Wu, Will You, Ever Return?

A life, of wrong decisions, translated…

“Did you hear it? I’d heard, that Wu is, on the run now, everything he’d ever owned is now, lost!”

I’d heard the news from a friend, and I’d felt, such strong nostalgia. Wu had always been a great runner, and now, he’s, running to escape something.

I’d recalled back in the fourth grade, it’d only taken Wu a little over ten seconds to do the 100 meter dash, he’d broken the record for the entire school then. And, I can only feel envious of him, every morning as the track team met up to practice. But, having similar interested and shared background experiences, Wu and I quickly, became, the BEST of friends.

On the track field, Wu shared with me, the secrets of how he was able to run so fast, hoped, that I can, catch up to his paces; in the classrooms, being the top three scorers, I’d also, encouraged him, to not give up on the academics. For us, kids born in poverty-stricken backgrounds, the best way to turn our own lives around, is by studying hard as we could.

And so, all the way, we’d, helped one another, through the elementary years, and we’d gotten into the competitive classes in the middle school years. As the pressures from the academia became heavier and heavier, our instructors forbade us to participate in sports, and even as we’d played on the courts during our spare time, we’d gotten, shunned too, and, the exits of our lives became, so cramped up, so tiny, like those slots of the blank spots for fill-in-the-blank sections of our examinations.

At graduation, I was already, just as tall as Wu then, and I can, run, just as fast as he in the track fields too; I’d slowly managed, to catch up to the speed to which he ran, but, before that narrow gate of continuation of education, Wu couldn’t catch up to me, we’d drifted, farther, and farther apart from one another. Ever since, the courts on the weekends, I’d lost sight and track of him, and what replaced that was, I’d, bumped into him several times, by the pinball machines, along with how he’d, stayed wandering on, at the net cafés around town.

Wu is very intelligent, he’d gotten into a private university, but the school was located in the crowded sections in Taichung, and I’d worried, that with his inability, to turn away outside influences, was he going to be, able to, finish his four-years safe and sound. Just as I’d expected, in his sophomore year, he’d indulged in the arcades, and accumulated a ton of debts, and in order to pay up the debts he’d owed, he’d started, part-timing, and skipped all of his classes, he’d missed the most important end-of-semester final, because he’d, overslept too, and in the end, he had, flunked out. I thought that Wu had, learned HIS lessons back in the middle school years, and changed his ways, but, after he’d started to working, he’d gotten in deeper into gambling, he’d managed to lose an entire month’s salary, playing mahjong for just one night, and started borrowing money from his former classmates and his friends too, and, the end result of him, borrowing endless from those who knew him was, nobody bothered with him again. And slowly, Wu drifted from the group of us, who used to hang out together, who were once, the best of friends, and moved far away.

“Do you know, I’d heard, that Wu is on the run these days, he’d lost everything!”

If time can be turned backwards, I would’ve run as fast as I possibly can, to catch up to him, grabbing a hold of his collars, instead of just, watching him, run fast like the wind, toward that deep abyss of the dark hole.

I wanted to shout out to him, “Hey, keep up with me, I’ll be waiting there for you, at the finish lines, Wu, I’m still waiting, for you, to come back!”

So, this would be the process of how someone allowed the bad decisions, and the wrong choices, as well as the wrong things in life take over, and, this man NEVER set himself straight, instead, he’d just, kept, spiraling, downward, and he’d not hit rock-bottom yet, but, in the process of spiraling downward, he’d lost, almost ALL of his friends (save for the narrator, who’d still considered him a friend???), his families, relatives, former classmates, coworkers, and everybody who used to care for him!