Eden Onpeng

Tag: vignette

  • When We Weren’t Afraid

    When We Weren’t Afraid

    As kids, my little brother and I would ride our bikes along the bike path, and along the way we would encounter this young homeless guy and say hi. He was usually doing his own thing, but I forget what now. Probably just hanging around. At some point we stopped to offer him some money, about a dollar or two.

    “No thanks,” he said, squinting up at us with a face that resembled a rugged Jason Mraz—brown hair, blue eyes, the beginnings of crow’s feet. “I don’t take money from kids.”

    We offered him a snack-sized bag of Cheetos from our biking snacks stash, which he accepted.

    Most of our conversations were about snacks that my brother and I wanted to give him. He didn’t talk much about his life or how he had ended up homeless and we didn’t ask.

    Eventually we stopped seeing him on the trail.

    A few years later, my brother and I went to a nearby store and saw a brown-haired homeless guy resembling Jason Mraz laughing to himself while smashing some apples with his feet in the parking lot. If he recognized me and my brother, he didn’t show it at all.

    But at the time my brother and I drew the same connection in our heads: our guy had gone crazy.

    We never saw him again.  

    I look back at those times and think about how we didn’t think much of approaching a homeless guy at the time. Nowadays I’m a lot more wary of strangers. Maybe it’s from all those crime documentaries, or maybe I’m just more aware of the ugly parts of human nature now.

  • We Were Bold, We Were Six

    We Were Bold, We Were Six

    The apex of the tall metal slide towered over our heads as it breached the clouds. It took forever to climb the stairs to get to the top, and by the time I made it, I looked down at the ground, now comprised of a smattering of colors and moving shapes. I trembled. If I fall…

    I spent the first six years of my life in inland Northern California. During the winter it would rain and then the puddles in the soccer fields would freeze over, creating a smooth, matte surface. My first-grade classmates and I would take turns jumping on the ice until the top layer cracked like a the surface of a creme brulee, soaking our shoes and socks with icy, brown water.

    School rules forbade us from going to the end of the field, where the fence overlooked a large swimming pool with multiple lanes. Whenever the teachers on duty caught us venturing towards the fence, they would grab a megaphone to call us back with threats of yellow cards or (gasp!) red cards.

    On some mornings a thick coat of fog would wrap itself across the field and we kids would mistakenly think it would disguise our presence as we hurried toward the fence, only to hear a teacher’s voice sputter angrily from the megaphone.

    At six years of age, I had already experienced moments of terror and tension at home–getting beaten by my mother, and watching her beat and scream at my dad and grandma. My father groped me but at the time it seemed like a normal thing within the family, under the banner of playful affection from a Chinese father. The weight of this experience wouldn’t catch up to me until later, as I underwent puberty.

    At school, away from hitting hands and groping hands, I was able to enjoy the moment with my friends, exploring the forbidden edges of the world, and pressing our feet on ice to see how much it could hold before cracking. We were bold, we were six.

  • Gas Station Coke: Damian’s Dilemma (a fictional vignette)

    Gas Station Coke: Damian’s Dilemma (a fictional vignette)

    The light in the gas station bathroom flickered as if controlled by the wings of a moth. The trashcan next to the toilet was overflowing with crumpled up toilet paper, with a pile of trash next to it, as if the last few patrons had given up and tossed their trash where it belonged logically (near the trash can), even though the original destination (the trash can) was no longer available.

    Damian glared at himself in the mirror, which had been etched in multiple spots with things like “Jill + Bob,” “God was here,” “FUCK YOU,” and “call 725-777-7777 for coke.”

    Coke did sound good. His current stash was dwindling, and it hadn’t been very long since he’d had his last bump. In fact, it was time for another one.

    He pulled his wallet out of his pocket—a black bifold Calvin Klein that his mom had bought for him from Ross—and pulled out his credit card, behind which the delicate resealable plastic bag sat.

    It was originally an eight-ball but was now half of that. He needed to make this last. It was going to be a long night.

    His keys jingled as he withdrew his keychain from his other pocket. His mail key was too small for what he was about to do. He would need to use his house key. It was girthy enough to hold a generous bump.

    His nostrils burned as he snorted up the small hill of white magic. He wasn’t sure how to describe the sensation. Fresh? No. It was sort of artificial. Maybe even medicinal, in the way it burned. It was probably cut with something like baking soda or worse.

    Thankfully, the coke numbed his sense of smell, because the restroom smelled like old shit. The poor gas station attendant was the only one there, and he was stuck in the convenience store, helping customers with cash payments for gas and other stuff. Maybe the gas station attendant had given up on trying to keep the bathroom clean, and was waiting until near the end of his shift to take care of everything as much as he could.

    A sense of alertness washed over Damian. Then he sobbed out loud, gripping the sides of the grimy sink in front of him.

    No. The coke wasn’t helping.

    Nothing could help him now.

    Tonight, he was going to betray his best friends. He and Chris were going to kidnap Ken and Bryan and take them to the Aqrabi compound where everyone participated in the Ascendance ritual.

    No… Chris’s voice spoke in his head. Damian had spent so much time with Chris in the last few years that his mind had created a little version of Chris to guide him even when he was away from him. Chris’s voice in his head was confident and assuring. You’re not betraying your friends, you are SAVING them. You are helping them reach their True Universe. I mean, look at Ken and look at Bryan. Do you think they’re the types of people to find Ascendance on their own?

    “I guess not,” replied Damian out loud.

    That’s right, said Chris’s voice. And this would bring you closer to your own True Universe.

    Damian wept, this time for his True Universe, where he could have everything he wanted, at the same time. A special universe created just for each person, including himself. He wanted that so badly. He wanted to be free from the pressures of his life. His parents’ expectations. His mom’s weird possessiveness.

    Behind him, the door knob shook twice, as someone attempted to enter the bathroom but could not because Damian had locked it.

    It was time to go. The gas station had no clock, but Damian knew he had been in that restroom long enough.

    It was time to save his friends.

  • Finite in the Desert: a vignette about stargazing in isolation

    Finite in the Desert: a vignette about stargazing in isolation

    Paul’s car convulsed and died in the desert. Climbing out and waving away the fumes, he looked at the bright stars blazing over the hills.

    These stars are fucking bright, he thought enviously.

    They were out there, waltzing with each other, dying, merging, rebirthing, all in gargantuan proportions over cosmic scales of time.

    And here he was, a lonely sack of flesh with a dead car out in the desert on a rocky planet, breathing air.

    Beneath the starlight, shadows oozed out from beneath the towering cacti. His final argument with his brother was a mite in the face of the ancient paths of the celestial bodies that carried on, heedless of all the bullshit that happened here on Earth.

    So much had come before him. And so much will come after. His brother’s life was not even a blip on the universe’s radar, and neither was his.

    His hand twitched. His instinct was to pull his phone out of his pocket to memorialize this moment but instead, he dropped his hand to his thigh instead. No photos would do this justice. The cold desert air caressed his face. He let his mind wander.

    A pang of loneliness sliced through him. If only his brother were here to see this too. James was no longer here. And while his big brother’s life didn’t matter on the cosmic scale, it meant the universe to Paul.

    With his car broken, Paul could go nowhere until the tow truck arrived in the morning.

    That night, he fell asleep beneath a bright blanket of stars and dreamt of his dead brother.

  • No Watch, No Phone, No Goddamn Map: an urban vignette

    DOWNTOWN IN THE MORNING. FUCK YEAH. FUCK YOU. AND YOU. AND YOU. I’m goin’ down the road with my trusty old backpack and a pocket full of ROSES. HEY YOU WHO DO YOU THINK YOU’RE LOOKING AT. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU TOO! Oh. It is me. Pete. They must’ve cleaned the windows. WELL FUCK YOU ANYWAY. IMMA TAKE A NAP HERE AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME.

    I dunno what time it is. And you know what? It doesn’t matter anymore. I can just tell by the temp and the gray that it’s early but not too early. The office and working folks already made it into the office, there were a lot of people passing through our street and walking around our tents earlier but now it’s quiet again and the sun is out.

    You ask how long it has been? Been what? Oh, since I’ve been out here? Man. It’s been a while. I stopped counting a long time ago. I guess you can say life threw me lemons and I jumped into a fucking ocean of lemonade or some shit like that. I was living with my wife for a while but then we lost our house…and my drinking got bad, and things got worse from there…My wife left me after we lost our house, she blamed it on my drinking. She was probably right, but I also blame it on the feds. They were looking for me everywhere. They bugged my phone, my car, and our house. I saw them on the street and at the store, and when I saw them at work, that was it, I bounced. I dunno why they were coming at me, they just were, and they wanted to screw me over. And now I don’t carry none—see? No phones. It’s safer that way, ya know? I move around so they can’t track me. But they might still catch up to me someday.

    But for now, here I am. Sleeping under the stars every night. Well, maybe not the stars and more like the smog. But close enough. Just making it day by day, you know?

    You’re nice. Not a lotta people stop to talk to me. Thanks for the sandwich. Appreciate it. I don’t got much teeth these days, see? But I can still eat sandwiches. It’s good.

    I feel it coming back. Imma finish this sandwich real quick. You should probably go now. People say I get belligerent and mean. I’m sorry. I probably won’t see you again but maybe it’s better that way. God bless.

    FUCK YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!! I JUST WANNA GO TO THE STORE TO GET SOME FUCKING JUICE BUT YOU ARE ALL LOOKING AT ME. STOP THE FUCK IT. YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK!!! IMMA HEAD DOWN BROADWAY AND FUCK YOU ALL. IT’S JUST ME AND MY BACKPACK AND POCKET OF FUCKING ROSES. YES AND THE WORLD. THANKS JOSH. FUCK YOU, THOMAS. GO TO SLEEP, IT’S FUCKING TEN IN THE MORNING. YES, I MADE THAT UP. I DON’T GOT A WATCH.