Angelina Xu is a writer, educator and editor based in Naarm. Her work focuses on queer culture, food and contemporary literature but you can find her writing about anything that passes her mind. She has been published in Archer Magazine and The Griffith Review and is currently in the process of launching her substack.
Lazy Susan
The giants around the dining table seem vague and unmoved. There’s at least 15 of them and they are all squeezed into bejewelled dresses and tuxedos that are far too tight. The round table is much too big for the party it accommodates leaving each giant effectively alone; their gazes shift slowly and they are constantly leaning towards each other in the vain hope of conversation. In these situations, the private dining room offers a stifling silence and not much else.
I’ve seen this scene in photo albums before: same forced smiles and carefully arranged seating plan.The amber light above casts a curling, Marlboro edge over the table and lends the photos an atavistic sense of intimacy. But being here, now, the photos’ pallidness is sharpened. These photos had surreptitiously convinced me that these giants had not only existed but had somehow lived on. The familiarity of the dining table is unmistakable but everything else was an extended game of self-deception in which I imagined family as both a proper noun and a verb, something that we are and something we do. I had simply confused the real and the live. My mistake.
As it is now, it’s unclear if the giants can see me but I figure it’s best to stay hidden for now. In my panic, I duck under the spout of a pot of tea. It smells like chrysanthemum. With every rotation around the table, I take stock of each giant’s face, all of which seem to demure from their hard-boiled styling. Their features swirl and take shape as if all the presences in this room are being superimposed over each other in successive layers of thick oil paint. I can feel my own face rearrange itself into shapes I cannot recognise, a mouth that doesn’t soften and a single wrinkle nestled vertically between my brows. I don’t really know what’s going on or how I ended up here but it seems that none of the giants do either.
After my third foray around the table, the pleasantries have dwindled and each giant has settled into their seats. One of the giants catches my eye because she is much younger than the others. She has long jet-black hair and a scowl that has already settled deep in her lips. It’s the scowl that ultimately gives her away; she is, or was, my Mother. It dawns on me that her scowl has become my own. I try to console myself with the meek fact that all assessments of likeness between mother and child are somewhat true but almost always superficial. We know from advances in genetic sequencing and social studies that inheritance of certain physical traits or temperaments are inevitable and not necessarily a death sentence. Perhaps, the real truth is that Mother and I negotiated our similarities in a way that made each other readable so that, in living, we could set ourselves apart. In this sense, I didn’t come into my own so much as become actualised by her gaze. That is to say, I didn’t feel seen by her; as she saw me, I became.
The pensive atmosphere is suddenly shattered as the doors burst open. Mother jumps in her seat. Lazy Susan lurches to a violent halt and I’m flung across the table. Still, nobody seems to notice me which I can only take as a moment of karmic relief.
An army of five uptight waiters carrying elaborate dishes proceed in formation. As dishes come crashing down on either side of me – roasted quail and spicy mud crab – Susan shakes beneath my feet. I try desperately to catch a glimpse of the other dishes but can’t see over the dishes beside me. I can only smell the coveted wok hei mingling with what must be delicious fried rice.
The scent is soon eclipsed by the last dish placed on Susan, at the opposite side of this glass expanse, a glossy-eyed barramundi steamed with ginger and spring onions. It looks at me, slick with promise. Traditionally, the eyes are reserved for the most special guest at the dinner table but I’ve been here before so I know that prestige needs to be chased and I must get there first.
As the waiters march out of the room, the giants coo in awe of the dishes in front of them. None of the giants wants to be the first to push Susan. They know that initiating would betray an unseemly eagerness. It becomes increasingly obvious that I must take advantage of this time so I make a start towards the barramundi.
The race is on.
As I sprint past the roasted quail and braised pork, my mouth begins to salivate uncontrollably. My hunger is used to drawing its elbows in and marketing itself as politeness yet now, unsure of whether the giants can see me, my appetite has become feral and the eye is the only thing that will satiate me. The table thrums beneath my feet, loaded and ready, once Susan moves, I will be flung in whichever way she chooses. Whatever follows will have to keep up.
Mother’s face catches the light and does not let go. She is desperate for the barramundi too and it’s only a quarter of a Susan-spin away. She is too young to feel restrained by decorum or shame so I watch on as she stretches her body across the table to reach the fish. The giant beside Mother pushes her back into her seat. What follows is a series of failed attempts that include a sly push of Susan and coercion of the giant on her other side. With every failure, her scowl deepens and I thank God.
This is my chance. I run past Mother and the bright smell of ginger and cooking wine tells me I’m close.
One of the other giants notices Mother’s eagerness and gives Susan a gentle push. She spins in my favour and I am now barrelling towards the barramundi faster than ever. For once, it feels as though the universe is literally spurring me forward. When I finally arrive at the foot of the dish, I let myself take a full breath. My legs are seething in pain but I have won the race.
The eye looks at me
looking
at it.
I dive feet-first into the iris – a gelatin-thick pool of black. It seeps into my skin as I swim around the hard white pupil. What presents itself to me is a kaleidoscopic vignette of hand-me-down sorrows that all sound like trite what-ifs and had-beens. Is this nostalgia? Is this time curving across the table and making peace?
The eye floats into the air and Mother’s features retract into the flesh of her face like the little feet of an oyster.
I can see all of Susan beneath me as she whirls rapidly and rapidly whirls. For a moment, we can simply
wHIrL
WhIrl
WhiRl
whirl whIrl
Whirl
WHirl
WhiRl
Whirl WHirl
whirl WHIRL WhirL
Whirl
whIRl
The shadows coagulate on the wall in lashings of wanton blue and the dining room begins to crumble and pool like fig-coloured rot. My heart begins to race uncontrollably as the giants adorn their jagged features again. The scent of each dish chases the next one to the outer edges of the room until it all becomes indiscernible except for an oaky soy sauce; it makes me think of ancestry – how deep it is, how rich it is, how much of it is mine to keep.
Mother envelops me in a moist warmth and I plunge down to the bottom of my consciousness. As I fall onto Susan, she groans.
I cast for the eye,
But the eye is gone.