The Best Mom Ever!

Translated…

“Mom! You’re the Best, the Best!”

The little boy grabbed on to the corner of his mother’s coat, and squeezed his way out, from the crowd, left, and, his childish, but loud voice exploded, “Mommy, I won’t do it again. Please, don’t leave me………”

That little boy’s cries put a halt to my performing on the streets, I’d stopped, and, I’d looked, toward that small crack in the crowd, the little boy’s hand was shaken off by the mother from her own clothes. “How many times must I holler, for you to come over? I do NOT have the time to waste here with you. I don’t want you any more, you behaved so badly.” The mother’s final words became like a sharpened sword, stopped the little boy in his movements, leaving him with that look of panic, and unsettling gaze, not knowing what to do.

not my picture…

This seven, or eight-year-old boy, followed the crowd that surrounded me since I’d made my way into the alleys. In the improve performances, everybody in my surrounding area became an inspiration, and, as the little boy appeared, he’d gotten that look of curiosity, and, it’d made me turn into a fish, swimming toward him, pouted my lips, squinted my eyes, it’d made him laugh. The children’s laughter can always manage to melt away the sharpened edges on the adults’ faces. And still, this didn’t last long, when the boy’s agitated mother entered the scene, the atmosphere became an agitated kind all of a sudden. The mother, with a shopping bag in hand, with the other hand, grabbing the child’s sleeves upward, dragged him away. And, maybe, the child was hurt, he’d struggled, and used too much force, and, he’d fallen backwards, toward the dampened ground. The mother without a word, flash the child a bad look, just walked off. As the surrounding audience helped the child up, the child’s mother turned around abruptly, then came, the harsh words that went off like bullets from a rifle toward him………

In 2015, I’d worked with the Children’s Welfare League, to make an experimental short film on preventing verbal violence on the streets. In the populated area in the city of Taipei, we’d placed an empty chair, with the words, “Come, sit”. And, when the curious passersby chose to sit down, then, the performers who were well-rehearsed took turns, going up to him, toward the participants who were very ill-prepared for what’s coming, blurted out, “It’d be better to keep a dog than to keep you”, “Such an embarrassment”, “What are you, stupid? You can even solve this simple a problem, you’d made a horrible grade!”, and words to that matter, in our growth processes, we’d all heard from our classmates, teachers, even parents’ lips, or maybe, we too had, blurted out similar things too. Among the participants, there was a girl, as we were halfway done with her, she’d signaled us to stop, those words that passed across her ears had hurt her, “In my growing up, I really DID get treated like so.” Another male participant replied, “These words when I’d heard them now, they’d still hurt me, let alone, a child. It’s truly, an awful kind of abuse!”

not my photo still…

“Mommy, I won’t do it again. Please don’t leave me…”, the little boy who was helped up from the ground, hurriedly, ran toward his mother, grabbed onto her coat; and, as the mother still brushed off his small hand on her coat, the little boy started crying out hysterically, “Mom! You’re the best, the best! I was wrong.”, then, they’d vanished, from my field of vision.

On this day, what the streets of Taipei had left for this little boy, other than the dirtied coat, his own mother’s sharpened glares, and verbal abuse, I’m wondering, could it be, that he’d remembered the chubby merman uncle who was making him laugh? Or, could it be possible, that he would remember, that he’d, smiled, so very, radiantly?

Of course N-O-T, all that kid will EVER remember about that day, is how abandoned, how hurt he was by his own mother, and, a child doesn’t forget about these sorts of things that easily, and, I’m sure, that there were, events that led to the explosion of the mother, perhaps, she’d taken her son shopping, and he’d misbehaved all the way, and, him straying away from watching the street performer was the last straw? We don’t really know. But, one thing’s for certain, this little boy is damaged that’s for sure!