Bunk Bed  ​

​

​

​

​

   For a long period of time, I lived with my dad in a small rented room with a bunk bed. I used to sleep in the top bunk, and my dad in the bottom bunk. A second-hand product bought from a street corner, the bed came with a wobbly frame and no bunkie boards. Each of the bunks had only a grid of coil springs supporting a tattered pile of cotton blankets, which was used as mattress, atop which we would place a straw mat in summertime.  We were living through such hard times with poor finances and long-term debts to settle, which tore my dad apart, both in body and mind. The soft tissue in the lower part of his backbone atrophied, causing him to constantly suffer from lumbar sprain. Even so, the bed, painted earthy yellow, still holds a dear place in our minds.

​

   My dad once bought me a tiny lamp, tinted navy blue, a fancy colour that was such an uncomfortable eyesore, making it not at all attractive.  The shade resembled a small flower pot placed upside down, half covering the light bulb inside. Under the light bulb was something like a clothespin, which I could use to fasten the lamp to the edge of my bed. I can still see this kind of tiny lamps in electronics stores when I happen to pass by one, but it will never again be on my shopping list. Much to my regret, the dusty net of middle-class values, fastidious and snobbish, had snared me, as I have become quite well-off, and am therefore picky about taste and quality.  

​

   However, I still could not help but stop by, and stood there in front of the store for a moment, recalling not only the weak ellipse of yellow light, but also the days when my lamp could not be turned off. My little lamp was brought home wearing a thin layer of dust. My dad was a vendor at Apliu Street, and he used to shop around there. Feeling satisfied, he said the lamp was only three dollars with a light bulb thrown into the bargain. At night, when he had fallen asleep, I would turn on the tiny lamp for some bedtime reading. My little world provided the utmost in comfort, for my pillow had contoured with the shape of my skull, and my blankets had adapted to my sleeping position and body temperature.  The transparent yellow light protected me like an eggshell, making me feel that the howling northerly wind outside the window was warded off. Sometimes, my dad would snore softly while asleep. The sound of his occasional snores was not annoying; it only made me feel safe. In such a warm place, I would open my book as if pushing a door open, and glide towards an endless world ...

​

   When I finally turned off the lamp and returned from my imaginative world, allowing the darkness, pierced by the dull circle of light, to snap back into place, I would hear the sound of me rolling over and tucking myself up. The creak of the old bunk bed was somewhat a “good night”. At that particular moment, with the darkness in the room framing the azure-blue night sky shimmering outside the window, all mindful journeys were interrupted by a return to reality, and I would start closing my eyes. The even snoring of my dad continued, and it was the best comfort to me. Sometimes, I could hear noises coming from under the bed. I knew it was just the little rat scampering around, and I would fall asleep very soon.

​

  Honestly, I had never had bad sleep in this crumbly, mid-air sleep nest with peeling paints falling off the ceiling.  

​

  A few days before my mum’s eventual arrival in Hong Kong from mainland China after sixteen years of separation from us, our bunk bed was dismantled. I will never forget what happened that night.

​

  Around that time, my mum had already arrived in Shenzhen and was waiting to be allotted the quota to enter Hong Kong’s border. We knew she would arrive in Kowloon in two or three days. My dad had to buy a new bunk bed in order to accommodate her, but he did not tell me about it.  He chose a brand new steel bed which the top bunk was a single bed and the bottom a double. The afternoon when the new bed was delivered, I was reading in the library at my university. I said I was working diligently, but was actually there as a study partner of my boyfriend, a medicine major who was studying for exams. We had dinner together and chatted till late at night before he drove me home.

​

  After walking past the many partitioned rooms, I finally pushed open the wooden door of my room and was stunned by the sight before me.

​

  The old bed had already been replaced with the steel bed which was painted red. The top bunk was slightly narrow, but the bottom bunk was as wide as four feet, taking up most of the space in the room. The bed looked very tall, as if having exceptionally long legs, each of which were actually standing on a piece of red brick. The void space under the bed seemed to have swelled up.

​

  There was no mattress on the bed but only my dad who was lying on the new wooden bed board, moaning.

​

   “Dad!” I screamed. Not until I had tripped over the warm pot on the floor did I realize the room was in a mess. The whole messy picture added to my horror, and the only thing I could do was to scream his name.

​

   My dad said in agonizing pain that he took apart the old bed, moved the pieces to the staircase and assembled the new one, from noon to night, all by himself. He continued, to compensate for the space lost after setting up a bigger bed, he had to raise the bed base with bricks, so that some more stuff could be placed underneath. While he was installing the last board and thought everything was done, the mattress suddenly fell, and he sprained his waist while trying to avoid it.

​

   “I am in so much pain,” he said, “I tried my best to rinse some rice and steam a few sausages… Have you eaten yet? I… I can’t get up…”

​

   When I turned back and saw a half-eaten bowl of rice and sausage, tears trickled down my face and fell to the floor. How could I forgive myself? When my dad was working hard all day long, moving a heavy bed board onto the floor, what was I doing? I was letting a boy hold my hand, sitting at the rooftop of the halls and chatting all night.  In the past few hours, he was waiting for me to come home. How did he endure the severe pain? I tried to help him to his feet for a few times, but failed. Feeling helpless, I rushed for the phone. I sought help from my boyfriend, a doctor-to-be, who had finally picked up my call but refused to come over, saying it was too late. I begged him in tearful despair and even flared up, he then agreed to come, but with reluctance, and looked extremely impatient and annoyed when he finally showed up.

​

  While we were strenuously helping my dad down the revolving stairway, I saw beads of cold sweat collecting on his forehead because of the severe pain, and it dawned on me who was the one I loved the most. Meanwhile, the relationship of a young couple was gradually fading away, along with my dad’s moan, at the corner of this staircase. How could my husband, the man I was to stay together with till death do us apart, possibly be this person who would offer no help to the injured and show no love for the aged?

​

    At the hospital, the doctor said my dad needed to stay there for at least a week or two. Afterwards, I thanked my boyfriend politely, as if we were only estranged classmates. Since then, I was determined to let go of this blinding love and find my own way out. That night, I slept alone on the bunk bed, newly bought by dad for mum, crying loud out of guilt. It was like I suddenly realized the love between my parents. Being apart for sixteen years, my mum and dad were going to be miraculously stitched up by this bunk bed. While on my part, I felt full well that our relationship and love were seen by that person as luxuriant ornaments of his youth, which were not indispensable and therefore meant nothing to him.

​

      We then drifted apart as expected.

​

    Shortly thereafter, my dad was fully recovered and my mum had come to join us in Hong Kong.  Every night, I would still climb to the top bunk of the bed like I used to. Compared with the old bed, my private world hanging in mid-air was a lot more spacious. However, I could no longer fall asleep as easy as when I was younger. At midnight, the traces of light outside the window fell into my eyes, dispersed, blurred and then became clear again.  I grew up and finally stopped thinking the car I heard downstairs was his “Little Beetle”, which crossed the harbor tunnel just to see me. In the meantime, with courage, I began to take the feeling of missing him positively, the person who I thought I had loved.

​

    I asked myself, “how come many people, despite their once intimate connections and all the things they had gone through, could one day be scattered to different corners, never to meet one another again?”My heart pondered on how a couple, who walked on the same path, could grow together along with the passage of time, get married, and become old and grey ...

​

    The only thing that reassured me was that my mum and dad were sleeping on the bottom bunk of the bed, supporting me together and teaching me to feel the height of life. They supported me and would never forsake me. More importantly, they told me with their own story that there was eternal love and perhaps I could find it too.

​

    Perhaps I could really find it.

​

   With this in mind, I finally fell asleep.