Chapter X

    The rain had been going on for a while, and it didn’t look like it was going to stop. Ms. Humphrey was speaking to the class from the front of the room, but no one was listening to her. The raindrops were gently tapping on the windows, making everything outside look spotted.

    Every time I thought about rain, I had the vague impression of houses and trees blurring and people under colorful umbrellas. A very harmonious picture, but it didn’t end there. One time I saw something on the Internet, a funeral urn by a French artist. “Poetree” I think it was called. Ashes were placed in the urn and carefully attended to. After being cared for day after day, a small tree grew from it. A woman was looking at the tree with her back to the viewer. I was not yet familiar with the concept of metempsychosis, but something about the woman in the picture struck a chord in my heart. I felt that same chord struck when I watched it rain.

    I had read about the science of why it rains. It was not flattering description. Raindrops were, in essence, small clusters of water molecules clinging on to dust cores. Yet, the rain somehow possessed the quality of evoking inexplicable sorrows in my heart. The surging feelings of loss and agony, the epiphany of self-inefficacy for being unable to merge with the rain into the mushy soft soil and grow into a little mushroom.

    I had no serenity.

    I tried to force myself to not think about it. Sorrow and pain, they are for poetry and addicts, not unlike marijuana. Human senses are perceptive and impractical. We fear the pang of melancholy in the same way we fear the nirvana of forgiveness. Amidst the desperation of our own predicament, we experience intangible relief that our incarnation of life is complete.

    Yet, even after you have stacked it somewhere at the back of your mind, hoping it will pass away with negligence, the pungency remains, implanting itself into every thought, poisoning every moment of happiness, and, like Frankenstein’s monster, stands up at the most untimely moment to wreak havoc on everything.

    Huang Mengxi (黄梦曦) is a senior student at Shenzhen Middle School. She is fond of literature, especially English literature. She became interested in psychology a few years ago and started interacting with children with autism and other mental illnesses.

    This serial story is based on the experience she had while volunteering at a local psychological hospital and participating in other charity activities. It tells the story of a teenager with Asperger syndrome who observes the adult world from a special perspective and struggles with the ideals of love and affection.