Enough .au

[Pages:4]Enough

Local Winner

by Rebecca Hayman Lao Huang loved the word `enough'.

He loved its shape. `Enough' was round like a belly full of rice and pork. Not hollow like a belly full of worms.

He loved its colour. `Enough' was blue like the sky after the wind has blown away the rain.

`How can it be blue, Grandpa? Words don't have colour.' Lao Huang turned his watery eyes on his little grandson. Children knew so much but saw so little. He patted the boy's head. `Life gives them colour, you'll see. By the time you are my age, most words are like rainbows.' Children were respectful and never said, `That's daft'. But they said it in the tilt of their head. Parents could not scold you for tilting your head. `Bye, Grandpa,' the boy chirped and Lao Huang settled back against the sun-warmed stonewall. He had a cushion these days to soften the granite bench and it felt comfortable just to let his eyes droop. What he loved most about the word `enough' was that it was another word for `peace'. `Enough' meant that rest was attainable, contentment was real and fear could no longer rule. It was quite a burden for one word. But `enough' was sturdy.

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`Enough' mingled with the memories of his early childhood. The cleaver beat out its sound in the rhythmic chopping of garlic on the board. `Food, food--food is coming' that is what `enough' said. In this way `enough' took on smell: the smell of garlic frying. And sound--the hiss of vegetables hitting the hot oil.

`Enough' entwined with any and every memory of his mother. Like snuggling against his mother's body on a cold night, for instance, that was enough. Like the rice porridge she stirred on the stove when he got up in the morning, that was enough. Like being loved, that was enough.

But he had been a child not so very so very different from his own grandchildren and back then `enough' had been colourless for him too. It had been so familiar as to be scandalously un-special.

It took `want' to teach him the depth of `enough'. The morning Huang woke to hear no sound of cleaver and no smell of garlic, the morning when the warm body beside him was cold and there was only grey rain outside-- this was the day he began to learn about `enough'.

This era of want began (ironically) with being unwanted. He had not realised that little boys could be categorised according to monetary value. Previously, he had been under the impression that little boys could be naughty or good. But apparently, they could also be bought and sold.

In the era of want, `enough' was fleeting like the ray of sun, which sometimes managed to slip in through the grimy window, and creep up onto the table where he worked. Sometimes it snuck over the sewing machine to touch his face.

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In the era of want, `enough' took on another sound. Though he only ever heard it once, it was the sound of strength. At first it was merely an argument leaking in through closed doors. The man said Huang could sew more T-shirts in a week. The man said he was lazy. He said he would order more material. The woman said he was only a child. She said he was not to be made to do more. She said it was enough.

When Huang went to bed that night, sleeping alone in his outhouse, he took `enough' with him and considered its strength. It was so strong it was the last word, commanding silence. It was so strong it protected him; there would be no more T-shirts. That was the power of `enough'. Alone at night on his pallet, half musing, he thought to himself that `enough' sounded almost exactly like `love'.

Years later as a teenager, he ran away. In this new era, fear taught him things about `enough' he had never thought of before. Had he run far enough? Was this new city big enough to hide him? Had enough time elapsed? Could he stop looking over his shoulder? Or would they still be looking for him?

Huang also developed a new dimension to his relationship with `enough'. Previously, `enough' had either happened or not happened, been there or not been there. Now it was up to him to see if he could make it happen, to go out there and find it, so to speak. This was about becoming a man, not that searching through bins was quite the manliness he aspired to.

To be honest, he felt a little betrayed by `enough'. It took him years to trust it again. Even after he got a job, even after he bought a house and married, he was still afraid. His wife would silently watch him eat--one bowl, two bowls, three bowls of rice. He was eating for the moment and he was

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eating for the next day because who knew when `enough' would betray him again. Sometimes his wife would lay a hand across his arm. `Don't you think you've had enough?' she would say. But he only half heard her. Truth was, he didn't know. He looked into his empty bowl. `Have I had enough?' he wondered.

These days though, sitting in the sun, `enough' had no murkiness of betrayal and no edge of fear. When Lao Huang's daughter brought his porridge, she would bring one steaming bowl and he would eat it all. He would savour it and finish every grain but he never asked for more because he knew it was enough.

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