Picking Up The Pieces: The Beginning
January 2003
“Vincent what are you doing? Why aren’t you in bed?” yelled a familiar voice from upstairs, as it was being drowned out by the sound of my Pokemon video game on my gameboy. The volume was turned up so loud that I was able to hear every little bass and sub bass of the game sounds through my old headphones, which were originally from my old walkman.
“Vincent go sleep now!” Yelled the same familiar voice, in a more gruff and louder tone.
I ignored it again.
Suddenly, I felt a dark presence behind me. Just as I was about to turn around to see what or who it could be, it yanked my old headphones out of my ears with its cold talons.
“I told you to go to sleep. You have school tomorrow. Why are you always looking into that small, tiny screen. Your eyesight is going to suffer….” Nagged my mother, as she held my headphones with her talons with a grip so firm, I am pretty sure I cannot use them anymore. She kept on nagging and nagging to the point that I stopped listening and began to imagine that her face was melting, so that she would think that I was paying attention via eye contact.
As soon as the hellish symphony subsided, I instantly snapped out of imagination land. I then said the first words that came to mind,”mom, I don’t care about school.”
Her usually soft and pale face became wrinkled and red. Her big, dark chestnut eyes glared at me like a hawk locking onto her prey. I am done for. She took a big gulp of air, ready to blast an energy beam of words into my face.
“Don’t you know how important getting an education is? In Korea, you have to pay for school! Be glad you get to go to school for free! Why can’t you be smart and studious like your cousin in Korea?! Why are you always playing games and drawing?!”
Parents are funny. They always compare you to other people in other places, even when they don’t know them personally. They always compare me to my cousin. Yeah, he’s smart, but that’s him. He studies for his own good, while my parents make me study so that they can look good amongst their peers. How dare they try to treat me like I’m some golden trophy. And I don’t care that they had to pay to go to school back in Korea. I never told them that I even wanted to go to school. Sometimes I feel like parents just tell you these things just to make you feel bad. Well, it doesn’t make me feel bad. If anything, it makes me want to just run away from home and live in a forest with bears (at least I’ll get to hibernate my troubles away).
“Mom, you don’t understand. You don’t know what my life is like.”
Before she could even answer (or blast me away with another energy beam), I ran upstairs into my room and quickly buried myself under my bed sheets and pillows. I try to forget about everything, holding back all my tears…trying to hold onto the sands of times so that tomorrow will not come…
She really doesn’t understand…
