Monochrome Shipwrecks

Trigger Warnings for: Parental abuse, character death.

The clock’s red hand licks its broken teeth. Blackened numbers cut the forked tongue with jagged edges–‘tick,’ ‘tick’, ‘tick’. It waits for Rishi’s failure, to whisper ‘game over’, hoping for hope’s final breath.

But Rishi didn’t overflow the bathroom garbage with crumpled schoolwork–the damp bleeding the red marker like shipwrecks–for nothing. He’s boosted his speed, his folding abilities, and today, today is the day where he beats this goal of his–fold a perfect paper boat, in five minutes, before snack time ends.

Even if he must complete his quest in the back of his classroom, beside the posters with their corners peeling off, plastered with cats–complete with toothy grins and soulless eyes–explaining how nouns worked.

Five minutes left of snack time. Rishi’s snack lies in the paper bag with a handwritten note, unread, untouched. The cinnamon biscuits his mama baked every Saturday evening waits, uneaten, taunting Rishi with wordless whispers. His mama yells at him if he arrives home with uneaten snacks. She talks for hours, unending, and when she pauses, it’s not to breathe, but to sip at her teacup, at the ancient Chinese painting fighting wars across the glass. Biscuit crumbs settle at her cup’s dried center--corpses piled in a hand painted ditch. When his Mama talks, they splinter and crack between her teeth.

‘Better eaten dipped in chai’, she hums.

Rishi nods, staring at the perfect arrangement. His Mama herself tsks whenever Rishi finishes the biscuits before sipping his tea, they never reach the perfect temperature at the same time.

But his Mama’s angry, so even the littlest pains count. He dips, drinks, and coats his throat in scalding crumbs.

Rishi glances at the clock. It cackles, but there’s still time.

Five minutes, his teacher said. Five minutes and back to the unending slog of assignments, a never ending cutscene Rishi skips through, reading the same posters over and over and over again. ‘Nouns are people, places, or things!’ ‘Verbs are words in motion!’ ‘For example, Rishi closes his eyes, recounts the poster word for word, and tries not to scream as he counts the ceiling tiles again – 35 and a half. Four verbs and one very sad proper noun in that sentence!’

There’s still time.

He has five minutes to finish the paper boat and his snack. The boat first. If he puts it in his bag to toss around with books, pencils and a sea of papers he hid from prying eyes, then how could he keep his boat safe until after school? If he finishes his boat, folded and flipped inside out, more complicated than his mom’s instructions while she folds his shirts, then he’ll sail it over the treacherous waves of his bathroom sink. The doll Yeon gave him–Mister Sparkly Blue–will protect the thumb-sized dog–cream colored with brown spots–from drowning. A perfect side quest to fill the never-ending slog.

He folds the boat just so, just the way he saw Yeon fold it. The paper boat will survive long enough to take a picture and show his mama and baba Mister Sparkly Blue’s adventu–

“Rishi?”

Five minutes, maybe less, who knows? He needs to finish the boat and eat his snack, no side quests, no distractions. Rishi presses the paper into triangles, bouncing his leg faster than the clock’s ticking. Moment of truth... time to flip it inside ou-

“Rishi? Hello?”

Rishi’s glare snaps to meet the saboteur’s smug grin. If he misses snack time because someone had the nerve to–

Lily leans over the back of her chair and taps Rishi’s desk, wanting, expecting something. If only she unmasks her child disguise and reveals her true form: the gossiping aunty with ears like frying pans and wrinkles large enough to hide toys in. She’d act as the one pinching everyone’s cheeks even as Rishi cries and asks–politely, just like he’s supposed to–her to let go. They don’t play the game by their own rules, adults. That’s why they’re part of the game and not players. Rules only apply to players.

Rishi stole a glance towards the clock. What time did the teacher say they would start math?

“So, who in class do you like?”

She interrupted his boat making for that idiotic question? Sparks boil like spilled tea in his throat. Rishi would’ve poured biscuit crumbs in her hair if he didn’t have a boat to finish... he flips it inside out and...

“Is it Vanessa? Too bad, Micheal already likes her.”

The boat looks more like his pile of laundry–scrunched on one side and flattened on the other, like a monster’s deep sea tentacles snaking through the ocean and throwing the boat into a cliff and its sharp edges.

“I don’t like anyone.”

Lily slumps over her chair and spills onto Rishi’s desk. “Right, you only ever liked one person.”

Lily snatches the boat. She smiles. Mister Sparkly Blue drowns with his cream and brown dog, no boat to save them.

“It’s Yeon, isn’t it?”

The tea kettle in Rishi’s brain boils over and burns his hands, capsizes boats as they shipwreck against his ribcage. Rishi scrambles for the biscuits. Crumbs will cake her hair before the end of snack time if it’s the last thing he does.

The class stares at him. Why are they staring?

“That’s weird.”

“Yeon? But…”

“My mom said that she–”

Rishi growls. “Just stop asking me dumb questions! I don’t like any of you!”

He half-tackles Lily as he reaches for the boat...

“Rishi!” The teacher tears Rishi from Lily and the boat between them both. “I don’t expect this behavior from either of you.”

The boat crumples in Rishi’s palms, a sinking ship, drowning in his trembling hands.

On the walk home, Rishi nibbles his biscuit. Yeon walks beside him, ruffling his hair.

“You have to talk to people if you don’t want them to bother you. I’m in junior High. I can’t keep you company all day.”

Rishi swallows the biscuit, cold crumbs coating his throat. “I’ll skip grades then.”

“Ha! You’ll need hundreds on all your math tests!”

Rishi winces. Last time he came home with three failed tests–marked up with red ink, as if the papers bled–his Mama and Baba yelled at him for hours.

“What if I sneak into your class and hide in your desk? If the teacher catches me... you say ‘Sorry teacher! All the games on my phone need two players.’”

“Is it that hard to talk to your classmates?”

“They only talk about who likes who.”

Yeon sighed. “Elementary school’s annoying like that. I just pick a random person each time they ask.”

Rishi throws his hands to the sky. “I don’t want to say I like anyone! They’ll just tease me! I don’t care anyways.”

Yeon laughs, fiddling with a wristband. “They’re just mean. You don’t have to worry about it... not that you are... worrying about it, that is. So it’s all good!”

“Except for the boat.”

“Except for the- oh. You mean the paper one you wanted to make?” Yeon fishes a paper from her bag, hands it to him and grabs another paper, perfectly square with a white butterfly pattern. “Here, I’ll show you how to make them.”

Yeon sits on the sidewalk, the muted orange sunlight playing with her hair as a wandering car–only lost cars find Rishi’s neighborhood–wooshes past. Her face pinches to a pencil-fine point as she folds her paper in half, lining the corners just so, fixing Rishi’s when his wouldn’t stay straight. She murmurs under her breath when concentrating, an almost silent ‘please be good, please be good.’

When she found out Rishi growls when he works, they both decided to work together, making noise and not talking to each other. It’s how they became siblings, even if their parents never met.

Rishi files mental stats for everyone. His teacher fills her bar on intelligence while the kindness bar dwindles to nothing. She’s the one boss music composes itself for, screeching in Rishi’s ears whenever he daydreams too long. Lily is a glitch, an ‘aunty bug’ that crashes his day when he stumbles onto her path. Yeon’s teacher is the guard at the castle.

But Yeon herself...

She keeps the player character safe, forces them on annoying side quests, sneaks him free power-ups, bars him from stuffing himself full of stolen candy. Yeon would hug him for passing a test just as soon as she would throw an unfinished assignment at his head. Her character fills her every statistic, even the contradicting ones, to the maximum and beyond. A regular character just can’t do that.

Yeon must be a real person, a player, one of the only real people in all the world.

Yeon places her boat next to Rishi’s, folded in perfect lines, like Mama folding his shirts. Mister Sparkly Blue will sail the bathroom sink’s treacherous waters and save the brown and cream dog from drowning. Rishi will take a picture and finish his quest.

Rishi grabs Yeon’s hand and shakes it, buzzing and blurring. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

Yeon laughs and half-punches Rishi’s shoulder. “You’re welcome, you little bug.”

Rishi then proceeds to shove Yeon. She returns the favor, the both of them laughing.

When Rishi arrives home, he kicks his shoes beside his Baba and Mama’s neat lines, godzilla wrecking havoc on the city. He darts to the bathroom, cold tiles seeping through his bumblebee socks, and runs the water. The sink fills as Rishi retrieves the ‘must keep out of Mama and Baba’s sight, otherwise it’ll trigger their anger and yelling’ toys from the closet. Mister Sparkly Blue and the cream dog hide in Rishi’s shoebox, nestled in the dusty corner behind his tiger onesie, where it’s quiet. He fishes them from the collection of knicknacks, stuffs them in his pocket, and carefully nudges the shoebox into shadows and dust bunnies.

For the final item on the fetch quest, his Baba’s old camer–

“Now where are you running off to without saying hello?”

Rishi pinwheels his arms, stopping short in front of his Mama, who gathers him in a tight hug. Someone must’ve called his Baba to take pictures for a job, but didn’t ask for her. Otherwise, Yeon’s parents would’ve knocked on the door and asked Rishi if he wanted to stay over. Rishi would–politely, as he’s been told–say no, that his parents would bury him in the backyard if he went to Yeon’s house, and shut the door. He said thank you, always, as his Mama and Baba told him too, but Yeon’s parents had very low understanding statistics. They kept coming over.

Rishi clings to his Mama’s apron, still scented with cinnamon and spices. On the weekends his Mama and Baba and him would bake all the sweets for the weekend, then watch a movie. Rishi acted as the official taste tester and ingredient stirrer. His Mama even made him his own apron, which didn’t help Rishi’s cleanliness. His Baba ‘accidentally’ sprinkles cardamom pods on Rishi’s head.

“I made you some chicken soup,” his mama murmurs as she pats his head, “Eat it before you do your homework.”

“But I don’t have homewo-”

“Then do tomorrow’s homework. Good little boys get ahead in their schoolwork, right?”

Rishi counts on his fingers. Chicken soup. Homework. No boat sailing.

Not unless Rishi eats the chicken soup in thirty leg bounces.

His Mama sits at the kitchen table–a clouded glass, full of fingerprints, set upon black twisted metal, cold to the touch–with her bowl and a frown.

“Slowly, Rishi. You don’t want to choke. We don’t need another incident like that.”

“But it’s fi–” Rishi thumps his chest like a gorilla while coughing.

His Mama half-shoves a glass of water in his face, rubbing circles on his back. “Breathe. Breathe. Slowly. In and out.”

Rishi–with the water still touching his lips–breathes, and dissolves into a coughing fit again.

In the meantime, more than thirty leg bounces pass. Rishi says he needs to use the restroom, rushes off, grabs the shoebox, and into the bathroom he goes...

... waterfalls gush from the sink and awash the tile with seven seas.

Rishi tiptoes inside, closes the door, places the boat on a puddle–Mister Sparkly Blue and the cream dog inside–and watches it float.

They’ll go on a few adventures before their seas dry…

The boat topples over. A vibration sends tsunamis.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

The door thunders. Someone–Rishi’s Baba. He must be home. The seas roar. Mister Sparkly Blue fails to save his dog from drowning.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Rishi freezes. A beating, pulsating thing swallows his head whole.

The puddles. Baba’s voice. He can’t. He won’t see. He can’t see.

The door shakes. Louder. Louder. Louder. He’s mad. He can’t see. He can’t see. He can’t see. His Baba’s mad and if–

Rishi tears toilet paper. More. More. He throws it over the water. The paper boat tears. If his Baba’s mad then–

“RISHI OPEN THIS DOOR!”

Hide. Hide. Hide. Run.

If his Baba’s mad then the beating thing will kill Rishi. He’ll drown with his paper boa–

The door slams into the counter. Ringing. Pulsating. Throbbing. Drowning.

His Baba’s too tall. His face fractures. Knife tips. Serrated. Bleeding. Throbbing. Drowning.

“I get a call from the school that you’re spewing bullshit at school. Talking nonsense.”

Rishi’s hands burn. Mister Sparkly Blue screams. Bubbles burst far beneath the sea. No one will hear. Save him. Grab it. Keep it. Safe. Safe. They can’t see. Hide. Stay safe. Grab i–

His Baba grips Rishi’s wrist. He yanks Rishi to his feet. Rishi teeters. He’ll fall. Bash his head on tile. Drown. Drown. Drown in red and blue.

“Well? Can you talk? You were doing a lot of it in class.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Words garble in his throat. Not enough. It’s not enough. He has to say something otherwis–

A single tear carves rivers down his cheek. Tears burn. They burn and betray him.

When he cries his parents shed their skin. Where once they held Rishi’s hand to fight monsters, they grow claws and teeth and spines. His protectors couldn’t protect him from themselves.

Rishi wishes he bled out on the tile.

His Baba drags Rishi to the kitchen.

His Mama sits at the dining table. Citronella cleaner wafts from her hands.

Press the back button. Go back. Choose a different route. Rishi doesn’t want to live through the bad ending. He’ll kill himself before his parents do.

“We got a call from the school. Rishi, what nonsense are you talking about? We didn’t raise you to behave this way. You’re supposed to keep your mind focused on real life. The present. Don’t get distracted by past destruction.”

Destruction... from school? Rishi only took his boat back from Lily; he didn’t do anything ba–

“It’s all the time he wastes with video games. It’s making him live in a game world instead of real life.”

Yeon clicks the game on her phone. A white silhouette of geometry, a silver crow crafted of triangles glided along floating worlds.

‘I’ve never seen someone lose so many video games, so try out this puzzle one. Beating you in the fighting games gets boring, you know.’

‘But I almost beat you last time!’

‘In one round. Out of ten.’

‘That still counts!’

Yeon lightly shoves him and places her phone in his hands. ‘Just try and solve this level. I’ve been stuck on it forever.’

‘If I solve it, do I beat you?’

‘Sure. But if you don’t then I don’t share my snacks with you.’

Rishi gasps, staring at the game, all soft music and lonely worlds.

He beats the level. In five minutes. Rishi grins as he fills himself with all of Yeon’s snacks the next day. From then on, in the five minutes between the end of classes and the walk home, they share a headphone, one each, and solve puzzles in that quiet space where answers lie in different perspectives, in the way he saw the world.

It–how does that destroy his brain? Rishi almost beat the computer in chess after finishing the mobile gam–
“Rishi,” his Mama took Rishi’s hand and lightly patted it. “We spend a lot of time in the photo shop, the food on your table, all the time we spend together, baking together, laughing together? We never hit you or mistreated you.”

Rishi nods. His Mama’s not angry. She’ll talk to his Baba and everything will be ok–

“Then why would you act like this?”

Rishi burns. Boils. Drowns in a pot of tea. Cracks that spill down his face.

“I–I–”

Baking in the kitchen. Flipping through his Baba’s photo albums. His Mama’s collection of personal memories. Sprinkled all throughout the house. Staring at them. Wondering how they captured a Rishi that smiles–

Rishi didn’t–why did his parents–he didn’t do anythin–

His Baba slams the table. “Can you talk?!”

Rishi stutters. Drowning. He’s drowning.

“We say one thing to him and he has a panic attack,” His Mama tsks, “We’re not allowed to say anything? We should just sit here and let you waste all your potential. Waiting–until we’re dead and buried. No, until you remake us in your head. You’re already doing it “

His Baba growls. “It’s all because of the nonsense he wastes his time with.”

Footsteps. Crashing. Flashing red. Rishi whirls. Where’s his Baba goin–

His Mama yanks Rishi’s arms until he faces her. He can’t breathe.

“Baby look at me, listen to me for once. You’re never still, you waste your time all day with games and never finish your homework, and every time we try to guide you to reality, you throw a fit.”

It hurts. It hurts. Rishi needs to claw at his head until all the hurt spills out and his parents see that he didn’t–

Crash.

His camera. His video games. His books. His pictures. His dolls and toys and safe, precious things. All drown in a broken pile at his Baba’s feet.

Rishi’s heart beats with his head, his hands, the burning tears. His body throbs.

That’s his everything.

He’s lost this game.

His Baba gestures to the pile. “This is what happens when you keep your head in things that aren’t real.”

Rishi blinks. Of course it’s real. Yeon’s not dead. She never left.

His parents told him they’d help play the game. They’re the hidden monsters at the end of it all. And the only one who’s... the only real person in all the world…

The muted orange sunset plays with Yeon’s hair, casting drowsy light on the long black wisps like cherry blossom branches. She promises him that they’d race paper boats in the evening to celebrate her graduation from elementary school–they convince themselves that if Rishi’s boat beats Yeon’s then he’ll skip a grade and they’ll go to middle school together.

Yeon folds both their boats, her face pinched to a pencil-fine point, whispering curses in languages Rishi doesn’t understand when she tears it. A stack of shipwrecks sits beside them, most of them Rishi’s, judging the potential addition to the pile. Rishi leans on Yeon’s side, laughing at her when she crumples the sixth boat in a row. She throws it at his head.

Rishi takes the last two pieces of paper from Yeon’s bag, one patterned with sunflowers and the other with white butterflies. He takes the sunflower paper for himself and passes the butterfly one to Yeon, who snatches it and mutters as she straightens the mismatched corners.

Rishi flips the boat inside out and it tears. He sighs, and watches Yeon inhale, squint, and press.

The boat’s perfect.

Yeon gasps, shaking Rishi’s shoulder, who holds the boat’s front, tips it a little closer, just to admire it.

It falls, capsizes, shipwrecks in the middle of the road. The last, perfect paper boat.

Yeon jolts, yelling something about racing as she runs after the boat, the wind casting her hair to the sky.

Only lost cars drive through their neighborhood. Hopscotch and chalk fills their empty streets. Children kick balls back and forth, chasing each other with reckless abandon. Of all times…

The boat sails upon impact. Sails through a purple-tinted blue sky.

It docks at Rishi’s feet, white butterflies drowning in red.

A perfect paper boat.