Marcus Tsai
At 5 AM, hours before graduation, a river of blood escaped through my nose. I woke licking my lips, tasting Ma’s zhū xiě gāo, its spices and congealed texture, before realizing the bed was wet and cold. When I turned on the bedside lamp, I found my blood had splayed over the mattress like a shadow. The white sheets bore a recreation of my body so precise I could trace the slow bend of my calves, each hooked finger, a chalk outline of sleep.
I recognized this as a crime scene. I gathered the sheets into my arms. The washing machine across the hall, with its relentless knocking and whining, would surely wake Ma. Instead, I crept into my bathroom, turned the bathtub to a trickle, and fed it my stained sheets. Under the pale light, my blood took on a purple, strangled hue, and I imagined it flailing awake, gasping for air. But the only breathing in the bathroom was my own.
Years ago, when her hair was black and greasy as a cast iron skillet, I asked Ma why my blood retains my shape when it leaves my body, why it refuses to change. She was twisting metal threads into a necklace for her pendant, a drop of silver that reflected light all over the room. Still focused on her weaving, she described my newborn skin: easy to perforate, toothsome as raw dumpling wrappers.
You were too soft. We had to give you a taste of the world, its hardening heat. Your ba had an idea: he put you in the oven, right next to our roast pork dinner. But instead of giving you strength, the heat turned your blood into syrup. Look!She jabbed my arm with a piece of wire. I recoiled, rubbing the tiny wound, expecting a red bead. But nothing came out.
See? Your blood reduced like good wine. All your water evaporated through your mouth. And your ba—when he opened the oven, the steam gave him a facial so powerful he became young again.
Steam can do that? I said.
Your ba became young again, Ma said. And what do young people do?
She set the necklace down and looked me in the eyes. Her stare tripwired me. One moment I was safe with Ma and the next I was stumbling—I did not know a mother could unsheathe herself like that, so quickly flashing her secret knives before folding them away.
They leave, she said. The house becomes empty.
For a few seconds, empty remained in the air. Was I, too, a young person? Yes, my cheeks were round. Yes, I only came up to Ma’s shoulders. But I knew I would never leave. Where else but the kitchen table would I eat zhū xiě gāo and lick peanut powder from my fingers? Where else but the couch would I scatter my math homework, kneeling between the papers as if I were a shepherd? Ma lifted pliers to the ends of the necklace and twisted them together. Her arms shook from the strain. Without me, who would she have left?
I won’t leave, I said.
Ma scoffed, fitting the necklace around her head. When it was in place, the pendant dangled between her collarbones. Wires surrounded it like a fist, so tight and dark no silver shone through. I discovered later the pendant was not a pendant at all—it was a locket. The images inside faced each other, no room for air. They haven’t seen light since.
I know you won’t, Ma said. It’s your blood. Thick. Keep it inside you. Some things you don’t let out.
Keep it inside you.
I stirred the water with my hand. Ten minutes had passed and my blood still clung to the sheets. The replica of my body rippled inside the tub.
What, or who, was sealed inside Ma’s locket? I was almost certain it was Ba. Even now, I barely remember him, just the yellow crescents of his nails and his breathing, hoarse like a kettle about to boil. Sometimes, I’d watch myself in one of Ma’s handheld mirrors, bending it slightly to alter my reflection. Is this him—forehead taller, nose more broad? Is this him—eyes round as light bulbs, lips stretching over his cheeks? I may never know. Ma has refused to show me his face. She would sidestep his name in every conversation. Keep it inside.
But this is his blood too, I thought as I prodded the sheets, the red body’s edges loosening from the fabric. Ba made me this way. Why would I want the blood of a person who leaves?
In my mind, Ma opened and closed her mouth, unable to think of a response. She clutched her locket as if shielding Ba from my words. I imagined lunging at her, prying her fingers open and clawing the locket into metal strands. Finally—I could say to Ba’s face what I had always wanted to: don’t come back. Look how good we are without you. But I discovered the picture inside contained no face. Instead, a startling emptiness stretched between Ba’s ears, white as a camera flash.
The water rippled. I looked down: inside the tub, my blood was peeling away from the sheets, using its flexible limbs to untangle the fabric that had knotted around its torso. An instinctive shiver ran through me. Wet sliding sounds lapped at the walls as my blood sat up, looked around, light warping against its surface. Slowly, it turned to me.
This was my second nosebleed this month. Translation: this was my second time this month holding out my hand, letting my blood take it with clammy fingers. Together, we stood. If I didn’t lead it out of the house, it would meander, bump into furniture, and of course upset Ma. I made a plan: walk as silently as possible to the kitchen, disable the house alarm by the side door, then set it free. Once outside, it would start walking. Maybe to the right, maybe to the left, maybe straight forward—but always away.
“Come on,” I whispered. It lifted one translucent leg over the lip of the tub, then the other, quivering like a newborn cow. We crossed into my bedroom, pausing at the door. I turned the knob and peered out. The hallway stretched throatlike before me. Ma’s bedroom crouched ten feet ahead. The door was closed; shadows gathered underneath.
Holding my breath, I placed my toes on the wood paneling and willed myself weightless as a ghost. Tonight, the floor was merciful. We reached the kitchen without a noise, where I found the security panel. No alarm sounded when I opened the side door and led my blood out. It paused briefly as the ceiling and walls gave way to dark sky and summer air. A small wind blew by, warm as breath. I stepped aside.
“Off you go,” I said.
It didn’t hesitate. With newfound strength, it took one long stride after another, walking until it became another shape in the neighborhood. I stood in the doorway for a few moments, the house’s shadows behind me, telling myself to go back inside.
But a dread was welling in my stomach. Somehow, I knew that if I turned around now, went back to my room, I’d be crossing an inescapable threshold. I pictured graduation as a large oak door, closing. How long had I been good? Grades, two clubs, tennis, and now my life was funneling into Ma’s restaurant. Sometimes, when the house got especially quiet, I thought I heard the clatter of dishes in the room over, or the hiss of a propane flame. The metronome of Ma’s cleaver on the chopping board invaded my dreams.
I lifted a foot, letting it hover as I watched my blood on the other side of the road. A pounding was rising in my ears, nervous and quick.
I’ll be back in time for graduation, I thought.
I brought my foot down. One step became two, then four—I walked until the pounding in my ears faded. Only once I caught up to my blood did I look behind me. Somehow, the house appeared even larger from across the street. Its windows shimmered like spilled oil, its shadow draped over the lawn. I shivered. Ma was inside, maybe awake, maybe walking down the hall to find my bedroom door ajar. I couldn’t face her anger, not now at least, so close to graduation. In a few hours, I would receive my diploma and with it the weight of her restaurant—a natural inertia attached to my bones. I needed this chance. I turned away from the house and followed the faint footsteps down the road.
We marched through the night. Lights and music flashed in the distance—graduation parties, I realized. They reminded me of weekend nights I’d spend in Ma’s restaurant, sweating over a large wok, classmates I almost recognized laughing around the tables in the room over. They had stumbled out of parties, sleepovers, hangouts, alcohol still bubbling through them. I never really envied the drinking. Later, however, as I washed the scent of garlic out from under my nails, I pictured long, dark sidewalks, and my own shoes. How would it feel to wander? To spot a restaurant open at midnight and think, I guess. Why not?
Eventually, we slid down an incline on the side of the road, landing in a shallow stream. Moonlight dusted a concrete structure ahead, its opening black and round as a pupil. I recognized it as the entrance to the sewers.
“We’re not going in there, are we?”
My blood responded with even, unfaltering footsteps. I shuddered, rubbing my arms. The entrance seemed to distend as we approached, the darkness inside so thick you could sculpt it. Ma had a word for this type of darkness. Three words, really. Behind you darkness. Something you can feel on the back of your neck, watching over your shoulder, less an absence of light than the company of a ghost. Many years ago, she used that term to comfort me—Don’t be afraid, she’d say, tugging the blanket up to my shoulders. When the lights go off, just turn around.
And so, instead of facing the bathroom, gazing at the sinister slit of shadow pooling beneath the door, I slept facing the wall. In my sleep, my nose rubbed against the plaster until something inside went crooked. The current tugging at my ankles, I stood in front of the sewer’s wide mouth and had the insoluble urge to put my back to it. I thought about the inside of Ma’s locket and the expanse of Ba’s face obscured in the darkness, the weight of his youth hanging like another heart from her neck. Keep it inside. But here it was, ten paces away. That pounding had returned to my ears. I stopped walking, looked over my shoulder, half expecting the house to be there, straddling the stream like a bridge. I only saw trees. When I turned my attention forward, my blood had nearly breached the darkness. I winced as the pounding turned sharp and angry, jolting my body in regular intervals. I put a hand to my chest, but my heartbeat was calm in comparison. Then, I realized: Ma’s cleaver. Why had it followed? I cupped my ears, but it persisted, rattling my jaw with each harsh chop. A sudden premonition filled me: this would become my life. After graduation, I’d spend so long in the kitchen that my hands would transform into utensils, my lungs propane tanks, my heart the used edge of a knife. I could always find my way out of the dark. Escaping the dishes, the stink of propane, the cleaver’s infinite rhythm, would not be so easy.
As if reading my mind, my blood paused. Its body was half dissolved in shadow, the other half illuminated under the moon’s ghostly light. Slowly, as if setting a bird to the air, it held out a hand.
I stepped forward. All at once, Ma’s cleaver retreated. I could hear the world now, the rushing of the stream and my own soft breathing. I remembered, with staggering clarity, the day I discovered Ma’s pendant was actually a locket—she had forgotten it on her nightstand before leaving for work, and I had brought it outside, admiring the scales of light it cast onto the driveway. It was then I noticed a strand of shadow cutting through. I pushed my nails into the crevice and attempted to pry it open, but the metal refused. Wading through the stream, I listened to my heartbeat and felt something opening. The shutters of the night were coming loose.
I took my chance. I closed the distance. I grabbed my blood’s hand and let it lead me into the dark.
MARCUS TSAI studies literature in Texas. A Pushcart nominee, he is the winner of the 2024 Robert Bone Memorial Creative Writing Contest and is a recent alum of the Kenyon Summer Workshop. His work appears in Reunion: The Dallas Review, The Common Language Project, and Dulcet Literary Magazine, among others.