Chinese Dissident V.I.P Room
2 hours left
Stuffy with the smell of smoke and a burning sweetness from Chinese heart saving pills,
the room waits in a calming, sickly color.
Pale green bricks lined the wall. A bead of sweat forms on a bald man’s head
as he stares into the door that leads to the prison.
The woman sitting across from me head down in prayer, her neck must be sore.
My layers weigh heavily on me.
On TV, the news anchor is singing praises in his gray suit, something about Mao’s
greatness, speaking too fast for me to understand.
The frightening wind rushes in when someone opens the door.
Everyone turns to see who it is.
1.5 hours left
I can see his stained, crooked teeth, white hair cut short to a mandatory length,
the pair of glasses I see in every photo of him, wrinkles carved deep into his face.
I imagine my mom holding the phone, speaking to him through the plexiglass,
his quavering voice regaling her
of his old stories and what he demanded of us: a presidency born from his ashes,
or a doctorate in medicine following in his footsteps.
I imagine him in his striped jumpsuit, stained with dirt from the garden.
1 hour left
Perhaps we are all suffering symptoms of the same sickness.
This room. This green.
My father crosses his arms in front of him, shivering. I wiggle in my seat.
I think about being free – jumping up and running out,
flying in the cold wind, like an eagle soaring away.
Is it a mistake to think of the bald eagle?
The woman who was praying suddenly raises her head, blinking disappointedly
at the sight of what was before her. I wonder if she was dreaming of somewhere else –
30 minutes
I wonder what my grandpa thinks about all these years in prison.
Did he think that when he saw that rusted copper statue atop Ellis Island
that the green made him blind? Or did it open his eyes?
Or that the sweetness of something here, soothing the open sores that his mother country gave him,
that still haunt Tiananmen,
had made him a glutton?
He insulted the regime with how much of it he had eaten,
how much he regurgitated into the gaping mouths of his people.
Little yellowbirds, chirping for freedom.
The news anchors starve while they sing to the man who only accepts devoted followers.
The TV glows a redness within.
20 minutes
I close my eyes and try to sleep. But I can hear the room speaking:
“This is a severe place, you cannot let your guard down.”
So I don’t.
10 minutes
I wish that I had not thought of freedom preemptively, for it is all that is on my mind.
The lady wakes up again and contemplates leaving,
yet seems to decide that the hard plastic cushions shiny enough to reflect the TV’s red glow
are enough for another nap.
A kid starts to cry something about wanting to leave but his mother bids him to quiet.
The man who entered the room earlier now sits down,
whoever or whatever he is looking for
will never come out.
What use is there in waiting impatiently for something that will seemingly never happen.
Freedom.
Maybe one day my grandpa will escape this plexiglass metal brick box.
He will stumble onto a chair, deliver a sermon, and the room would cave into a democracy.
5 minutes
I can wait
2 minutes
I see my mom walk out.
She looks sad.
30 seconds
I pick myself up and get ready for the outdoors.
It feels like an eternity since I felt the fresh air.
I wonder what my grandpa thinks of the outside.
Freedom at last.
