Kung Pao

There is a little Asian lady that lives in my apartment building. Sometimes in the mornings or the evenings I see a car picking her up or dropping her off from work. Sometimes I see her in her housecoat, smoking. As she smiles and gives a little wave to me, I wonder where she works and the particulars of her life. There are some Sundays I see a woman my age, most likely a daughter, drop her off in the middle of the afternoon. They unload utensils and big pots and I imagine her and her family folding sheets of wonton wrappers over steamy little meatballs and wonder what this tastes like. They speak to each other in a frantic dialect I can’t even begin to understand. There are no subtitles in real life, and even if there were my senses can’t comprehend the symbols that pour out of their mouths.

My stereotypical self thinks that she may work at a laundry and remember that I need to clean my scarf. Instead, I decide it’s more crucial to give my fish a bath. They are my babies and just as someone would talk to a cat or a small dog, I speak to them in the morning as I am dressing, promising them food when I get home from my own menial job and that if they would die, I would cry for them.

When I finally decided to clean their water (this is what I call giving them their bath), I am angry with them and my tears mix with the fresh water. If I were really a mother, I feel I wouldn’t be kind but rather rough with my offspring, crying tears with them because I am frustrated to have to look out for this small being when I can’t even take care of myself. I imagine my mother-ish self as the typical Jewish mother (even though I am not Jewish nor pay credence to any other religion), seemingly overbearing but in the end just wanting a better life than this fish bowl I’ve know all of my life.