Perception

You are staring at a screen.

On the screen, a man attacks another man with his knee. His movements are fluid and sharp, and when he connects -- body against body -- it makes a noise. A smack, sharp and strong. You like that noise. You like the way that it tastes. You keep watching, keep staring.

“I know this is your favorite,” Moom is saying, “but there are other movies that we could watch once in awhile.” He is chewing on candy, the kind that is long and red and stringy and never tastes or feels quite right.

“No,” you say, because the fight is still happening. On screen, the man kicks a bearded man in the stomach. The bearded man goes flying into the wall, and the sound the impact makes tastes the way the noodle cart down the street smells in the middle of the day. Rich with flavor and noise and the salty-slick texture of the noodles on your tongue.

Moom is about to poke you on the shoulder. His arms are tensing, his fingers twitching. You bat his hand away before he can get close. “Fine,” he says, and the tone of his voice might be the same as the one your mother uses when you won’t eat dinner because it smells all wrong, but he also laughs, a happy noise, the kind that tastes like rain on a hot summer day.

---

Your mother has soft hair. You like the feel of it in the spaces between your fingers best, the sensation of it sliding over the sensitive skin there.

“Zen,” your mother says.

You grunt, because you know she wants to hear it. You don’t let go of the strands you’re holding.

“Zen,” your mother says. “I would like to tell you about your father.”

She talks while you run her hair between your thumb and forefinger, between your pinky and ring finger. She tells you about his hands, about his voice, about the calm, certain way he would hold her gaze. The things she says aren’t particularly interesting, but she sounds the way she does when you’ve done something that makes her happy, that makes her smile broad enough that it makes the corners of her eyes crinkle.

“You will meet him one day,” she promises. She cups your face with one hand. “I’ve told him about you, and I know he loves you very much.”

It’s a word that people use on the screen sometimes, when they’re talking to each other. Moom tried to explain it once, but he hadn’t made any sense. “It’s like the way you feel about chocolate,” he said, but you like chocolate because of the way it tastes and it feels in your mouth, and the people who say it on screen aren’t eating each other, except for maybe the parts where their mouths are pressed together.

“You will meet him,” your mother repeats. She does that a lot, when she wants to make sure you are listening, that you’re understanding what she’s saying. “And he loves you.”

---

The sound is different, when you kick a man in the chest for the first time. It tastes different, not quite as strong, sweeter. He does flinch back, and you can see the whites of his eyes. The sudden flash of surprise and fear there smells almost as good as the way the kick should have tasted.

Another attack, from behind you. You spin, leg striking out, and catch another man in the face. His head whips back as he stumbles and falls.

A third man, to your left. His stance is stretched too far forward. You knock his knee to the side, forcing him off balance. He crumples like a toppled set of blocks.

The second man comes back, arm cocked, preparing for a punch. You dodge his attack, his arm sailing through the space where your head used to be. You grab the back of his neck, forcing his stomach into your knee. He makes another noise, a gurgle from his mouth that tastes awful, bitter and ugly on your tongue.

And then it’s just you. You are surrounded by sprawled bodies wailing or groaning or unconscious. You did this. They can’t hurt you or Moom any longer. It feels like the sensation of hard pavement underneath your bare feet. Prickly and scratchy and yet good, satisfying.

“Zen?” Moom asks. “Are you alright?”

You wipe your nose. It was leaking red, iron-sharp into your mouth, and now it is not. Moom’s arms tense, his fingers twitching. When he reaches out, you let him. He touches your shoulder, your face, your hair. A simple comfort. A simple kindness.

“Good,” he says to you. “That was scary.”

He won’t tell your mother about this later, but he will watch you for days afterwards, the corners of his mouth turned down.

---

You are staring at your mother.

She is cold and still and there is a hole in her stomach, but you can wake her up if you shake her and call her. She always slept lightly, woke up at your first cry for help. Until she got sick. If something was wrong-- you could just yell and yell, and then she would come running. She would hold you in her arms and pet your hair until everything felt okay again.

Moom had said-- he had said it would be okay, if you got the money. If your mother could go to the hospital and get better, everything would go back to normal, back to the way it’s supposed to be.

But he’s wrong, because you have the money, you got the money, and everything is still wrong, still bad. You are kneeling on a roof, which is still wet and gritty underneath your shins. You cup her cheeks in your hands, the way she used to do to you, when you did something she didn’t like. You shake her again.

A man -- the man from before -- grabs your shoulders. You could stop him, but you don’t, because it all hurts. It all hurts so much, and your mother is still quiet and still and cold. He pulls you into your arms, and it’s not the same as when your mother did it, but he clings to you, and you cling to him. The texture of his jacket feels the way smoke smells, rough and thick and black. It reminds you of being very small, of the days when the world was too big and too much. The days when your mother was the only thing that was tolerable, the only thing that felt okay.

“Zen,” the man says. He says more words. They don’t make any sense. You can’t understand them. But you let him pet your hair, and you close your eyes, and you cry and cry and cry.

---

There is a time where things get very quiet, where even Moom doesn’t seem to have the words to say anything to you. So no one says much of anything to you at all.

The man who stays with you is your father, or so Moom tells you. Your father’s words still don’t mean anything to you, but they’re smooth and soft, like water over rocks. His eyes are always sad when they look at you, and it makes you wonder if he’s ever been happy.

“Zen,” he says to you on one of the quietest days. You have been sitting in the corner, content to let the voices in the other rooms talk to one another. Even Moom, who has come by to speak to you several times, but who hasn’t said much of anything. “Zen,” your father says in haltingly careful words, “you are going to be coming with me.”

You look towards Moom, who nods at you. “You should,” he says. “I can’t, but you should.”

You reach for Moom. For his familiar hands and the comfortable dip and rise of his voice. He hugs you close, and he smells like the twisting streets of the city, like a small, safe space surrounded by happy, busy noises.

“Okay,” you say, and he smiles at you before he lets you go.

---

You are staring at a pinwheel.

It spins and spins and spins. The light catches it in its blades. The reflections it makes on the ground don’t taste like anything, not like the punching did.

Your father places a hand on your shoulder and squeezes it. He doesn’t say anything, but you’ve been learning how to understand him anyway. To see the shrug of his shoulders, the twist of his mouth, the crease between his brows, and to know what he wants, what he needs from you.

The air here is colder, and it smells different from your old city. You miss the sounds and the smells and the sights and the tastes of home, but there are new smells and sights and tastes to learn, and you like the light here better, where it’s crisp and clean and always smells like fresh ice.

The pinwheel spins and spins and spins. Without Moom, no one throws anything at you anymore, and nothing feels as good or as soft as your mother’s hair. But sometimes your father takes you to a place with mats where you can punch people, and that tastes as good as it always has. Sometimes the world is too big, and sometimes it’s too quiet, but you can be held when you need to be held, and you can scream when you need to scream. The things that need to stay the same stay the same.

Your father takes your hand. The curl of his lips tastes like salt and sunshine after it rains. You let him lead you away from the pinwheel as it keeps spinning in the wind, the reflections still bright on the pavement.

You let him lead you back home.