Help the Shoots Grow, Pull Them
by Ploi Pirapokin
Fay Ku, The Desert Is My Home, graphite, oil paint on translucent drafting film, 20 x 30 inches, 2019. Courtesy of the artist.
HELP THE SHOOTS GROW,
PULL THEM
PLOI PIRAPOKIN / NOV 2021 / ISSUE 11
Part III of IV
1994.
I confided in my secret boyfriend after Sprout returned. Andre, whose scribbled notes I’d crush and hurl in the recycling bin on the way out of school. At home, my parents asked me about the boy on the phone who spoke hasty French, dropping the endings of his words as though inviting me to complete his sentences.
Sharing my thoughts with someone outside of Lily and Sprout provided some relief. A Frog who, separate from our shared disguise, our known worlds, our consciousness, could tender my judgments with a foreign perspective, one that gave me permission to approach Sprout in a gentler way. A Frog who had been there that night. A Frog who had always lingered in the background capturing my actions, whose eyes widened every time I caught him glancing at my cheeks, who always heard what I wanted to say even if my mouth didn’t spill.
I worried about the new roles Lily and I played for Sprout as the patient, supportive best friends, who listened and accepted all of Sprout’s obstinate approaches to her face, but disapproved of her behind her back. This triangulation ate me from the inside out.
“She said, I got to meet the Star People. I’ve discovered how special I am.”
“You don’t believe her?”
Andre—who never staked his claims or ordered me around—always knew the right questions to ask. I cradled the phone closer to my lips. “I’m afraid of what she feels she needs to do to live up to that expectation. She’s already special.”
“Maybe she needs a friend to remind her.”
The night Lily and I had reunited with Sprout was baked into my mind. I saw us as crisp, burnt figures, knelt by Sprout’s bedside, unable to be wetted and remolded to hold New Sprout. New Sprout took up space while walking, stretching her arms apart to trace the corridors with her stubby fingers, bulldozing Lily and I to the back. Our small acts of togetherness: linking arms, accompanying each other to the post office, and waiting after school by the silver silk candy stall at the bottom of the hill seemed to singe the New Sprout. Any mention of the abduction, her time away, or Baz, was met with a smug grin.
“I don’t feel like talking about that today,” New Sprout would say, before steering us into conversations about the humidity, the latest Dr. Martens boots, and rabbits.
She had been dreaming of fluffy white rabbits, grazing vast, lush fields of green. “That’s how the Star People come to be among us,” Sprout had said. “Through rabbits.” She doodled them munching on the edges of our notepaper. Rabbits, with their stumpy forelegs and longer hind legs, climbing the margins of our books. “You can tell that they’re not normal rabbits because they glowed,” Sprout had said, chuckling. “Glow in the dark bunnies, how cute, right?” Sprout would wriggle her thumb through her index and middle finger like a tail, hopping her way down our thighs in class, leaving behind pressed pink imprints.
“Lily glares when I don’t play along.” I imagined Andre, scrunching his forehead into a pink smile, his curly black bangs grazing his nose and hiding his deep-thinking eyes.
“Why don’t you humor Sprout?”
“She’ll talk about Star People as if what she’s saying is fact. Lily says we must let Sprout take precedent because she’s been through a lot. But it feels fake. Worst of all, playing along only keeps her from facing what really happened and possibly getting over it.”
“I never asked Baz about Sprout even though we all saw them together.” Andre’s voice dropped, but whether he was hiding something, or it was due to puberty, I’ll never know. “I felt, if he wants to tell me about her, he’ll do it when he’s ready. Sometimes we can only show our friends the door. Whether they walk through it or not is their choice.”
I thought, real friends pushed you through that door whether you were ready or not. Real friends seized you by your shoulders and wrangled sense into you, pulling your head from the stars back on earth. Real friends wrenched you out of the ground to help you grow. I trusted Lily and Sprout enough to know what’s best for me when I couldn’t see it. They’d be there to catch me on the other side and dust off the dirt. I know I’d do that for them.
2021.
Back in my university apartment, my fingers dialed a familiar number I’d sworn to forget.
“Bonjour, is this still Andre Bourdoulous’ house? May I please speak to him?”
For Sprout, Lily and I used to mute ourselves in conference calls while she called Baz. She was shy of reaching parents and siblings, having to ingratiate herself to their formal ways of interacting, addressing Monsieurs, Madames, and Mademoiselles. With our non-Frog families, we’d want to know if everyone’s eaten dinner already. If the windows were boarded to withstand typhoons. Whether the dogs had been taken out for their walks. What if they think I’m a dumb girl who is in love with their son? Like every other girl in our grade? Sprout would ask us. What if they think I’m annoying, calling again and again and again?
Andre’s wife hesitated on the other end. She recognized my voice but played along in an icy tone. “Whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?”
“Is now a good time? I’m not sure what Andre’s work schedule is like anymore.”
A pitter-patter of footsteps came raining out of the speaker. A slow, steady stomp followed, then Andre’s deep greeting reverberated: “Mon chéri, tu as ramassé la clé?”
“Ah, can he call you back? We’re just about to drop the children off to his parents,” I heard a faint “Quoi?” in the background. “How do I spell your name?”
“It’s Chryssa Lin. C-H—”
The line went dead.
Light that is blocked can’t be converted into energy. Some shoots don’t make it above ground level. We couldn’t wipe them clean or shove them back into soil, but we didn’t have to follow where they led.
1994.
My parents alleviated their guilt about earning their wealth in a land they didn’t call home by donating clothes and school supplies to rural villages nearby. One Saturday, four months after Sprout’s return, they brought me along with them to a similar village to the one Sprout was discovered in, bordering the city.
“I don’t know why the government doesn’t allot more land to the mountain people to plant their rice. The farmers have been deciding for centuries where to cut down trees to clear space for farming, dry felled trees in the sun, and setting them on fire to kill germs and enrich the soil before digging and sowing it with paddy. After the harvest, they leave that field fallow for a few sun cycles to rejuvenate, so nothing is left barren,” my father parked our car outside of a traditional khmu wooden gate, tightly packed tall planks thrusted next to each other. “Chryssa, if you help your mother carry the bags, we’ll be able to make that fried chicken restaurant on the way back right when it opens.”
We were greeted by village elders in cotton tunics. My father bowed and said, “Sabaidee?” twisting vowels that didn’t exist.
I laughed. “They must be thinking, this cheeky city rat. Trying to speak to us country mice.”
“We understand each other just fine.” My father unlocked the trunk. “They know us cheeky city rats come with new clothes and books they don’t have to pay for.”
I helped unload trash bags filled to the brim with clothes I didn’t wear anymore. They weren’t clothes I outgrew, simply things I no longer needed, a few still bearing tags on them. Some of the elders slapped my shoulders and bowed, and my cheeks flushed. I apologized for how heavy the bags were. “Let me help you,” I said, first in French, then I tried again in Thai. I didn’t even know if Thai was the right language, since Laos, Thai, Hmong, Khmu—they all sounded similar, branches from the same root. We spoke Thai at home, a language full of relational markers, frivolous polite syllables, and adverbs that determined our role in social circumstances, acting passive to not upset whom we spoke to, no matter their status. I felt embarrassed we had so much to give; buying what we didn’t treasure or need. Yet back in school, in our daily routine, in my city life, I’d moan about not having enough, comparing with Frogs and their newest shiny phones or streak-free backpacks.
My mother handed me a bag and clambered after my father. From the back, if they weren’t dressed in nylon visors, ironed slacks, and collared shirts, they blended into the village. I stood a good head above everyone else, thanks to a city’s diet of meat proteins and dairy.
We passed an enormous chicken pen with several stories. Several birds clucked by, their heads bobbing as they paced ruffling their feathers.
“Real organic chickens,” my mother said, eyes glistening. “If only all the chickens we ate came from such natural st—”
“What are those rabbits doing inside there?” I pointed to a smaller pen on the side.
Behind the wires, yellow chicks were nestled amongst fully grown rabbits. They nuzzled their beaks into the fur, eyes closing into dark lines. The round, black eyes of the rabbits were wide open, ogling us.
“They can’t mix chicklets with a grown flock, they’d be pecked to death,” my mother said. “We used to have a coop in my childhood house. Chickens have a strong sense of hierarchy; they don’t recognize their children like humans do. But rabbits can act like a foster parent for chicks if they’re introduced together when young.”
“Rabbits,” I deadpanned.
“I’ve read that there was a study done for a Thai ostrich farm, that even rabbits can rear ostrich chicks. Back in the day when they were figuring out how to raise their own ostriches without importing new ones, they threw rabbits in a hutch with ostrich chicks. Even their poo provides the birds with necessary vitamins.”
“I’m really glad I don’t need nutrients from your poo,” I smiled. “Does it matter what kind of rabbit? Like a certain species?”
“Native rabbits are smaller. They aren’t as intimidating.”
I kept my gaze on the round black eyes of the rabbits inside. They seemed to be wary, protecting their babies. Their noses twitched, and lips trembled. I swore some of them glowed, radiating off the ceiling.
2021.
The day after I argued with Lily, I invited Dan and her over for tea to make amends. We shouldn’t leave things buried; we had to tend to them as non-ruminant animals. Otherwise, we remained slippery and formless. Forsaken underneath shields, forever camouflaged. Deserted as stunned flightless birds, beating our wings instead of thumping our legs. Sprout, Lily, and I had crushed and ripped each other up before digesting. We were once each a stomach belonging to the same body. I swallowed information whole like a bolus before emptying it into Lily, who pounded and broke that down before secreting it to Sprout. What we didn’t say or do twenty-seven years ago has now perforated us from the inside out. Without Sprout, we lost one of the only people in the world who asked, “Why send me to a school full of frogs and expect me to remain a tadpole?” Who endorsed our thirst and pushed us towards our dreams, even if they yanked us away from her. Who, even in front of incinerated homes, never-ending heartaches, and cycles of oppression, cackled, “Why wouldn’t I find a way out?”
I should’ve stayed with Sprout at the stadium when she leaned in to lick Baz’s earlobe after introducing me to Andre. I should’ve slapped her at the bars when she loosened her finger from mine. I should’ve held onto her instead of waving goodbye with Andre, with his hands pressed onto my hip. All the things I should’ve done: from heaving her out of the dancefloor into the bathroom to splash water on her face; to hoisting her from leaping into the taxi with Baz; to bounding into that back seat with her; I could remedy in the present today.
I asked Dan to call Andre. I figured a man’s voice with an American accent sounded less suspicious.
“Andre Bourdoulous? I haven’t heard that name in a long time,” Lily set down her drink. “He was sweet on you.”
“He’s married now, but he’s still friends with Baz. I see them on social media having drinks.”
“He thought by being your friend, you’d eventually find him attractive. But back then, we were consumed by Sprout.”
“We’re still consumed by Sprout.”
“What do you want me to say?” Dan cleared his throat.
“We just need to get past his wife,” I said. “Then I’ll hop on.”
Lily sucked in her breath. “What if he hangs up?”
“He won’t,” I guaranteed. “He never has. He calls me occasionally. Writes emails. Sends letters to my office in California. I think his wife felt threatened when he’d still call me. She begged him once, to cease contact like I tempted Andre from his diet.”
“Does he know something about Sprout that we don’t?”
“She still tries to see Baz, but I’ve told her to move on. Baz made his choice a long time ago. He got his latest girlfriend pregnant and he’s going to marry this one. She was devastated and I told her he picked a different path. Now a kid is involved. I think she feels she knows him best and won’t let go.”
“Do you think she’s with him? Is that why she disappeared? Because she knows we’ll throttle her?”
“I’ve retraced Sprout’s steps, not from three days ago, but from our whole lives. Why do you think she runs away and doesn’t want to be found? It’s not because she’s ashamed, or can’t face another day, or wants to start entirely anew. Those could be part of her reasoning, but then why show up after the first few times? She leaves because it hurts us. She vanishes without leaving a single strand of hair because she says, I’m special. I’ve found my purpose. And the rest of you? Everyone else who originated from this cursed place, who has left me because of old age, for love, for a new career abroad—you don’t have what it takes to keep me.”
“Chryssa,” Dan said. “Have you slept properly at all the past few days?”
“We are going to call Andre and get to Baz. Then we are going to drive to that damn village temple. If I must snap every single dumb bunny’s neck along the way to find Sprout, I will.”
Ploi Pirapokin is a Thai writer from Hong Kong. She is the Nonfiction Editor at Newfound Journal, and the Co-Editor of The Greenest Gecko: An Anthology of New Asian Fantasy forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press. Her work is featured in Tor.com, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, Gulf Stream Magazine, The Offing, and more.
Fay Ku is a Taiwan-born, New York City-based artist whose work is figurative, narrative and connects with past and present cultural histories. She is the recipient of a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant and 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grant. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art ( Honolulu, Hawaii) New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT) and Snite Museum of Art (South Bend, IN); she has also participated in several artist residencies including Wave Hill (The Bronx, NY), Lower East Side Printshop (New York, NY), Tamarind Institute (Albuquerque, NV), and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE). She attended Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont for her BA and holds both a MFA Studio Art and MS Art History from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY.