The night’s closing in. I’m surfing the internet downstairs. Check my ebay sales. Scan the game blogs. Medical blogs. Porn blogs. The last lazy clicks of another night of nothing protesting the inevitable terrors and doldrums of tomorrow. Then I hear from upstairs –
“Go get appah, Sun Su! Get appah!”
Little footsteps running down the stairs.
“Appah!! Appah, the toilet!”
“Tell him to get the plunger, Sun Su!”
I’ve already got it. I spin around the banister and run up the stairs slideways from centrifugal force and traction-less socks.
The white bathroom floor is still dry. Brown water placidly rises in the toilet like impending storm clouds. I’m relieved it’s not over the edge yet.
Plunge! Plunge! Plungeplungeplunge!
The level drops with a satisfying gurgling sound. Crisis averted. Big deal. Then, as everything is quiet for a moment…
“WaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
Sun Su starts balling. Just standing there and wailing, his face like a Greek tragedy mask. Ooseung is wondering what the commotion is about as she’s playing with her boat in a bathtub of blameless contentment.
“Sun Su, it’s over, what are you crying about?!” Amy asks.
I know what it is. It’s too much stress at once. Too much responsibility dropped on his little shoulders. Too scary to imagine what would happen if the brown water couldn’t be stopped and drowned everyone in our house. This white porcelain bowl used to be an object of tranquility and cool relief for a warm butt – but what the hell, now monsters can come out of it? Shit elementals? Creatures with unpronounceable names?
We calm him down. Amy tries to minimize the whole thing to him.
“Umma just didn’t want to mop the floor, that’s all, Sun SU. What did you think was going to happen?” Amy asks him. He doesn’t answer. I tell her to stop asking him that. A child can’t explain what lurks in the shadows of his imagination. I’ve listened to him playing and watched the things he pretends. I know he has an imagination like mine.
Before he goes to sleep, he goes into the bathroom and shuts that toilet seat lid for good measure.
Sometimes a part of me feels the same way in the hospital. Sometimes it is too much stress. Too much responsibility. One of these days, the plunger won’t work no matter how many times you plunge it. Life and death and neverending shit storms. One of these days the lucky breaks and close calls just won’t be there to fill the gaps where knowledge and deduction ends. One of these days you slip.
Each night before I just hope it isn’t tomorrow.
A wonderful journaler and friend (Rasee) has asked me to pass this along regarding the dire circumstances of her dear friend, Laurie. Uterine cancer, seizures, pancreatic disease. She’s 27. And of course she doesn’t have money for medications. Just getting the word out.