I was eight years old back then. And the memories are still fresh.
It is raining very hard. I am with my mother in the middle of the night. We are walking outside under the heavy rain. I am frightened by thunders and lightnings. Each time the lightnings appear and the dark street is lightened, the road looks wicked and the houses make me feels like they are alive and ready to devour our flesh. But these lightnings remained as our only light in this dark wicked street. I am very afraid. I am holding my mother’s hand so tight just like how tight she is holding me. My mother is in rage and it is manifested by the way she held my hand.My hand is trembling, I am cold and afraid. I am not sure if my mother feels it. Everything in sight looks scary and everything I feel is coldness and rage while the rain wet my feet and my tears wet my cheeks.
As the rain soaks us, my mother cries. Her tears flow with rainwater. Her sobs are underneath the sound of the thunders. Each sob is heavy like the drops of rain on my face as I try to look at my mother's face. These lightnings show me the truth hidden in this dark rainy midnight- my mother's suffering. I think it is a mother’s pain that I could not feel at a very young age. I hope I could do anything to help her. I just do not know how.
After the long walk at the dark wicked road, we are standing at an old red gate. It is my first time to see this gate. To my young eyes, it is like a monster growling at us and asking us to leave for we have no agenda there. My mother knocked at the gate heavily, courageously. She looks not afraid at the growling old red gate. I could also feel how angry she is. Then after a minute, a dark ugly man hardly opened the gate. He is drunk and stinky like a dog that never experienced a bath for his whole life. I tried to tell my mother I wanted to go home because the man scares me by his looks and smell. I tried to run while holding her hand so tight because I could feel the gate is about to eat us. I can't push any of my wants because I am scared to death and my mother is in rage while she asks for my father on the scary old stinky man.
Waiting for my father is like a long moment of horror under the rain, thunder and lightnings and in front of the houses and stink of place. Then there’s my father trying to stand straight. He stares at my mother. His eyes are droopy and his face is awful, stressed out and drunk. His stare is filled with statements that I, as a child, cannot decode. Then he looks at me and that strange look made me cry. I don not know why I am frightened with my father. I was more scared to him than the wicked road and houses. No words have been uttered, only tears and sobs went out. I am eight years old. I am here standing with my parents outside the monster, under the heavy rain, thunders, and lightnings, along the wicked road, in a moment of everything is frightening for a child who knows nothing of what is happening. We are soaking in the middle of the night of horror, sadness, and strange look.
