the Yellow Sea. Help will be there for you, but not for long. We will save all that we can. Whatever you choose to do, for the sake of your own life, do not proceed south of the city.”
I wanted to shout for help at that moment, but nothing came out. Even in the worst of times I was still too shy to help myself. I should lay under Colleen’s body and wait for death to come. Maybe a Japanese solider was lurking somewhere around here and I could beg them to blow me away. It was pointless to even try to get to the Yellow Sea. I didn’t even know what direction to go. I would just fuck it up like I do everything else. If Colleen was alive she would know exactly what to do with her Southern tack. As I prepared my bed in Colleen’s blood, my phone vibrated again. I didn’t look at it.
Quickly, I dug into Colleen’s pocket to get her phone. I easily unlocked it because she was the kind of girl that made her iPhone password ‘000000’. I found her mother’s number and put it into my phone. Maybe I will attempt to go to the Yellow Sea. If I get there I will call Colleen’s mothers and tell her what happened. Her mother deserved to know. Plus, I suspect that this city will burn before anyone could find her body and Colleen would join the ashes of Seoul.
Missing Pai
Tiny embers burning on coffee cups and popping out from broken home windows kept the night light up. My body was lightly shaking from hungry. The ground beneath my sore feet was lightly shaking as well from the explosions that were taking place. When I looked back I could see the fiery light of bombs being dropped. A cluster of military fighter jets had flown by. I called out from help this time, but it was pointless. The planes weren’t searching for survivors. The planes were searching for the pilot’s death. A death that may save a country. I suspect that from the altitude of the planes, the pilots would not have been able to see my dark limbs anyway.
Up close you could see the flickers of flames dance off my skin. I remember something that my first and only boyfriend would say to me. “You should be happy to be able to shine in the sun and moonlight.” I would always scoff at this comment. It was easy for a person who was as pale as their mother’s fresh porcelain bowls and whose lips were like a soft peony to say those things.
His birth name was Peter, but he went by Pai. It was his way of moving closer to his Taiwanese customs. His book bag was heavy with books and articles regarding Taiwan’s history and culture. When we first met, Pai wore regular western clothes. Skinny Jeans and Aeropastle. Towards the end of our relationship, he had managed to incorporate hints of Taiwanese culture into his dress. Red Shirts will delicate gold designs. Pai already spoke fluent Mandarin and was attempting to learn the indigenous language Formosan. He was a smart kid.
We met outside a skate shop on East 11th Street in Manhattan. I wasn’t supposed to be there and neither was he. My mom wanted me to come straight home from my middle school. Pai’s father hated the skater culture because he associated it with rebellious boys who did drugs to get away from their responsibilities. I would tell my mom that I had a special after school program to attend and Pai—well, he would say, “I am just gonna take the whooping. He wants me to be a man right. Ain’t nothing manlier than that.” That day I showed Pai how to do a few tricks on my friend’s skate board. I had on my fake Converse sneakers that I had drawn all over. Pai was a terrible skater and he never really learned. He could only skate in a straight line for exactly one minute (we timed him) before losing his balance and falling off. With every fall off the skateboard, Pai took pieces of me with him.
Together we made our way to the train. He rode with me to my stop which was in the opposite direction of his stop. Before I got off he asked me about a word on my shoes.
“Oh Mudduck? That what the kids in my neighborhood call me.”
“But what is it? Does it have a meaning?” Pai questioned.
“Oh…hmm… it means…like you’re the ugly one usually,” I responded.
“Why would you write that on your shoe?”
“Because that is what people call me,” I replied.
“But that’s not who you are,” he stated.
Immediately, he pulled out a Sharpie Marker (all the Skater kids had one) and crossed out Mudduck. Above it he wrote something in Mandarin. I asked him what it meant, and he told me he would tell me when we get married. That day never came. After eight months of riding the B-train with me, sharing a large cup of kiwi Bubble Tea, kissing under the Old Bella Tile Shop hood while it snowed, and endless hours of Deviant Art, Pai was fatally struck by a car during his skate home. Till this day, I wonder if I would have been there that day, would he be here today.
It would be nice to have Pai here with me. We could lay on the crooked concrete wondering whether the night sky was filled with clouds made of water or clouds made of ash. We could do skating tricks of the fallen fire escape rails. We could sit on top of the crumbling bricks watching the dead bodies and imagine what they would say to each other if they were still alive. Only if he was alive.
I am alive.
I continued to walk. I could hear water rushing from somewhere. Like the North Star, I used that sound to guide me through city. Ash coated the streets like a layer of snow. Every puddle of water was tainted by tar and blood. Every corner I turned and every rumble I climb over, the scent of bland roast meats tickled my nostrils. The smell intensified my hunger. However, it also raised my nausea. It was human flesh burning underneath destroyed buildings. I thought I saw a charred rat, but it was a piece of someone’s scalp. A woman’s scalp to be exact. I could tell because her hair smelled just like Colleen’s hair. Fresh. There was a small piece of flesh attach to the skin of the scalp. I thought about putting it on a stick, cooking the nib in a tiny fire and eating it. “Calories are calories, right?” Pai would say all the time. I decided not to eat the nib. It was not right. There needs to be some element of humanity in this war. I am just assuming this was war. When the bombs stop, either the war was over or I was dead. Both options were ideal.
I felt my phone ring. I checked the battery. 30%.
Sisterhood
“Why are you sad?” the counselor asked.
“Because everyone hates me,” I replied.
It was the year 2008. The school counselor caught me hiding in the playground tubes. I was crying. He told me I needed to go home, yet I refused. That’s when I told him everything. I can’t remember the counselor name; I just remember his pale green eyes. I thought those eyes were so beautiful, until I met Pai’s eyes.
“Who hates you?” he asked. Everyone. The children on my block who would wait until their mothers would disappear behind the doors of the brown stones to pick on me. They would chase me up and down the street. When I couldn’t run anymore they would push me down. As I fell, my small body would scrap on the concrete. The kids called me dirty because my clothes weren’t clean. Sometimes they would take dirt for the neighbor’s tiny garden and put it in my shirt. The children would do mock news interviews and ask me how it felt to be ugly. When they would play truth or dare in the school playground, every hideous dare would involve me.
“I dare you to throw this rock at Lillian.”
“I dare you to try and comb her hair.”
“I dare you to touch her butt.”
I would try to hide from them in any way I could. I would hide in the bathroom, but the girls would follow me inside and mock me for not having curves. The counselor asked me if I told my mother. I told him no. I tried to tell mama. She blatantly told me that I needed to either fight them or shut up. “What about your sister? Does she help you?” he questioned.
Eva.
The bullies loved her. In all the games, she got to be the lead. The lead singer, the top model, captain, Cinderella, and wife. I would always ask her to play thinking she might say yes versus the bullies. I was wrong. Instead, she would scream no in my face causing droplets of spit to fly on me. “Eva hates me too,” I told the counselor. Somehow, he got me to leave the playground. I went home and just slept. A few days later, Child Protective Services came to our apartment. I wish they would have taken me that day because as soon as their car drove off the block, mama beat me in the shower. Eva stood by the door watching. CPS never came back. After that, I stopped talking to everyone. No one seemed to notice.
Then on my fifteenth birthday, I came home to a package on my bed. It was wrapped in purple construction paper. I cautiously opened it. The package contained a Sailor Moon theme diary and a card. A card from Eva.
Dear Lily,
Happy Birthday!
From Eva!
I ripped the card up like I was a shedder. I tossed the diary behind the dresser and moved on. Eva started to talk to me every day. She would ask me how my day was, what I was watching, what I was reading, and where I was going. I tried to ignore her; however, she was very persistent. “Are you watching that show where the guy kills people with a book? Can I sit with you?” she would ask. One day I caved in and said yes. On that night mama came into the room to tell us to quiet down. We were laughing. Together. Eva’s laugh paraded in my mind. I was back in Brooklyn, in our small run-down apartment where the heat would never work in the winter.
The warm sunlight peeking over the mountains remained me that I was Seoul and not Brooklyn. I checked my phone. It was at 10%. I was supposed to call Colleen’s mom. I was supposed to tell her that her Southern Bell was dead. There were 104 missed calls from “Devil of a Sibling”. The last missed call was 20 minutes ago. I decided to call Eva. The phone rang for a while and someone answered.
“Lillian? Is it you?”
Yes. It was me and she was excited. I could hear the tiredness and soreness in her voice. I decided to lay on the ground. Eva was speaking as fast as the fighter jets. I was so worried about you. Mama is not going to believe this. I can’t believe this really happened. We need to get in contact with the government! I saw on the news that the US. Army was going out there to look for survivors. I told her not to do that. It was pointless.
“Why? Are you some place safe?”
“I am going to die here.”
There was silence. Eva started going on again. Lillian, you can’t say things like that. You gotta stay positive. Everything is going to be alright. You got the strength of our ancestors. She did not know that I watched the ship taking survivors sail away already. I made it to the Yellow Sea on time. I saw all the bloody, crying, weak citizens and visitors crowded on the beach. I chose to stay behind. It is not that I wanted to die. “But, my soul is broken Eva,” I cried. It was marred by years of being forgotten. I was a garden that was neglected to the point that it can never bear fruit. That fruit was happiness.
“Eva. What is your happiest memory of me?” I asked. She hesitated for a moment because she was still trying to convince me that I was going to survive. “It was senior year of high school. I had that Poetry slam, remember? I invited you and you said you weren’t going to come. Then as I am half way through the poem, I saw you at the back of the auditorium. I knew it was you because you had your Mario Skateboard. I started to cry and everyone thought it was a part of the performance, but no. It was for you. Lillian. It was for you. What is your happiest memory of me?”
I told her my happiest memory was when she came to Comic-con with me. She had brought the tickets as a surprise. I wasn’t expecting her to dress up, yet she did. I was Kagome from InuYasha and she was L from Death Note. L was always her favorite character. We took pictures together with other cosplayers. I remember hugging her. At first, I wondered why my heart was beating so fast. Then I realized it was her heart. Then I realized it was us and for the first time I felt like we were really sisters.
“I don’t care what you say, Lilian! I am contacting the government. I know I didn’t do a good job protecting you when we were younger. I know I was wrong. I was a terrible big sister. I didn’t save you then, but I will save you know. I promise!” Eva sobbed.
“Eva?”
“Yes?”
“I…I love you.”
I didn’t hear anything else. I looked at my phone. The screen was black. It was over. I balled up in the sand closest to the shore, so I can smell the salt water. I closed my eyes. I thought about Colleen. I thought about Pai. I thought about Eva. I only focused on the good things.
I can’t control what happens to Seoul, but I can control what happens to my body.
I decided to let it go.
Jahniece McCollum, Collin Anderson Memorial Award for Fiction
Jahniece McCollum is SUNY Cortland Senior. She majors in Professional Writing and minors in Political Science. She has identified as a creator since elementary school. She loves to write about flawed characters and works to stay true to the human experience in her pieces.
The Collin Anderson Memorial Awards in Creative Writing are open to SUNY Cortland students. The awards are sponsored and judged by the College Writing Committee.