Underneath the Surface

How does one know where to begin talking about something that cuts so deep that it is now a labyrinth in my heart?

Should I start with the setting?

It was a bright, sunny autumn day. I remember the scent of the air, sweet and minty with the refreshing flavor of fallen leaves, gushing into my nose as I gasped and struggled for air while…

No. No. It’s too painful…

I remember… being in a small park. The ground of the park was neatly tiled with yellow and brown bricks—the bricks that seemed to be a thousand miles beneath my white and orange Nike sneakers, desperately kicking in midair, trying to find a log to hang onto in the current…

I remember walking home that day, wearing my red GAP hoodie, which was so ill-fitted that when a breeze comes, it dangles about me like a flag on a pole. It’s red hue. The same red hue that flew frantically before my tear-blurred vision…

I remember that I had my hair tied up in two pigtails, ear-high, each decorated with small blue ribbons. I could still feel the wild strands of hair slapping disconcertedly against my cheeks, making them burn with pain and embarrassment…

My arms were nowhere in sight as they were pinned behind me by a pair of big boy’s hands. The violent force against my waist pulled me from solid ground, leaving my feet kicking uselessly in the air. My throat was burning from crying and yelping, and my eyes swelled from the tears.

Punches, kicks, and tickles rain down onto my thin body as I shifted my eyes upward towards the sky, trying to escape reality by simply avoiding the sight of it. I bit my lower lip and endured, like always.

How innocent and purely blue the sky was! Yet it felt like a sheet of water enveloping my world, shutting fresh air out of my sniffling little lungs, pushing me underneath, underneath the surface…

I was third grade, primary school, the skinniest, most vulnerable girl in school.

Violence started from that ghastly day and haunted me, preyed on me for two years.

Astonishingly, though, while every other little detail was imprinted in me, while every scene flashes easily back before my eyes once in a while, I cannot bring myself to recollect the physical pain.

Perhaps it was all too anguishing that my mind set up a barrier to block it.

Or, perhaps the physical pain wasn’t what kept dragging me down, deeper and deeper…

When I walked into the classroom, 30 pairs of eyes fell on me and followed my every step. An alarm rang off furiously in my brain, for I was fully aware that under normal circumstances, I was never one to cause a stare.

My cheeks flared up, as usual, as I crawled into my seat beside the window. Finding my temporary haven, I immediately shifted my eyes to the verdant branches outside the classroom window, trying to encircle myself into a separate, serene little cage, safe from the devouring eyes.

Silence befell the classroom.

In such icy, deadlocked torment I wandered through the first ten minutes. A gentle pressure on my right shoulder summoned me back into reality. My desk-mate, with a somewhat sullen look, handed me his cellphone.

Before even having a second to ponder the meaning of his actions, I immediately caught sight of a large, clear photo of myself standing in front of a chestnut-colored classroom door.

“What—” The sentence never fully came out.

Ugliest Girl in School Bullies Boy Classmates. –XX Post Bar.

Black Captions. Standing out so firmly on the smooth white screen.

A sharp pain thrashed through me. My mind lost its focus, blurring out as if a fish underneath the surface trying to inspect the world outside of the water. Words rushed at me from behind the screens, but I was too numb, too stiff to catch them. Yet from the few words I grasped, I saw…myself. The small, small words, so squarely and handsomely typed, made their way into my throat and remained as needles, pricking deep into my flesh.

Matchstick person.

Dark complexion.

Skinny waist with a big pot belly.

Hunchbacked.

Small, slanting eyes.

Ugliest girl in school.

Bully…

Bullies don’t deserve to go to school!

Which school is she in? You should definitely kick her out of school!

Unbelievably courageous for such an ugly girl!

……

I guess I should have cared more about the fact that I, who was the victim, was being called a bully and nastily insulted by internet surfers. Just because I wasn’t online yesterday and didn’t help the “boy who was being bullied” finish his English homework. But the truth is, the word that stung me the most was not “bully,” but “ugliest.”

Dear Diary:

Today is my first day at school. But…I don’t like school. It’s scary. When all the other boys and girls look at me, I feel so strange and uncomfortable that I tripped on my own feet. In front of everyone.

Why can’t I just stay at home?

2009.09.01

I guess I always knew that I was somehow…a victim. I had always suspected that I was…this ugly, cowardice little creature in the eyes of others.

For as far as my memory reaches, I had been this skinny, awkward little girl that could never dare to look at someone straight in the eyes, not even my own in the mirror.

Do you remember going to Disneyland when you were young? Naïve little boys and girls would dress up in delicate gowns as princes and princesses, admiring themselves in front of the “magic mirror” on the “castle” wall, sheepishly yet proudly whispering the question “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?”

Oh, how I envied their courage of saying so! Whenever I passed by a mirror, I would pick up my pace and deliberately shift my eyes to the opposite direction, afraid of unconsciously catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror—catching a glimpse of that sallow faced little creature who seemed as though she could be blown away by one breeze.

I have always been sanely conscious with my unusually unhealthy figure. Of course, even if I wanted to forget about it—and believe me when I say that I’ve tried, so hard—I failed every single time because I was so very constantly reminded of it by everyone around me. As early as in kindergarten, parents would gawk at me with a worried stare when I float out of the classroom, whispering to each other, “my god, look how skinny that girl is!” I was always left out of sports because “we don’t want to break your fragile little bones.” I was tripped by naughty boys in class because I “look like the easiest one to trip…”

I silently got used to retreating into the corner of every room, sitting alone and letting the self-abasement brew inside. A phantom hovered within—and that phantom was me, myself, how I imagined people around me perceived me.

Tell me, then, can you imagine the day when your phantom actually becomes more than a phantom; it actually materializes and snaps your throat into the grasp of its fingers? Can you imagine hearing the words you are most afraid of hearing, seeing the truth you most detest being laid out in front of you?

I often speculated, while sprawling on the bottom of the pool and letting the translucent blue pressure about me swallow me into its embrace, how my life would be if I were plumper and prettier.

Definitely happier, thought I.

I wouldn’t have to walk through flames every time someone looks at me. I wouldn’t have to endure the killing self-reproach for making my mother wipe tears off her face every time a parent joked about how skinny I was; wondering out loud whether my mother was abusing me or not.

I wouldn’t have gone through the suffocating desperation when I saw my wounds being exposed and commented on the internet. I wouldn’t have cut my hair and clawed my face in a frenzy. I wouldn’t have cried into the pillow, twitching my body and writhing on the sheets and punching the air and letting out silent screams just to let out that gush of anger and contempt for myself.

I wouldn’t have to endure the violent bullying because I was weak. I wouldn’t have to wear long-sleeves and jeans to cover up my bruises and scars from loving, caring eyes. I wouldn’t have cried my way home day after day.

Perhaps I could even learn to love myself…

For a time, I just wanted to stay below the surface.

I wanted to sink. I wanted to cry a river without anybody noticing. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs without making a noise. I wanted to finally feel free, to let loose of myself and give in to gravity. I wanted to feel the heavy weight of the innocent, innocent blue pushing me beneath the surface, underneath the world that seemed so very remote to me……

When the ray of pure, white light shone on me from above, my eyelids fluttered unconsciously as I tried to strain my eyes open. The strong light above me felt warm as it tranquilly kissed my skin, attracting me to stay closer to the spotlight, like a fire does to a moth. My breasts heaved heavily as I tried to convince myself that it is reality. It is reality indeed.

One. Two. And Three. Music.

An eight-teeth-showing smile fixed itself onto my powdered face as the first beautiful note poured out from the loudspeaker. The redness of my face caused by the awkwardness several minutes ago in the dressing room backstage still has not ebbed from my cheeks. The burning sensation, the smoldering self-consciousness accumulating inside me when I closed my eyes and leaned in for the makeup artist to do my makeup, was still vivid. My eyelids had not yet rebound from the heavy weight traced by the soft featherlike makeup brush, still trembling a bit. My ears were still hurting from the sudden, yet obviously untrue, compliment from the makeup artist, “Such a delicate face you have! Pretty girl!”

But all melted into nothing as I began to move with the music.

Nothing else is as brightly lit as me in the gigantic auditorium. All eyes were on me. I would have freaked out, but I could not help but move together with the rhythm. I flung my thin arms into the air, reaching, reaching with all my might into the warmth of the spotlight, feeling energy, power, and strength liberate themselves into the atmosphere around me. My heartbeat sped up as the dance was flowing through me and the music. The long, red silk hem of my dress flung frantically in front of my eyes as I swung my leg in midair with all my might. My high ponytail splashes onto my face once in a while in the wildness of movements. Oh! The power! The strength!

My visions somehow grew blurry with tears of pious joy, resonating with the complete religious devotion expressed in the dance, unconsciously dripping down from my extended eyelashes. With my hindered vision suddenly came a courage I had never possessed in my life. I raised my eyes from the ground. I could not see very well behind the fresh tears, but I fixed my gaze on the colorful bliss in front of me which I assumed to be the audience. I did not flinch.

The narration of the dance slowly arose from the loudspeaker with a calm, gentle, yet passionate voice, rapping the dance up as I knelt on the floor with both hands crossed in front of my chest and my eyes in the sky: “On every lotus sits a Buddha. I see the Buddha, but the Buddha does not see me.” For the first time in my life, I lost myself, as if invisible. I danced with the utmost zeal, an almost religious worship, finally ridding that self-reproach, self-abasement, self-loathing, self-consciousness exerted on me by myself and by what I’d been through, finally overpowering the phantom in my heart…

Should this day be the first good day in my life? Or should it be the fresh beginning of a brand-new miserable life in endless shame and shyness? It was hard to tell by then.

It all started with a simple conversation—the first encouragement I have ever heard from someone besides my parents.

“Hello! Have you ever learned dancing before?”

“Um. No.”

“Well how extraordinary! From your figure I thought you must be a professional dancer! But it doesn’t matter if you haven’t learned dancing before. You are so slim and beautiful that it would be a great waste of gift if you don’t join the school dancing team! You should really consider!”

“Um. I don’t know…”

“Well, give it a thought! If you’ve decided to join, come to me at the dancing classroom on the fifth floor! I’ll spare you the audition and you can go to class directly!”

Somehow, after being wedged into the classroom by force by my parents, I ended up bashfully fidgeting on my feet in front of the enormous glass mirror at the front of the dancing classroom.

At first, every step I took and every movement I tried to copy was like walking through purgatory. But as quitting halfway was not an option, I bit my lip and endured, as I have done a thousand times before.

The sight of my long, bony arms and legs with the joints quirkily standing out in the mirror simply repulsed me. My eyes watered a little every time I caught a glimpse of myself and the others in the mirror, pondering how piteous I should be now in the eyes of my fellow dancers. I marveled at what beautiful actions the teacher could perform with her body but thought to myself how ugly it must be when I attempt to copy that beauty on my poor figure; an ugly duckling trying to be a graceful swan.

Yet, I prolonged my suffering by staying late after every class. I waited until everyone was gone and I was the sole wanderer in the large, bleak classroom. I forced my stare at the mirror. I tried my best to snap my long, perplexed limbs into place. I imagined that I could be elegant and attractive as well.

The first time you step into a spotlight is bound to be a memory unforgettable for years to come. The warmth that hugged me as soon as I sunk under the placid white beam, the drumming of my blood speeding through my veins echoing in my ears, the soft shiver that snaked through my muscles—all so frightening, yet surprisingly appealing.

It took all my guts to stand there and hold on to that peculiar urge to remain and dance. All the scenes kept rushing back to me at once; the descriptions I saw on the article about me; the words that were spit out of the mouth of the bullies saying that I was abused because of my being born weak and ugly and timid; the kicks, punches, and bruises on my body, this same body; the awkwardness that swept throughout my entire body when I was, for numerous times during practice, forced to supervise the reflection of my dancing by looking at myself in the mirror; the petrification that haunted me every time I felt like someone was looking at me…

As everybody snaps into movement, I strived to keep up with them and not make a fool of myself. However, memories of practicing, time after time, in front of the mirror in the classroom and at home, shutting myself in my room, found their own way into my body. I stood in my corner, performing my best. For no one.

As the sentiments were being pushed up higher and higher and the dancing grew more and more strenuous, a voice seemed to seep out of the calm white beam at the center of stage, whispering, clearer and clearer, “come closer, closer!”

An itch started to writhe within my chest, which I at first failed to comprehend, but finally burst out as a craving; I want to be noticed! I wish to be seen by the audience! I wish to prove to everyone that I can be beautiful and confident as well! I wish to be something more than a background! I wish to be in the spotlight!…

Five years have passed since that first experience under the spotlight planted the seed of craving for beauty and attention, breaking the spell of endless self-loathing and finally teaching me to find a way to love myself.

Every now and then, when I look back on the period of time that tortured me so, I realize that no matter how hard I try, it will always be a part of me—the shadow, the incompletely erased sketch of that phantom seared on my bare chest, the lurking little girl behind me standing with her back slouched and her eyes on the ground, the “common” and “coarse”—it has become, whether I am willing to admit or not, what is buried underneath my façade.

Whenever I see myself appearing on the cover of the school magazines, whenever I try to restrain from blinking under the sudden flash of cameras, whenever I hear my high heels click the ground as I walk down the runway wearing the most fabulous clothes, I am reminded, with a smile, that underneath the surface, part of me is still that humble little girl—but now, I can embrace her with the utmost love.