Chinese Okra - An Anthology

VIII. Landline Phone

In which a child's fascination with a landline phone leads to a moment of emotional turmoil within a family.

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I remember the time I almost broke our only landline phone. I can't quite recall what I did to it, but I definitely remember the moment I was trying to break it.

It happened while my mom was having an argument with my dad over the phone. They did that a lot. They still do.

She ended up in tears, leaning against the wall. After the call ended, the phone buzzed incessantly, captivating my attention. I glanced at my brother peeking from our room, but my focus remained fixed on the hypnotizing buzz. Oblivious to the significance of the argument, my little fingers randomly pressed the buttons, unaware that the numbers meant nothing. All I got was a lady's voice telling me something about the numbers not existing. The details elude me, but the frustration built up, and I slammed the buttons like a child. Well, I was one.

Caught in the act, my mom grabbed my arm and yelled something I can't recall. All I remember is her fury, screaming at me not to do that. I can't remember why I shouldn't have done it, but I wished I hadn't. My brother, still peering, was still captivated by what I was doing with the phone when J held the handset against my little ear, my tiny fingers poking at the buttons randomly. When my mom noticed him and brought him to stand by me, he started crying as well. And somehow, I believed he deserved to be scolded too, even though he hadn't misbehaved. Somehow, I did.

But we didn't just stand there and accept that I had done wrong. We both wailed like confused, disoriented, and distressed children. We mirrored our mom at the moment. The only difference was we were a child. She wasn't.

Right before our eyes, she suddenly grasped our wrists, and we struggled to break free. Our hands felt like sticks in that moment. I feared she would do something to my hands, but my fear escalated when she marched us to our room and switched off the lights. The darkness enveloped us, and it became the darkest darkness I had ever known, even though it was just afternoon. The sudden plunge into darkness was terrifying, but what frightened me more was knowing that this was what happened when my mom got mad.

So there I was, left all alone in the abyss of my room. Maybe it wasn't so dark, but for me, it was the darkest darkness. I cried, not because my mom was furious with me or us, but because I knew this was what happened when my mom's anger took hold.
So we cried, just like little children, and my mom cried outside the door, too. Her voice turned into a crescendo, like a piece of sheet music, as our cries amplified.

But there was a tiny window in our room, right beside my brother's bed, leading to the backyard. He was older and taller than me. We attempted to escape through that window, tears streaming down our faces. My brother, being older and taller, managed to squeeze out after several tries. I, on the other hand, still couldn't reach the window pane.

Then, in an instant, my brother's sobs joined my mom's, as she sat there no longer shouting or scolding, but simply weeping and huddled against the bedroom door. She held my brother tightly, both of them enveloped in tears. I cried too, though in a different room.
But I was no longer in a different room when my mom unlocked the door and did the same for me.

I recall crying ceaselessly until the tears subsided. The details of how I stopped crying escape me, but I remember the moment when the tears finally stopped.

I remember when the tears finally stopped.