Trigger warning: Talk of self-harm and suicide
Have you ever had this feeling? Like you're a helium balloon with your string cut. A rotting piece of wood adrift in the vast ocean.
Does saying it like that make me sound too pretentious? Thinking I'm some kind of literary youth. Of course I'm not. I'm just sad. Sad people tend to be under the impression that they've been possessed by Li Bai and suddenly know the gruesome secrets of the universe through a few lines of poetry.
Second year of university; my life is great. All the sad things from the past can be thrown to the back of the mind.
So, my life isn't sad.
*
I'm sitting in the library after hours because it's raining outside and the librarian feels sorry for me.
Lin Yu. My name.
In Chinese, it's written like 林雨. The first character is my surname – it means woods. The second character means rain. Don't know whether my parents did this intentionally, but if you add three dots to the first character, make it 淋雨, and it means getting rained on.
The pronunciation is the same.
My brother's name is Lin Qiu, written like 林秋 – the second character means autumn. Our names put together are autumn rain. Quite poetic, isn't it? But it still makes me wonder why my parents couldn't have just had one son named Lin Qiu Yu, rather than fracturing the name over two children.
Because what happens when one is left without the other?
Autumn rain paints an image of people walking with colourful umbrellas across a scenery of red, orange and yellow leaves.
Rain on its own is only grey.
*
The library was my brother's favourite place. The librarian also let him stay after hours. It was because she liked him in the way of a favoured son. Not because she pitied him. Well, maybe she did when she learned that he had to give up dancing to take care of our mum.
Stage three ovarian cancer.
Why didn't our dad take care of her? Why didn't I?
Why him?
Dad didn't think that work was more important than mum – he wasn't that kind of person. It was just that someone needed to be working for the money.
I didn't think that ballet was more important than mum – I'm not that kind of person. It was just that someone needed to be worthy of dreaming.
My brother – Ge'ge as I called him, had gripped me by the shoulders in the hallway of the hospital.
"Never give up on dancing, xiao'yu," – it was a nickname; it meant little rain. "Please."
"You'll start dancing again when Ma'ma gets better, won't you?" I said.
His face darkened, then he held my hand. "Come, it's time to go home."
I understand now that he didn't think mum was going to get better. That he could have started dancing again. That there were more roads to dancing than professional.
But I pushed for that dream, our dream, until I lay each night with an aching body, but still dragged myself out of bed at four in the morning. Until the studio's practice room became my almost-home, and the smell of sweat and huffs of exertion were perfume to my skin and music to my ears.
*
The rain beats louder on the glass. I look up at the highest shelf. I used to be able to put my leg up there. Bend my limbs in ways that would make you think they were made of rubber. Do you even have bones? People liked to ask me.
