“Lam Fook, the day’s not early. Wakey Wakey!” Aunty Chen threw the door open abruptly, shouting aloud at her son like a growling lion, her iconic dark curly hair burst into a blooming broccoli, and then she darted to the bed like she was in a hungry hunt and tried to pull the quilt away from his son, only encountering his strong resistance.
“Let meee sleeep fooor eh biiit looongeer! I’m tiiiired,” Lam Fook, a nasty sixteen-year-old teenager, replied insistently with his sleepy eyes tightly closed.
“Get up now, Lam Fook, You a shame! When I was young I’d never get so lazy like you,” She now used all her strength trying to win the possession of the quilt, only encountering her son’s even stronger resistance.
“Let go! I say it the last time, GET UP NOW!” And Lam Fook let his mother pull the quilt away reluctantly.
“I’ll get up, no hurry you monster!” Lam Fook sulkily responded to his mother, leaving his mother in madness towards his inconsiderate and even malicious response.
“You dare to say that again!” Her face blushed aflame and her cheeks were like swelling. “God curses me to give me a son like you! Childish and insubordinate! You got the worst grade and the most troubles. You a shame! You a shame!” Aunty Chen kept condemning her son here and there for nearly a whole minute, and when she calmed herself down a bit she retreated from her son’s bedroom, murmuring to herself some words sounding like chants spelled by a wicked witch. “One day you’ll cause me a heart attack,” she grudged.
Lam Fook slowly rose from the bed with a sad face, his feet squashed into the unfit pair of slippers. He sat still on the bed, feeling too weak even to stand up and move. Warm light of the rising sun was shed into the confined cell from the outside world through the open pane. Some early birds chanted, so did some crickets, and the skyscrapers covered in shiny glass reflected the illusion of the distorted landscapes. I’d rather sit here for a day, Lam Fook thought to himself, as he is never willing to go to the school.
*
It is a haunted school. If you go up there at night you can feel the atmosphere. Cold and creepy. The building was built upon the hill with a meandering pitch road leading to its front gate and there would always be a glass booth standing aside with its yellowish dim flickering lights on but surreally without any men in sight. Just a few hundred meters away is a busy street where the stores, shops, as well as the restaurants are open till midnight. The contrast is sharp. It makes you consider the possibility that there’s something abnormal with the school and the land it is built upon. Some rumors spread tell that there used to be a girl who jumped out of the window from the fifth floor to commit a suicide for she could not face the fact that the administrators wanted to have her expelled from the school due to her “early romance” with a junior boy, which in the past, was considered absolutely unacceptable and against the morality.
But if those were all the stories the school has got then it would not make the school so fearsome at least to Lam Fook. Every time he walks up the moisty stairs and the dark aisle leading to the classroom he sees the ghosts of other students. They are inside the cabinet, probably contained in those trophies won in different contests and in the names put up on the walls for their excellent scores in the Final Exams. When Lam Fook walks past the glass cabinet the ghosts come out to haunt him, and they’d stare directly at him like staring at an exotic animal they have never seen even when Lam Fook wants to avoid contacts with their eyes. He’d never look at them, but if those ghosts irritate him too much then he will fight back, kicking at the glass cabinet so hard, albeit no damage will be caused, eventually making the angry boy daunted. Then the principal will “invite” him to the office and rebuke Lam Fook for his violent conduct, charging him for some made-up crimes that Lam Fook never admits. The little boy pleads every time, “I didn’t damage any property owned by the school! The glass’s not even broken!”
And the classroom is also haunted. When the class bell goes on it rings like a prickly siren, and the math teacher would enter the stifling room already occupied by about 50 students. All of them sit quiet at their seats, looking to the whiteboard like some dead robots. The teacher waves his hands and the students would rise mechanically to give the teacher a bow. Then in a minute all of them would nod off on the desks and close their eyes to take some naps, except for a few “good students” who always stare at the teacher standing on the “pulpit” silently and never look away.
“Lee Lam Fook! You were asked to answer this question!”
Of course Lam Fook does not understand why the teachers always ask him to answer the questions even though they must have known he isn’t concentrating on the class and no way he would be able to answer those correctly. Why not ask anyone else and they would respond the same without giving the correct answers? Perhaps it is because that the teachers want to embarrass him intentionally, but why him, a boy called Lee Lam Fook? He does not know.
*
Still Lam Fook was not able to move his body from the bed. And why even to try? He’d lean himself against the bed and rest, alone. No one would disturb him. The soothing solitude.
“Lee Lam Fook, you shameful son! Get up now and fetch yourself some food or you’ll be late for school!” Auntie Chen shouted at his son again.
“But I can’t,” Lam Fook protested.
There was a horrible moment of silence. Nothing Lam Fook could see with his naked eyes happened, and nothing he could hear with his naked ears made a noise. He conceived various scenarios in his mind of how his bad-tempered mother would react, like what gestures or expressions she would have been making now, but he was unable to predict which was going to happen, and he was most terrified by the feeling of unknown.
To his relief, only in a few seconds, he could hear her mother’s heavy stomping on the wooden floor. The floor made intolerably loud creaky sound like the floor was dying and it was going to collapse anytime. Louder and louder. Closer and closer. He finally knew what was coming. The death of Schroedinger's cat.
Auntie Chen entered the room again. This time her hair was like a mushroom cloud. She used twice as much as her full strength to drag Lam Fook to her, and Lam Fook was thrown to the large cumbersome closet like a pitiful toy doll since that power came too sudden to him and he was not prepared. His head crashed into the closet.
“Ouch!” Innately, Lam Fook ejaculated. “Careful, mother!”
And Auntie Chen walked away like nothing happened.
Lam Fook felt dizzy. He heard some otherworldly voice echoing in his head, making the world he lives in so unreal. A few fragmentary images flashed through his mind. He felt something queer, like there was a dream last night.
*
There was indeed a dream last night.
In the dream, Lam Fook, like everyone else who had already bought a ticket, entered the museum from the front gate, and in front of him, lied his own naked body, in the center of the Great Hall of the Museum of Lam Fook. His own well-preserved body was floating in a huge some kind of cylinder glass container, which was filled with formalin. And every part of his body was displayed clearly, his sexual organ included.
Lam Fook squeezed into the crowd at the hall, trying to pass through the people and reach the front. But there were so many people like they formed a barrier to prevent Lam Fook from approaching the exhibit, his own body.
“Excuse me,” Lam Fook found a security guard by chance and he decided to question him about all these weird stuff that was happening. “What’s all going on? That belongs to me,” he said grumpily, frowning, his head leaning forward, his index finger pointing disrespectfully from far away at the body that was soaking in the liquid.
“That does not belong to you, sir,” the security guard answered Lam Fook with a wry smile hanging on his freckled face. “In fact, that belongs to all of us but you. It belongs to those who appreciate it artistically, not the one who physically owns it.”
*
On the same day Lam Fook’s head crashed into the closet, when he finished brushing his teeth, washing his face, eating his breakfast, and packing up his schoolbag, he took his beg and went to the door as usual. “Work hard and don’t forget to eat your lunch,” Auntie Chen reminded him, sounding cold, though she attempted to say it in a light-hearted way (she seemed to realize that she was being too harsh on Lam Fook). As usual, she did not get a response. The door was slammed close.
Lam Fook directly walked past the bus stop, where the school bus would be waiting for the students. He used to take the bus to school, too. But since every time he and the student sitting beside would end up in unpleasant quarrels of trivial things, he decided that it is for his best not to take the school bus ever again. He walks to the school every morning.
Some of the students waiting at the bus stop spotted Lam Fook.
“Hey, Lam Freak, are you blind? You’re walking to the wrong direction!” They giggled.
They were right. It is true that Lam Fook was walking to the direction opposite to the one to the school. However, in the purpose of defending his own dignity and pride, Lam Fook’s stubbornness drove him to persist with his original choice, to walk to the direction he was walking to, although it is the wrong one. He was determined. He really meant it.
Lam Fook did not turn his head around or try to respond to the mocking. The giggling continued, but it faded as Lam Fook went farther and farther away from his classmates.
Lam Fook was not afraid, at least that is what he thought, although usually he is pretty much a wimp. Once the school held a running contest and every class was required to send one of their best contestants to the match. Ms. Wu, the head teacher of Lam Fook’s class, asked whether anyone would like to join the contest, only no one volunteered to go. “What about you, Lee Lam Fook? Are you good at running?” She asked. Of course Lam Fook was not listening to her speech, so he remained in silence. He seemed to notice that she was asking him a question, and he raised his head a bit with a funny look of confusions. “Huh?” He asked. Then the class burst into laughter.
“That’s enough!” Ms. Wu shouted, her eagle-like eyes glaring behind the black-rimmed glasses. “Lee Lam Fook, you are chosen to be a contestant in the competition!”
“But…”
“There should be no excuse!”
And during the match Lam Fook won nothing but the last place. His score was not even showed on the board because when the starting gun was fired, he was freaked out and remained still at the starting line. His legs were trembling violently. His pants were wet.
...
Okay. Lam Fook decided to take his thoughts back. He should never had thought it that way. He should had accepted his foolishness and walked to the correct direction.
*
Since Lam Fook had wasted much time walking to the wrong direction, there was not sufficient time left for him to walk to the school as usual. So he jumped onto the school bus he hates the most at the nearest bus stop.
At the instant Lam Fook went on the bus he regretted. Everyone on the bus taunted him cruelly and savagely, insulting him for his inconsistency. If in the past some people may argue that Lam Fook is not that horrible after all, Lam Fook’s return to the bus is the perfect proof the other people were looking for to demonstrate the fact that he is truly a wimp with no doubt. “Lam Freak! Lam Freak! Lam Freak!” The young passengers on the bus shouted again and again, loudly enough to shake the vehicle. And Lam Fook did not fight back. He was there, pretending that he heard nothing.
Still Lam Fook could not find an empty seat. He walked along the passageway, striving to find a place where he could hide himself behind the back of the front seat. If possible he would dig a hole and bury himself into it, but very unfortunately that was not possible.
He walked to the rear of the bus. There was one seat just beside the window. To get there, Lam Fook had to pass the person sitting beside it, and that person is exactly the bossiest student anyone could ever find in Lam Fook’s high school. He was large in size, six feet fifty inches tall, one hundred and ninety pounds heavy, with a big red Mohawk on his dumb head. His face was fat and greasy, his beards unshaved and messy. He stared at Lam Fook with a pair of terrifying yellowish eyes, as he was about to kill Lam Fook and devour him like a cannibal. Lam Fook did not dare to speak to the bossy kid, so he made a risky choice, to squeeze into the empty seat without saying anything.
Again, at the instant Lam Fook started to make such a movement he regretted. The noisy coach went silent. No one dared to speak a word. No one dared to breathe loudly. They gazed at Lam Fook, expecting something ominous to happen.
But really nothing happened at first. Lam Fook retracted his arms and bended his back, trying to make his body smaller in order to fit in the narrow path between the bossy student and the seatback. The bossy kid’s eyes followed Lam Fook but he did not take any violent action, and Lam Fook made himself to the seat finally. Safe and sound.
The students were astonished, their eyes all wide open, their jaws dropped. They did not know what had happened. It was a miracle.
There were a few hands clapping and applause, and that was when the sinister thing began to happen. The bossy kid unfastened his seatbelt and rose from his seat, showing off his massive muscular body to Lam Fook, his chin pointing down at the poor boy.
“That’s enough!” The bossy kid shouted in fury, his hoarse voice similar to a horn blaring. “Let me teach you a lesson,” he said.
Almost immediately a pair of huge strong hands wrapped around Lam Fook’s thin neck, which turned reddish. The powerful tightening grip blocked fresh air from circulating into the victim’s lungs, suffocating him. Lam Fook’s eyes were filled with fears. He wanted to scream, but he could barely make any sound. A few girls in the bus were so scared by the brutal scene that they began to shriek, and it was a mess inside the couch. Lam Fook was like a helpless chicken whose throat is grasped by a farmer, who is ready to decapitate his prey.
*
There was an abrupt brake that made the bus halted rapidly. Lam Fook’s skull hit the window and he passed out.
Lam Fook woke up, finding himself much older, probably at his fifties, wearing a suit, standing by the side of a wooden coffin. A few persons he knows were also there, as well as persons he does not know. So did the preacher, giving some kinds of speech. It was his mother’s funeral. His mother died of a sudden heart attack. An unfortunate accident, that is what people always say.
Lam Fook could hardly recall what her mother looked like, what she sounded like, or even what her characters were like. She was there, and now she is not. Lam Fook could feel nothing. He was about to mourn for her death sincerely, since it is his mother, probably the only one who can ever love him, but he soon refused to do so, as he remembered vaguely how his mother used to rule his life without actually concerning about his own feelings.
When the preacher ended his long dull speech, he dismissed everyone at the funeral, asking people to drink some water since it was intolerably hot outside. Lam Fook told the preacher that he was to go to the restroom, but perhaps the preacher did not hear what Lam Fook was saying. Lam Fook sneaked away anyway.
Lam Fook gradually realized who he is. He is single, without a family. He lost his job at the insurance company last week. He was diagnosed as a patient of Hepatitis B a few months ago, probably got infected when he dined at an unclean Chinese restaurant. He did not go to a college. He spent two years of his life in jail for arson. His wallet was stolen for three times. He lost his iPhone when he took a taxi during his vacation in New York. He has only been to New York for once. He has only traveled anywhere farther than to his mother’s funeral for once, and that was when he traveled to New York…
He entered the restroom. He double-checked just to make sure it was the men’s.
But he did not enter a restroom. When Lam Fook crossed the threshold, there in front of him, was again, the Museum of Lam Fook, the only one in the universe.
He did not go directly to where the crowds were this time. Instead, he took a stroll around the Great Hall, viewing some pieces of memories in his life.
“Finally, you learn to appreciate all these.” A voice came from the back, and Lam Fook turned around only to see a gentleman in decent suit was walking to his way.
“You were… I mean, you were the security guard,” Lam Fook said, looking at the freckles on the gentleman’s face.
“I was. But I am also the curator,” the gentleman said, his voice steady and calm.
Lam Fook was just about to ask why the gentleman, as a curator, pretended to be a mere security guard when meeting with him, the nasty teenager rather than the nasty adult who is currently standing in front of him now. But before he could say anything, the gentleman spoke first, “Please, I know what you are thinking about. I just didn’t want to surprise you too much.”
There were a few seconds of awkward silence.
“Why is my life so miserable?” Lam Fook asked.
“Ah,” the curator grinned. “You know the reason. It’s the miseries that make you enchanting.”
Lam Fook did not know the reason, but he could argue no more. He was too tired. Tired of his own life.
“Please,” the curator said. “Pick your favorite.” The curator put his left hand on Lam Fook’s shoulder and led him to the front of a shelf, where hundreds and thousands of crystal balls are placed.
“What are these?” Lam Fook asked.
“Your possible ways to die,” said the curator. He was still grinning. “Pick your favorite. What’ll be your death, if you got the right to choose?”
“But I don’t want to die,” Lam Fook said, his sound faint.
“It’s okay,” the curator said. “You’re going to die anyway.” He led Lam Fook to a portal-like device of white that was shining brightly, twinkling. The curator whispered in Lam Fook’s ear, “The door to heaven.”
Lam Fook moved his paces slowly and carefully, approaching the portal. Just before he entered the device, he turned his head around and said to the curator, emotionlessly, “you killed me.”
“Actually, I didn’t,” the curator said, sounding discontented. “Those who appreciate you do. They voted for your death. And even better, they have decided in which way you’re going to die.”
Lam Fook said nothing. He turned his head around again, facing the portal. He walked into it and disappeared in the mass of eerie white lights.
*
The shelf holding the crystal balls shook violently. All of the crystal balls fell on the ground and were broken, except for one. The curator took the one that remained on the shelf and placed it inside a showcase. Below the showcase writes The Death of Lam Fook, but there was nothing inside the crystal ball.
At Lam Fook’s seventieth birthday, just ten years after Time Machinewas invented, when he was older than he could ever imagined, he finally received a Time Machinefrom the local social service department as his birthday gift. So he got into the time machine and went back to the moment when he was born in a crowded hospital. He drew out a pistol from the pocket when he saw the younger self, loaded it, and fired at the nasty baby, taking his life with three bullets.
There is nothing in the crystal ball that shows his birth. There is nothing in the crystal ball that shows his death. Lee Lam Fook is just a person who never exists.
