Not Yet by Wayson Choy

Author:Wayson Choy [Choy, Wayson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-37327-4
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2009-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

As I was lying in bed that morning, still inspired by Joe’s honest sense of goodwill, I repeated his words and began to concentrate on my fingers, pushing them to dance, to exercise, to open the tiny plastic packet of Kraft jam. I knew I had opened many of those packets before, but for some reason, I couldn’t get my brain and my fingers together to cooperate. I didn’t panic; I knew it would come back to me, as everything else had. Some things just took longer.

Days before, Leo had demonstrated the correct technique: (1) locate the minuscule tab—which I only had to pick at for five minutes to discover that it actually existed; (2) pull this tab back until the top peeled away; (3) remove jam with knife!

But I found it more efficient to stab the damn packet with a fork, squeeze the thing. Gobs of jam oozed onto the toast. The whole procedure punctuated with little fairy farts.

With my back facing him and with my eyes closed, I listened to the movements from my neighbour’s bed. I knew that Leo was a morning person, waking before the sun rose, getting himself ready to exercise his damaged legs, to shift them off the bed, and to spend another day—mostly back in bed.

I could hear him moving about behind me, raising his bed with the lever and managing to sit himself up against a pile of pillows. Then he would carefully arrange his kingdom of water thermos, cup, tissue and chocolate boxes, magazines, and blue plastic urine bottle. Rosie always crinkled her forehead, narrowed her eyes, and shook her head at our two piled-up bed tables. On mine, there were a half-dozen books and well-intentioned blank notebooks, magazines, get-well cards and letters, a box of tissues, a pencil case, stationery, ink bottles (blue and red ink), and a turtle bracelet draped over a carved sea dragon.

“Wayson?” Leo’s voice was very soft, tentative, directed at my back.

We had established an understanding, like congenial prisoners in a shared cell: To see our backs meant Do not disturb— Dozing, Thinking, or Want to be left alone

His voice came at me again and pulled me away from my deliberations about the possibility of actually exercising.

“Wayson?” The grave voice rose from a half whisper to a final wake-up volume. “Wayson!” He saw me stir. “Wayson, please do look at the television screen.”

I turned my body to face Leo’s side and stared at the twenty-inch set that hung from the wall above the foot of his bed.

On the screen, across a clear, blue sky, a trail of something like smoke drifted from the middle of what might be a wide chimney or a building.

“Leo, what are we looking at?”

I focused my eyes and made out a pattern of structural ribs and rectangular windows.

“It’s the World Trade Center in New York.” Leo’s voice registered the event like a news flash. “A plane just crashed into the North Tower.”

“A private plane?”

“Probably. Can’t imagine a commercial pilot would make this kind of mistake.

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