The Most Red, Red, Red Rose
----The Lack of Purpose

May May

Are you awake? Are you awake? Please wake up. Are you AWAKE?
This annoying, sickening voice; this disgusting sound always wake her up at 4:30 AM. As soon as she hears the call, she opens her eyes and sees red, red, red roses allover the floor.
She smiles with a familiar feeling of suffering inside. She doesn’t know what causes her pain. Her mind is fuzzy with sleep, but she remembers slowly, very slowly. She has lost her children in her middle-of the-night dream. She hurries to the kids’ bedrooms and finds that both are still asleep. She must cook breakfast, and makes lunch bags for them. She walks into the new remodeled kitchen of her two million dollars house. The place is crowded with the double door refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, garbage disposer, coffee maker, microwave, rice cooker, toaster, blender and telephone. She peels a pear, cuts it, places it into a small plastic container, and then puts the container into a square, pink lunch package. Suddenly, she sees her five - year old daughter, sitting on the school lunch bench. The girl jiggles, and bursts open the lid of the plastic container, pieces of pear flying out, land on the ground. “Ooops!” the kindergartener says.
She continues packing the lunch package. Forty minutes later, two lunch packages are ready to zipper. She walks to the girls bedrooms, calling, “Get up, angles!” The five -year old sleeps on her back, a red rose between her lips. She stands there, stares blankly. She turns around and walks to the seven year - old daughter’s room. The second grader is on her stomach. “Up! Up!” she whispers to the child‘s ear. Than, in the child’s right hand, between index finger and thumb, is a sword twig with a red rose.
She returns to the kitchen. The light is getting brighter. She looks through the kitchen window and sees red roses outside bathing in the sun. The phone rings. She hears the mother who is supposed to drive the kindergarten carpool, saying she is sick. As she hangs up the phone, she perceives a sound from her back.
“Mommy, I wet the bed again!”
“It’s okay. I will clean it up. Don’t worry.”
“Mommy, I know something in French and I want to tell it to you.”
“What is it?”
“Gong hay fat choy!”
“That’s not French, sweetie! That’s Chinese, not Mandarin Chinese, it’s Cantonese.”
“Well, that’s French!”
Her husband has come to the kitchen for morning coffee.

The clock’s arm points to 10 Am.
She is driving to Safeway. In the back seat of the Odyssey Van, two dogs are sitting restlessly. She hears their breath, and imagines the smeared windows. Every car which passes her is larger, shinier, and more power than hers. This is the most busy and energetic time of Silicon Valley. Everyone seems has reason to rush except her. At the Safeway parking lot, she realizes that she was supposed to drive to the drug store for her daughter’s ear infection medicine. She doesn’t feel well. A cop was at the parking lot chat with a costumer. There was a red rose on his whist next to the leather-boxed gun.

It’s noon now.
She is folding laundry, one by one, one by one. Eleven pairs of little socks. More than twenty sets of small underwear. Husband’s gym T-shirts, pants, and her bras...She moves herself from the living room couch to a single sofa as soon as she feels there are bags sitting next to her. She looks around and notices not just on the couch, duffle bags full of potatoes were on the chair, on the floor, on the table. Many bags of potatoes sitting around the house, they are every where. One bag was behind the door. She is aware that she still must iron a pile of shirts for her husband. Anguish from no air, she gets up and rush towards the front door. As the door is pulled open, she sees a red rose growing at the edge of her lawn.

It’s tree O’clock. The sun is warm.
The children are napping. She is taking a shower. She cuts off the water a couple of times to be sure that the one has ear infection isn’t crying. She changes into fresh clothes. Without warning, some kind of uneasiness comes over her. Then it gradually takes the shape of fearful gray ghosts. They are everywhere, haunting her in her house. Shakespeare sits by the fireplace with Neruda beside him. Emily Dickinson is sitting on the couch. Infront of her, T.S.Eliot lays on the living room floor. Floiters in the hallway and Lu Xun stands under the hall way clock. Einstein is inside the oven. Thomas Wolfe behind the door. And Ghandi is on the toilet. The ghosts, all of them, grip a dry, red rose in their hands.

It’s 7:30PM.
She is hurrying to finish dinner. Holding her first daughter’s hand, she helps her to write a character in Chinese. “Summer”-that’s the child’s name. Then she puts her second child on the lap, gently rubbing the child’s ear. Only five months have past this year, and this child has already had eight times of ear infection. She is thinking about bringing her to the medical clinic again. She kisses the child’s cheek and smell the child’s hair.
Her husband comes home. She listens the jingle sound of metal turning in the key hole. As the door open, an automatic smile on his face. Looking through her, he greets the two daughters with warm smile. He receives the girls as they climb his legs. She reaches above them to take delivery of his suitcase.

It’s 7:45 PM.
She is standing by the swimming pool in her backyard. Straight across from her are more red, red roses. The water appears so clear. As she examines the pool, fear rises inside of her. She can trace the pattern of her present and future existence. They are identical.

12:00 midnight.
She dreams that she lost her clock, that it just disappeared from the wall. She searches frantically all night. Couldn’t find it. She continue checking the wall. It is empty.
4:30 AM.
She wakes up. She moves into the kitchen, she thinks she sees her clock in its usual place. She reaches up to touch it to be sure. Yeas, her clock is there.
But the red, red, red roses are still beyond her reach.

Last Updated: August 3, 2004