Rose Hsu Jordan
I used to believe everything my mother said, even when I didnt know what she meant. Once when I was little, she told me she k would rain because lost ghosts were cirg near our windows, calling "Woo-woo" to be let in. She said doors would unlock themselves in the middle of the night unless we checked twice. She said a mirror could see only my face, but she could see me i even when I was not in the room.
And all these things seemed true to me. The power of her words was that strong.
She said that if I listeo her, later I would know what she knew: where true words came from, always from up high, above everything else. And if I didnt listen to her, she said my ear would bend too easily to other people, all saying words that had no lasting meaning, because they came from the bottom of their hearts, where their own desires lived, a place where I could not belong.
The words my mother spoke did e from up high. As I recall, I was always looking up at her face as I lay on my pillow. In those days my sisters and I all slept in the same double bed. Janice, my oldest sister, had an allergy that made one nostril sing like a bird at night, so we called her Whistling Nose. Ruth was Ugly Foot because she could spread her toes out in the shape of a witchs claw. I was Scaredy Eyes because I would squeeze shut my eyes so I wouldnt have to see the dark, which Janid Ruth said was a dumb thing to do. During those early years, I was the last to fall asleep. I g to the bed, refusing to leave this world for dreams.
"Your sisters have already goo see Old Mr. Chou," my mother would whisper in ese. Acc to my mother, Old Mr. Chou was the guardian of a door that opened into dreams. "Are you ready to go see Old Mr. Chou, too?" And every night I would shake my head.
"Old Mr. Chou takes me to bad places," I cried.
Old Mr. Chou took my sisters to sleep. They never remembered anything from the night before. But Old Mr. Chou would swing the door wide open for me, and as I tried to walk in, he would slam it fast, hoping to squash me like a fly. Thats why I would always dart bato wakefulness.
But eventually Old Mr. Chou would get tired and leave the door unwatched. The bed would grow heavy at the top and slowly tilt. And I would slide headfirst, in through Old Mr. Chous door, and land in a house without doors or windows.
I remember oime I dreamt of falling through a hole in Old Mr. Chous floor. I found myself in a nighttime garden and Old Mr. Chou was shouting, "Whos in my backyard?" I ran away. Soon I found myself stomping on plants with veins of blood, running through fields of snapdragons that ged colors like stoplights, until I came to a giant playground filled with row after row of square sandboxes. In each sandbox was a new doll. And my mother, who was not there but could see me i, told Old Mr. Chou she knew which doll I would pick. So I decided to pie that was entirely different.
"Stop her! Stop her!" cried my mother. As I tried to run away, old Mr. Chou chased me, shouting, "See what happens when you dont listen to your mother!" And I became paralyzed, too scared to move in any dire.
The m, I told my mother what happened, and she laughed and said, "Dont pay attention to Old Mr. Chou. He is only a dream. You only have to listen to me."
And I cried, "But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too."
More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen. A month a