All The Possible Ways It Ends
I can see in so many other universes, the year could have been so much better, or so much worse. While I can not tell where the future leads in my own universe, I accept the lessons it taught me and appreciate the person it made me become.
BY: JINGSHU HELEN YAO
The man next door stood there for at least five minutes without his shirt on. I can hear his breathing lying in my bed, feeling freezing under the thick blanket. When I started to type, I felt myself shaking hard. I can’t control myself from shaking in the warm comfortable bed of a locked room because I felt him breathing like a prey on the other side of the thin wooden door. I can’t warm myself because he is just a few steps away, just outside the door.
After several weeks of bombing suggestive texts and several confrontations where I clearly stated I am not and will not be interested in a hook-up, my male housemate had come to my door shirtless at 11 p.m. I covered my head with my blanket, but I could still somehow hear him breathing on the other side. I am sweating while my hands and feet feel like blocks of ice.
Parallel Universe Illustration / Photo via Forbes
In my mind, a few scenarios played out, as if I was peeping through the lenses of several parallel universes. Through the one shining brightly red with anger, I saw myself opening the door with a kitchen knife in my hand. The benefit of renting a single room and having to store my kitchenware in my room is that I have access to a knife anytime. I pointed the knife at him and tried to force him away. From there, other possibilities branch out. He could remove the blade by simply grabbing my waist, for he probably has twice the strength than me. Then what? I dared not to watch and looked a different way. There, I struggled and struggled, and there was blood on my blade. I watched him back away and bleed more; I felt sick but victorious at the same time.
No, I want to solve the problem logically.
Through the green lenses that looked cool and calm. I saw myself calling the landlady who lives one level below us. The sound of the phone ringing altered him. I heard him step back into his own room while the stair squeaked as the landlady approached. But as soon as she walked away, he could return. As long as he pays rent on time, the landlady held nothing against him. Is it really necessary to wake up a 70-year-old lady in the middle of the night? Even worse, is it worth it to drag her into my problem when everything she needs is the quiet life of retirement?
It is my problem and my problem alone. If I needed help, it should be from someone powerful enough to contain him.
#Metoo Poster/ Photo via NU
In one universe, I saw blue and red lights flashing at our front door. I stood on the porch, feeling the wind of a cold Toronto winter night, still shivering in a jacket over my nightgown. I saw myself hesitate at the police’s query, lack of any evidence for an actual harassment. Other tenants and neighbours poke their heads out to check which fucker made such a fizz on a weekday night. I saw myself yawning and tired from lack of sleep the next day, making my final exam a complete mess.
In another scenario, I videotaped him standing there shirtless, knocking on my door and telling me, “you know what I want.” I have evidence; I could post it online and hope for justice from trolls, hoping that one day his potential employers come across the video and shred his resume right away, hoping that every girl on Tinder would sweep left upon the sight of him. But I am afraid of the internet as much as I fear the man next door. I don’t even seek for him to suffer the consequences; I only seek safety for myself.
Maybe in another universe, I am a master of martial arts; maybe a powerful witch in another. But in this universe, I am a young woman with nothing but my words. I only locked my door and got under the blanket and waited while his heavy breathing kept me awake and cold. I typed out all the possibilities with my shaking fingertips, freezing to the center, and shivering violently. I saw all possible ways of how it might end in other universes, except for the one that I am currently in.
2020 interpretation / Photo via Make a Meme
If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that one could never understand what others might have experienced without experiencing the same. I always considered myself a part of the minority groups, thus understood racism, gender inequality, and homophobia. However, being Asian, female, and even self-identifying as bisexual doesn’t equal to understanding these issues. I never understood the terrible feeling until a white woman flapped me on the sidewalk, yelling “go fucking home,” sending a chill through my body in the warm evening of mid-summer. I never understood the fear until my male housemate knocked on my door shirtless at midnight, telling me, “you know what I want” with a suggestive tone. As a writer, I have written about anti-racism protest and the #Metoo movement with a decent amount of research, but I later realized that I never truly understood them. Even with those incidents, I am still a middle-class person with an education from a well-recognized institution. I only took a glance at the tip of the iceberg and what I understand is still far, far away from what many have suffered. I felt that I owed an apology to them all for claiming to stand for them while knowing so little.
I will not be sad nor angry if this is how 2020 is going to end for me. I can see in so many other universes, the year could have been so much better, or so much worse. While I can not tell where the future leads in my own universe, I accept the lessons it taught me and appreciate the person it made me become.
