If there is a name for the collar that confines me in a birdcage,
Even if we don’t realize we’re frogs in a well, we’re still human.
The static hum of the television beeps, filling the suffocating darkness of the room. The boy reaches over for his earphones connected to the TV. Bathed in the screen’s flickering light, he sits motionless, earbuds blasting noise in his ears. On the screen, a band is playing music. He is lost, drowning in the hypnotic glow—a desperate escape from the rising tension in the house.
An empty stairwell. An empty kitchen. An elementary school boy sits on the rungs of an empty playground. His sky-blue sandals rest on the last step. His unevenly chopped hair and bangs fall over his eyes, seemingly covering everything.
Now, everything around him is a light shade of blue. The gingham tablecloth, the refrigerator, and the mug placed before him are all blue. The sink lets out tiny droplets of water, echoing in the idle space. The boy picks at his noodles, his gaze distant, once again alone in the darkness of the kitchen. His parents will also be sitting at this table soon.
The boy peers around the corner when suddenly a loud bang is heard—the sound of his father’s fists slamming down on the kitchen table. The boy’s father spits venom at his mother, violently shaking her shoulders.
“It’s all your fault he isn’t doing well in school. Can’t you teach him properly? He must be re-educated properly.”
The boy runs to the bathroom, nausea overtaking him, and lets out everything he had just eaten. He wipes his mouth as if nothing has happened. Going to lay down in his room, the boy thuds his head against the brown bed frame, his phone in one hand, numbing himself to whatever is happening.
The boy sits in the empty stairwell of his home. The sink is now fully running, the water washing down the drain like a never-ending flood. The boy is back in his room, hands over his ears, attempting to block out all sounds possible from entering. No matter how hard he tries, it seems his efforts amount to nothing. Bland and unoriginal homework mocks the brains of people like him, numbing his mind like peeled skin—chapped and raw. Everything is meaningless anyway. Deadlines loom over him creepily. This life is only valuable for excreting the bait that will become a song, anyway. The boy never had a habit of throwing anything away, but in the end, he was discarded by his own father. Everything is spinning.
The boy’s father and mother are now in the living room. A distinct blue flower pattern encrusted on the white curtains watches everything. The boy still sits on his phone, completely desensitized. One hand is still glued to the side of his ear, but the noise becomes too much. He gets up and makes his way to the living room. His father rashly picks up a pillow from the plain white sofa and hurls it at his mother. As the boy makes his way down the stairs, the steps creak beneath him. The door of the living room is slightly ajar, and he eerily peeks through the sliver in the crack with one eye. The boy wonders one thing: Why does it feel so suffocating?
The boy watches the TV screen as constant whispers of the song flow through his head.
“Always fit in;”
“Make your makeup match that person,” they say.
“You would paint your face just as they did—a mask.”
“If you have a sense of self, abandon music.”
The boy ponders the last line: “If I were truly sane, was I tricked by the music?” He intently listens and watches the band, his eyes slowly blinking under a trance.
The father stomps over the sunshade-colored wood cypress floors to a table aligned with the wall where a brown clock sits. He menacingly walks back over to the mother. He is nearly about to slam the clock down on her head when suddenly the boy rushes forward, throwing himself in front of his mother.
The boy looks up at his father, and just for a moment, the father hesitates… before slamming the clock right onto the mother’s head. The sound of the impact reverberates throughout the house. Her body snaps to the side, reeling back from the blow as she falls over onto the sofa. Everything is spinning around; the clock continuously ticks, and the never-ending cycle is still in full swing. The mother’s trembling fingers move upward as she touches the blood dripping from the corner of her forehead.
The boy runs out of the living room and out of the house, nearly tripping over his own feet. Blood splatters on his blue shirt, and his feet are bare with no shoes. He runs into the street as rocks and pebbles from the cold asphalt road jag into his skin with each step. He screams into nothingness with the ginkgo trees as his only company. Why must the boy suffer for re-education that is not even an obligation? Because that place was inside a colorless cage. His legs begin to give out as he clutches his knees. He stumbles down to a corner of a bridge under the dreary evening sky, hugging his shins tightly and sitting up in a fetal position, looking down at the road. Everything is spinning around. Is suffering more refreshing?
3 AM of adolescence, and the dawn has not come. A flash of light appears on the dark road, and a hand touches him. He swiftly looks up to see his mother. She has no scar or blood on her head. The boy smiles upon seeing her.
Divorce papers are left on the table. The boy grabs his black randoseru and walks out the door in his gakuran middle school uniform. He slings the randoseru over his shoulder, the weight of his past a dull ache, not a crushing burden. The door falls shut behind him. He walks out into the bright day.
The world is still spinning, but this time, he isn’t dizzy.
The collar has no name. Who will be next?
