Word Limit: 2000
Graded: A+
Elisa was awoken by a loud noise of something shattering against the marble tiles. She got up and went into the kitchen from which the sound came, hoping it wasn’t the new set of wine glasses (on sale) she bought a week ago from Francfranc. In the corner right next to the sink, she found her cat curled up, pupils dilated with its fur standing on its back. She turned her head to look for the aftermath of the cat’s startle at the siren of an ambulance outside her house. Thank God, she sighed with a slight sense of relief. It was just the mug that Gregory gave her last year on her 41st birthday. She lifted the blinds and red lights projected onto the walls in her living room. It was parked in front of Mr. Donald’s house. Elisa cleaned up the mess on the floor and poured herself a cup of warm water into a mug she had taken out from the cupboard. The ghost of the lights tinted the cup crimson. Elisa wrapped her hands around the source of warmth, trying to cover the disturbing red that burnt her eyes even though she knew it would still go on the back of her hands. Instead, she only managed to conceal what was printed on the mug. International Child Service. And a picture of a beacon. “It’s alright. Mr. Donald has been very sick,” she tried to calm her cat down by stroking its head. She went back to bed with the blinds up while the siren of the ambulance faded in the background. Elisa watched as the red lights that filled up her house turn from brick red to the red in a flame that’s about to burn out. She remembered. She remembered perfectly the hue of each shade of red, every one of them vivid and violent, bearing with it a different story.
The alarm went off before Elisa could even get some quality sleep. Ugh, Elisa resented. She got changed while the bacon was sizzling in the pan, and shuffled to the shelf to check for voice messages on the telephone, then back into the kitchen to put cat food into the metallic bowl on the floor. She did everything within 60 seconds like it was a ritual. You have. One. Voice mail. From. Greg. “Morning gorgeous, I’ll be done with the meeting before 12 today, let’s meet for lunch? Craving sushi from that Japanese place across the fishing shop. Call me back, love you.” Elisa emptied the plate of the tiny bit of burnt scrambled egg into the bin and put everything else into the sink. She left the house.
“Morning boss,” Glenn greeted Elisa at the reception, “is it too early for the news of Nessa’s return to the centre?” He handed her a folder and a cup of Starbucks’ coffee. Hot, black, grande – Elisa’s I’ll-have-the-usual. “What’s it about this time?” She pushed the door into her office while Glenn was behind her, updating her on the situation. “Foster parents are moving to Australia,” Glenn held the door while he was talking to her, ready to go back to his desk. Elisa put down her bag and the cup of coffee, then opened the folder Glenn just gave her, “Send her in. Let me talk to her,” Elisa’s eyes were fixed on the folder the entire time. “Thanks, by the way,” she finally looked up at Glenn and flashed him a smile out of politeness.
There were three knocks on the door, even though it was made entirely of glass. Entering was a teenage girl with a studded belt and a pair of cherry-red Dr. Martens. “I swear it’s not me this time,” she held up both her hands as if she was forced into surrender. “I know. Have a seat,” Elisa said in a collected voice, “I’m just trying to tell you what’s gonna happen next.” Five foster homes, twice in the juvenile, Nessa’s name was the only thing the kids talked about ever since she came here. “So,” Elisa cleared her throat, “I’ll just fast-forward past the bullshit. Your new foster parents are bringing you to Canada.” Elisa never for once patronized teenagers. She’d been there. This couple had been waiting in line to be foster parents for years, they believed that in a good environment, anyone could raise good kids. “But I can take care of myself,” Nessa objected. “Well, sadly, that’s not what the law believes. Unless you're 18, you can’t do whatever you please. For now, you’re still a flightless bird,” Elisa said. “Funny how you associate me with a flightless bird when the only thing I’ve ever been was a bird without legs,” Nessa remarked. For a second, Elisa didn’t know what to say. Her mind was instantly dragged back to the memory of 10 years earlier when Nessa first arrived at the centre. She was 7, her hair still honey blonde, crying over an injured bird she found in the garden. Elisa was still an agent back then. “Leave it alone to die, you can’t stop nature,” a 17-year-old said to all the kids surrounding the bird. “No, we don’t abandon anyone,” Elisa said to that teenager in a loud voice so that others could hear her, too. Elisa took the bird home that night and invited Nessa over so as to give the poor little girl the assurance she needed. We don’t abandon anyone, Elisa repeated to herself. The legless bird died three days later.
She closed the folder and looked at Nessa, “If there’s nothing else, you can go back to your room and unpack your bags. Meanwhile we’ll deal with the legal documents before you get to live in the new home.” Nessa was dismissed and sent back to her dormitory room.
The phone rang and Elisa suddenly remembered she forgot to return Gregory’s call. “Hey, when should I pick you up?” Gregory asked. “Hey, sorry babe, I forgot to tell you I have a meeting till 1. We can grab lunch tomorrow, yeah?” Elisa suggested. “Sure,” Gregory said in a monotone. “I’m so, so, so, sorry,” she wondered how people did it so easily. “It’s cool,” he tried to hide the disappointment in his voice. “See you tonight babe,” she waited for him to say something. Gregory hung up. Elisa thought of the bird. We don’t abandon anyone. She thought of her helpless effort in providing care for whatever she had taken in. Perhaps this was why she was a child service agent, not a foster parent.
The emergency bell rang, Ugh, she rolled her eyes, and went to the canteen. Two boys were yelling at each other while others were holding them down. One’s nose was bleeding and the other’s cheek scraped. A small area of the floor was filled with red droplets. They weren’t red, to be exact, they looked a few shades paler. It was almost like blood-orange. It was still vibrant and violent. It was so violent that she had to look away like how her eyes were blinded by the sunlight reflected on the red paint that afternoon on Golden Gate Bridge. It was a distant past and she could only recall the event in fragments. Elisa was 5. Her mother was driving along Golden Gate Bridge with her at the back. Elisa read in the news 2 decades later that her mother was driving towards Marin County. That afternoon was so hot that even with the air-con turned on at maximum, the interiors could still make a first-degree burn on the human skin. And the leather seats were tinted scarlet by the reflection of the bridge. The colors kept changing but they stayed in the range of the shades of red. Her mother spoke in such a low voice that Elisa believed it was more to herself than to Elisa. Mother was weeping, Elisa faintly remembered, she kept repeating, “I can’t do this anymore.” She pulled over in the middle of the bridge, under the boiling sun, opened all the windows, and went out of the car and hauled her weary body to the edge of the fence. Elisa remembered that shade of red. Elisa remembered perfectly because it stayed constant for over 5 hours before someone came to bring her to the police station where the color still stained her eyes.
The disciplinary team sorted out the fight and escorted the boys back to their rooms for counselling. Before they left, one kid turned to Elisa and said, “I’m not gonna stay here forever, you know.” And he was right. Everyone was on a journey, and Elisa was in the middle of it. She’s a middle-aged woman living a middle-class life being left in the middle of a bridge, stuck between the decisions of leaving a man she had no time for, but was ideal enough to settle down with. She was not sad, but she certainly wasn’t happy. Happy is not happy unless juxtaposed with sorrow. She was in the middle of that complex.
Elisa was packing for the weekend. Nessa refused to go to Canada unless accompanied by Elisa. Nessa wanted her to be there when she first stepped foot into a foreign country. Elisa thought of the cat. She thought of Gregory and everything she was going to leave behind here. It was only a short trip, she would be coming back soon, but she hadn’t travelled out of the country since graduation. She also thought of the memories of Nessa living with her before the authority found out that Nessa had tried to run away from foster home and kill herself. She took good care of Nessa, but not good enough to make her feel loved.
They boarded the plane, along with the foster parents. Nessa picked the window seat while Elisa sat beside her. The parents were in the front. The couple held hands during the take-off and constantly turned around to check on Nessa. The plane was several thousand miles above the ground. Elisa looked at the scars on Nessa’s wrist and pondered over her rebellious and self-destructive years. Whatever Nessa had been through, it must’ve hurt. It must’ve hurt like San Francisco. “Do you ever wonder what your parents are like?” Nessa turned to Elisa and asked. “It is nothing but a memory, and so there is no reason to linger over it now,” Elisa replied with a motherly smile. Elisa reached out her hand to hold Nessa’s. This was the first time Elisa found comfort in transit. She was in-between places and time zones, but she was going somewhere. They looked out the window and the sun was setting –
It was red. The entire plane was red.
It was perfect.
