On the Rooftop
by Allen Cheng
Autumn in Nanjing is strange. It comes and goes without saying a single word. Back then, I, as an ordinary high school student who seldom stepped out of the classroom, was blind to the changing seasons, especially the advent of autumn.
The only thing I would call “leisure” was a late-night walk during evening classes. This brief escape gave me pleasure. On that day I met Zen, a friend of mine. She invited me to the rooftop.
“Did you know a girl jumped out of the window in the hallway outside the lab yesterday?”
Zen leaned against the short wall, her black silhouette almost blended in the shadow of those tilted railings.
“The Bio Lab.”
She then said what I wanted to ask. I knew why she didn’t take me to the lab, our Eden. The place we hide almost every time we skip classes.
“But why?” I was not surprised at all. Everyone at some point in their lives would more or less consider committing suicide. Whether putting it into practice is just a matter of passion. She was not the first one, nor the last one.
“Of course, the pressure. And THEY forced her. She didn’t have to die.”
We all know who THEY are. THEY ARE EVERYTHING, human and nonhuman, that forces us to go this way, stay in this school, do what we are supposed to do like a machine, obeying and not resisting.
“Seemed like she was suffering from depression, sending text messages to her friends. It happened to be the day the principal came for an evening inspection and caught her using her cell phone. The class teacher, being scolded for careless management, took out her anger on the poor girl, determining that she was not qualified to enter college. You know what I mean. Students suffering from depression can’t get the care and help they’ve been longing for.”
However, I was more worried about Zen. She was not a good child in the traditional sense. On the contrary, she was rebellious, unruly, and would skip class to go for walks just like me. She hated it all: the endless exams, the public announcement of grade rankings, the teachers who didn’t allow students to have shawl hair (not to mention dyed and curly hair, let alone wearing jewelry). She hated getting up at 6AM for the morning classes. She loved music. Her mom and dad wouldn’t do her a favor. They only cared about her grades. Her Chinese teacher yelled at her when she just yawned in class. Her math teacher threw textbooks at her because she didn’t do the excessive homework and went to sleep at 1AM instead. She was not optimistic at all. She talked about suicide. She wanted to escape. She wanted to leave.
“Many adults feel that depression is a difficult hurdle that can be overcome by working hard, but…”
Zen paused, as if lost in contemplation. I was afraid that she would fall, for I saw the upper half of her body sticking out of the railings. The cords of her sweatshirt swayed in mid-air, like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. I felt as if I could see her eyes in the darkness with confusion.
“That is not the case.” I tried to catch up with her unspoken words.
“Yes.”
Zen wasn’t looking at me, but right into the darkness. I followed her sightline, it was the direction of the Bio Lab. I could barely see bright yellow caution tapes drifting haphazardly with the wind under dim street lights. Soon the chalk outline would be washed away by the autumn rain, and the girl’s tragedy would be gone with the west wind. She left in a hurry like autumn, silently. I didn’t even know her name.
Suddenly, without warning, I heard an abrupt sound of footsteps. It was the most annoying, intense, stressful sound of high heels in everybody’s student years. Zen was indifferent to the sound, like a tree that has lost all its leaves, showing no reaction to the night wind. I pulled her up and ran, only to hear pieces of vague curses from behind me.
Autumn had passed. THEY locked the door to the rooftop with a rusty chain. We could no longer go up to that rooftop again.