I glanced at the sheet of paper. Not only had it been dampened, the entire floor beneath me was a pool of tears.
Is this how death looks like?
* * *
“But,” Michael suddenly continued, running his eyes over the audience. Most of the girls in the audience were crying, including those in other classes who did not know Jacky. “But, but…Jacky once told me that boys should not cry. We’re born with broader shoulders to let girls cry on our shoulders. He said only sissies cry. So!” He wiped off his tears. He failed. They kept on coming. “Let’s follow Jacky’s advice. This is for you, Jacky. My most respected man, the man who smiles even during the losing fight with destiny. The fearless man who shows me that the greatest fight occurs in the mind, not in a battlefield.” He smiled and walked away from the microphone.
There should have been two emcees, a boy and a girl. But the girl was nowhere to be seen. The boy went to the stage and announced, “Let’s welcome Jacky’s best friend, Joanna, to dedicate a message to the brave Jacky.”
A round of weak applause greeted me. I stepped forward to the microphone and adjusted the stand to my height. Then I pulled out a sheet of paper from my pocket and stared at it. It was a page long, and I had spent two hours penning it.
I started to read it. “Jacky Wu Zhong Xian is a very…” I paused. Then I crushed the paper into a ball and dropped it. Looking at the audience with my earnest eyes, I said, “There was once a matchstick that scratched its head. Then it died.”
There was no response from the audience.
“Someone didn’t laugh. That boy didn’t laugh,” I said, pointing to a beautiful empty space in the hall. “That boy with glasses and short hair. Yeah, that’s the one. He never laughs!”
I closed my eyes. It was too painful. I imagined myself in the audience, showing him an angry look. That idiot. Hello to Jacky! “Jacky,” I started, my eyes still closed, “can you please…wake up from your dreams and laugh at my joke? I beg you. I beg you. I beg you…”
I did not remember how long I begged him.
* * *
I was still dazed by the shock when I heard a voice.
“You must be Joanna.” I looked up. It was the doctor. Upon closer examination, I realized he could be less than forty years old. I nodded, waiting anxiously for what he was about to say.
“Before Mr Wu went into the operating room, he said this to me: ‘Doctor, I’ve got a stupid rock in my head. Get it out, because I wanna marry a girl called Joanna Fung. She’s one of the craziest girls around. No one wants her so I’m sacrificing myself. Okay? I’ll invite you to our wedding. So you’ll better get this rock out in order to attend our wedding.’”
He paused and then continued, “He’s the bravest man I’ve ever come across. I’m sorry things turned out this way.”
I took in a long breath. My hands were glued to the sides of the chair.
“Well, Joanna, I don’t know whether you’re the most fortunate or the most unfortunate girl in the world.”
I forgot when I stopped crying.
19
The doorbell rang when I was rubbing Grandma’s thigh. I did not feel like going to the door, thinking that it could be some salesman trying to promote a new kind of ‘super’ vacuum cleaner. But Grandma pointed to the door and nodded.
The moment I opened the door, my eyeballs nearly dropped out and I bit my teeth hard. It was Jacky’s mother. She was expressionless, staring at me as if I had just done something wrong.
I knew there were only two reasons on why she had come: Either it was good news or bad news about Jacky. I took deep breaths to calm myself when I saw her red eyes.
“Joanna,” she started and I began to wonder how she got my address. But I knocked that thought off my mind and concentrated on her. “This is from Jacky.” She passed me a white envelope. “He said if anything happened to him, I must give you this letter.”
I felt the letter with my fingers. There was only a single sheet of paper in the envelope.
“He’s still showing no response. The doctor has told me to prepare for the worst—he might leave us next week.”
I stared at the envelope for I dared not look at Jacky’s mother. I closed my eyes and waited for her to say something. But she kept quiet. I nodded, bade goodbye to her and slammed the door shut, the sentence still haunting me.
“The doctor has told me to prepare for the worst—he might leave us next week.”
Was this the guy who had told me a joke about a matchstick that had scratched its head, then died? Was this the guy who had told me that he would always be my sunlight?
Is this the guy whom I love deeply? The seventeen-year-old boy with no career and money who wants to marry me?
Grandma made her way slowly to her room. She was singing some old Mandarin song that I did not understand. I jumped onto the sofa and tore open the envelope with trembling hands.
Is this guy Jacky?
The thought fuelled my tears, and I knew they would keep on falling unless I drifted into oblivion.
* * *
Dear Joanna,
As I am writing this letter, a freezing remorse is flowing inside my body. The room is serene, and only in this tranquillity that I can fill my thoughts on this sheet of paper. I regret so many things, yet I can do nothing now. I should have, yet I did not. Joanna, what I wanted to tell you is that I love you.
Since the day I first talked to you, I told myself that I must not fall in love with you. As we got closer, I continued to tell myself: I don’t love you. I held your hand, I cried when you cried, I smiled when you smiled; but still, I told myself: No, I don’t love you.
I must not love you, for I may leave this world anytime. But, just now, someone told me something meaningful. I was taking a rest at the park when I saw an old man in his seventies. We chatted, and he said this to me, “In love, either you love, or you don’t.”
It was then I remembered the day when I walked you home. A frail old woman, also in her seventies, chatted with me. Somehow, our conversation also ended with this sentence, “In love, either you love, or you don’t.”
In love, either I love you, or I don’t. Joanna, I have been thinking. I have been trying not to love you, but the fact remains: I love you. I can try to forget you, I can try not to love you; but still, it eventually boils down to this single sentence: I love you. Who am I to fight love?
My message. My SMSes. I know you have not deleted them. Go decode it.
If you’re reading this letter, I must be in a coma. But I just want to tell you, Joanna, I just want to tell you how much I love you.
Just wait for me if I’m in a coma. I’ll be back. Peel an apple for me; I’ll be still having it. This letter will be my motivation to wake up.
Wait for me. Wait for the clouds to clear. Wait for the sunlight. Wait. For. Me.
Jacky
* * *
Someone once said that time would dry the tears. It had been a month, yet my tears kept on dropping whenever I saw him.
Jacky had been in a coma for the past thirty days. I tried talking to him every day, singing to him every week; but still, he did not move.
Where’re the promises you made to me?
If I had had one of God’s abilities, I would have chosen to change my past and, slowly, tenderly, treasure every single hour, minute and second with him. Every single moment with him.
But it was too late. All too late.
I laid my head on the side of his bed. It had been an exhausting day for me. I had to hand in all my assignments and was going to have a tough economics test the following day. It had been a long while since I had a good night’s sleep.
The moment I closed my eyes, I drifted into a deep sleep. In my sleep, I forgot everything and dived into a beautiful dream. I was in a crowded bus. A masculine voice captured my attention.
“Hey, hello!”
I glanced up, looking for someone. A guy had just boarded the bus, and he was s
miling at me. I smiled back instantly, tucking my hair behind my ear. He squeezed past everybody in the bus and stood just beside me.
“Hello!”
He yelled although he was just beside me. I laughed, but still I said nothing, as if a force was sealing my mouth.
“Hello to Joanna!”
Somehow, I felt a sweet and beautiful familiarity in this scene. Even the voice sounded familiar. I took a very deep breath and regained control of myself. I looked around with my tired body and saw myself in the room.
“Hello. Where’s my peeled apple?”
The images had just been a dream, but the voice was a fragment of reality.
20
I stroked his hand softly, feeling the warmth. This is not another dream, is it? The images are so clear. I can feel beads of sweat on my forehead. There are so many colours. Jacky, my idiotic husband, has just opened his eyes.
I heard a voice when I was sleeping. I thought the voice was just a part of my dream, but it sounded so real, yet the images in the dream looked so hazy. As I rubbed my eyes, both the voice and images were real. This is definitely not a dream.
“Talk to me,” I said, my voice dry.
“Hey, hello to my girl, Joanna,” his voice rang again, louder this time. His eyes were half-closed and he was smiling. “Where’s my peeled apple?”
I could feel my mouth opening wide and my throat choky. I wanted to jump onto him, giving him the hug of his life. But if I had really done that, he might plunge back into a coma again.
“You idiot,” I whispered, toying with his fingers. “You idiot, do you know that we’ve all given up hope? That we believe you’ll be leaving us tomorrow? That I promise myself if you do not wake up today, I’ll…I… Do you know, huh? Why don’t you just go to hell?”
Jacky laughed weakly. “I choose my dates carefully.”
“You sure do.”
“Like, when I was in secondary one, I chose Candy Tzu as my date. When I was in secondary two, I chose Ru Hua. Well, when I was in secondary three—”
“Not funny,” I cut in.
“In secondary three, I chose Joanna Fung, and I’ll make her my date forever.”
* * *
When I first saw Grandma’s photo at her funeral, I squeezed Jacky’s hand tight. I did not cry. I just stared, and stared, and stared.
Grandma had passed away peacefully two weeks before my A-level. Initially, when I saw her lying on the sofa, I thought she was just resting. I went forward, wanting to wake her up. It was then that I realized she was smiling, but her eyes were closed.
When I noticed that she was not breathing, I did not call the ambulance immediately. Instead, I paced up and down and, finally, I called Jacky. The cause of her death was still unknown. It seemed to be of old age.
“You’re a strong girl,” Jacky said to me.
There were less than ten people attending the funeral, and I felt sad for Grandma. Still, I did not cry. For I had spent her remaining months talking to her, telling her stories, watching television with her. Most importantly, I had told her that I loved her.
“Come on, sit down. I’ve got something to tell you,” Jacky said, motioning to a chair and passing me a drink. “Remember the letter I wrote to you? I told my mother to pass it to you if I were in a coma.”
I nodded.
“Well, I did say something about an old woman at your void deck, giving me some advice on love, right? That love is either yes, or no. There’s no other excuse.”
My heart skipped a beat. Grandma had told me that before, and Jacky had heard this from some old woman at my void deck.
“Your grandmother was the old woman.”
I felt like crying. Firstly, Grandma became my chat mate. Then, she became my advisor. And suddenly, I discovered that she had also contributed to bringing me Jacky.
Ironically, Jacky had brought me Grandma and Grandma had brought me Jacky.
“Now, look here.” Jacky pointed to my left. I turned and gasped. It was the old man at the hospital park who had given me the same advice about love.
“What the…”
The old man was staring at Grandma’s coffin with teary eyes. After a while, he said something to himself and went off.
“Ours is not the saddest story in the world. There’re so many stories. Ours is just one of the many.”
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