Alfie’s Resolve
Marcus Ong / 王家豪
A sticky-note from her: text me when you see this!!! Alfie becomes too short of breath to attempt anything so he sits by the window and takes in the four walls of his room. He swears aloud over and over cupping his face. While he is swearing he is also thinking about homework he has to turn in the next day. He collapses onto his bed, suddenly a slab of stone, and when he looks at the window, he notices the grilles have turned into spikes. He sneers at the potted plant that seems to take up too much space; he sees the things inside his room aren’t the same as they were in the morning.
Alfie isn’t even his real name, and he can’t say to himself that he likes it. He sees other Chinese students in school every day; many are proud of their adopted English names. Did they also experience the inarticulate anger, dizziness that he endured when he was put on a plane bound for Singapore? The faintness that came when he saw his life would forever be split into two, the before and after. He was fourteen then. The girl, who goes by Emma, was the one who chose “Alfie.” He realizes now if things stay their course he’ll have to meet her parents in Shanghai, and that visit will last so long it’ll be a lifetime.
He deletes her number. He blocks her on Weibo. Five minutes later he’s writing a letter to tell her that he is sorry. Fear, like loneliness, makes you do stupid things. He doesn’t take the letter to her, however, even though she lives in the same hostel, only two floors down the stairwell. The thought of that stairwell, an echo chamber, really, makes his heart thump slightly against his uniform shirt. He and Emma once stood in there and spoke of homesickness and made each other laugh. Now he’s listening for trouble outside the door. He struggles to read the printed words of his English practice paper and pens half-hearted, grammatically-flawed answers, thinking he might head to her room to see if she’s in there studying, because she’s a good student with high aspirations, lofty educational goals, etc. Maybe she’s just as distracted as he is, her eyes pointed at the door. He imagines himself examining her face, and then his hesitation when she tells him she’s as frightened as him. I’m only a boy, he thinks, and hides under his blanket.
It’s past 12 when he completes his homework. He is spent. He has to be in school the next morning at six, but he lets his thoughts dwell on the adults in his life, who are broken up and scattered across the globe. He imagines calling each one via Zoom, and having the same conversation twice about Emma: the first time with his mother, in Mandarin; the second time with his father, in English. “Son, you did the right thing,” he imagines his mother saying. But Alfie will argue with his father until nearly two in the morning. At some point, his father will scream so suddenly that the computer screen will freeze. “What about our plan?” his father will say.
Alfie thinks: Just two years ago I couldn’t even speak a word of English. The locals treated him like he was lower class because he was slow to speak his mind—when all I wanted was to make friends. In his room, he practiced in front of a mirror and did jumping jacks to stop his stuttering. He grew stronger, more fluent over time. Now he imagines a heated, soul-sapping argument with his father in English. He thinks of how some nights he engages the same language in his dreams. Clearly, a lot has changed. But what he’s achieved so far isn’t enough; he knows this in his bones. Five months to go before his English examination, one that will define his life. He looks at the letter he’s penned for Emma, his heart poured out in Mandarin, and he is ashamed of what he’s done.
Marcus Ong / 王家豪 is a writer and teacher from Singapore. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Guesthouse, and Going Down Swinging.