MEMORIES FROM THE EAST

I WAS six years old, turning seven in the coming June, which was just ten days away. I had a toy in my hand and many others in front of me on the ground, ten characters of Naruto anime. These were not all what I had; I had a cupboard full of toys. I liked to collect characters of the anime cartoons I used to watch. I remember having the full character set of Bleach, Death Note, Rorouni Kenshin, and One Piece. My small black PSP was placed on the tiny white-framed aluminum chair, whose yellow-leathered oval butt and back rest place were very comforting. Just ten minutes ago I was holding that PSP and playing Street Fighters IV game. The device was my mother’s gift on my excellence in my studies last year. I was busy making fantasies about the Naruto characters placed in front of me with Naruto, the main character in my hand. I made fantasies of Naruto having a fight with his friend, Sasuke. As I remember, my fantasies about the battles between the characters and fight scenarios were actually more dramatic and much closer to reality than what is demonstrated in the anime cartoon. My mouth was releasing quite noises; noises that would be actually be the result of clashes between heroes on the television. But these noises were not strong enough to prevent my ears from seizing the noise coming from the main door of the house. The voice was loud enough to startle me, pause my mouth from making noises, stress my nerves, and fix my eyes on my room’s door, which was fully closed. That noise was generated as a result of slamming the door strongly. My heart jumped in my chest and I swallowed hard, as I recall. But then came the coughing voice of my father and my nerves were put into relief. I returned back playing with my toy-characters light-hearted. The reason why that door-slamming noise frightened me for a while was that since one week my father was acting a little awkward towards my mother, and my mother seemed a little sad and always bad tempered. I couldn’t understand at the time what was going on, but I could realize that there was something going on wrong between them. The whole of yesterday, my mother didn’t come home. I inquired to my father about her, and he replied that her auntie is sick and thus mother was needed to take care of her. After a few seconds, I heard some more noises coming from the kitchen, and my thought went directly to father making our lunch, as what I saw yesterday when he made a grilled chicken, which came out to be half burned. He laughed with me, but we ate together in the absence of my mother. I didn’t mind these new sorts of noises as well. I just felt comfortable hearing my father’s coughing; it brought me the feeling of not being totally alone. He got that coughing attack last week and he still obtained it. I knew that father didn’t like it to be sick and he hated coughing, but for me it was some relaxing music. Since I started observing some relationship scratches between father and mother, which was about three weeks earlier, my mother would treat me bad; she would shout on me, say bad words to me, which I didn’t understand at the time, and would even slap me, the physical agony of which varied from one day to another. I think that was the time father developed that coughing. He used to protect me always from my mother and all other tyrannies of life. He was my guardian and my example. Playing in my room, I was waiting for a call from my father asking me to eat with him, as what he did yesterday. But since first I heard his coughing, more than one hour passed and yet no call received from him. I got bored of making stories and scenarios with my toy characters. I collected my Naruto characters slowly and carefully; I always kept my toys in good shape and had never broken any of them. I was praised for that by my father and uncle; for being so tidy a kid and so thoughtful in dealing with elements of life in such an early age of my life. I opened my toy cupboard, which was divided into two levels. That cupboard was specially allocated for my toy characters; I had different stores for other sorts of toys. As I said, I was a very neat and genteel child. Neighborhood children, who I used to know, used to get very happy when in my room. They could find the toy they were looking for very easily and I strictly put rules for them: no toy to be broken and every toy to be returned back to its original location after done with. Just a few days ago, I got very upset with the child who damaged my toy train; I sent him out my room and made a vow not to allow him in ever again. With the cupboard open and me sitting in front of it, I started arranging the Naruto characters; placing them in a good way and position. When I was done with this, I paused for a while looking at them; admiring the way I allocated them. I moved my eyes to other character sets in the cupboard. Luffy, from One Piece, was having on his red, sleeveless shirt, but his body got more muscles than illustrated in the cartoon, and his shipmate, the green-haired Zorro, was having harsh expression, holding two swords in both hands and one in his mouth. I enjoyed watching Zorro fight in the cartoon; a man holding three swords and using all of them perfectly, what a talent!