Getting Lost

Translated…

The elderly made it home, as he was riding to get the vegetable for planting, he’d gotten lost, he rode, ALL the way to the busy sky bridge in Bade.  The sun sets very quickly in January, the days are shorter, the nights, long, at four in the afternoon, you can’t see the sun anymore, he couldn’t see where he was going, and, took that wrong turn, rode farther, and farther from home.

I wore my sneakers, with the sheets, to the laundromat to clean, at four in the afternoon, not paying heed how my father wasn’t home yet, normally, he’d be home by four thirty at latest and asked my mother for his drink.

not my photo…

The laundromat was bright, I’d calculated the time, and jogged around in the park close by the laundromat, waited until the load gets cleaned, then, I’d placed them into the dryer, the skies drizzled down, and by the time I’m done drying the load, it was, already, seven at night.

I arrived home, saw an SUV parked by the door, my mother and a woman I’d never seen before were hauling out my father’s broken, beaten down bicycle, I thought that he had an accident, I’d rushed up, and I saw him, next to my mother, in smiles, kept thanking the woman who gave him a lit home.

My father is at an age when he can’t even recognize his way home, my mother wanted to give the woman who dropped him off the money, said it was for her gas, but the woman stated that it was nothing, that it’s something she ought to do, turned down my mother’s offer, my father stood there, said, that other than keep on thanking her, there’s, nothing more he could’ve done.

and these, are the symptoms…

My father who’d driven me to and fro, to teach me to recognize the ways got lost, I still recalled how after I’d gotten into a business high school in Zhongli, he rode his motorcycle, set out in the mornings from Taoyuan, rode to Zhongli, very slowly, and, all we hear, are the buzzing of his motorcycle, and by the time we’d reached the school, it’d already been three hours since we set out, it was, so sunny and hot that day, by the time I’d arrived home, my skin peeled off from being burned, I’d not dared gone too far for school ever since.

The woman told, “Don’t let him, who’s elderly go out at night”, my mother shook her head in despair, said she couldn’t prevent him from going off.  My father kept ranting on how the land he’d planted on was close by to Wen-Chang Middle School, that the land wasn’t even his, but he’d gone there every single day, to work, so he could seem useful, and not so leisurely.  My mother is the head of the house, everything in the house, every expense of the household, she’d, taken care of, and, my father wouldn’t give her the extra money he’d made, and, would use the money he’d made, to get drunk.  As we were growing up, he’d often, pointed to the dishes on the dinner tables, said this, he’d planted, so was that, he was, probably, just trying to maintain his dignity as a father, I suppose?

The vegetables he’d planted, didn’t grow too well, some were harvested too early, some, too late, I’d heard my youngest aunt told, that he’d spent just half a day in the fields working, and half of his days, drinking away, that he was, a part-time farmer, and after he’d gotten older, he’d stayed the same, he’d often forgotten the hoe, or forgotten to take the seeds he was planting, and so, he could only, spend the money to buy the extras, he’d not kept his focus working the land when he was younger, and, at old age came, the deterioration of his mind.

Time passed so fast, like how the sound of rocks, hitting the water, my father who’s stingy, the one who took me on those road recognizing trips, the one who pointed to the foods on the table and told us how he’d made it all for us, became incapacitated, couldn’t make out what he was saying, only seeing the lips moving, everything had, stop, in a moment’s time, and, all of a sudden, time had gone by so quick, to the time, when my father, no longer, recognize his own way home again.

So, you can see the aging process of this elderly man, how he’d done nothing great in life, barely made ends meet, drunk away all his earnings, and now, he’d become, demented in old age, and could no longer, recognize his own way home, it’s truly, very, sad…