What We Understand

Abstract

What We Understand Gloria L. Huang (bio) When the rooms were empty and the halls were dark, the lights on the machines still flickered like silent Morse codes communicating together. She was present when the noise transformed from loud chatter to muffled quiet, she was there when bags were slung over shoulders and phones were picked up for the long journey home. Unseen and invisible, she was the sentinel who watched over the change from day to night. During work hours, the offices were alive with color and purpose. Posters plastered across the walls encouraged the reader to take risks, move fast, break things. She could never understand this urge to stir the water, to cause waves. This craving to break things and start anew. The vast office spaces were filled with chairs that existed in different shapes, some of them soft amorphous blobs, others upside-down tops that rotated dizzily. The people who came to work reminded her of children playing dress-up. Arriving on bicycles and scooters, backpacks strapped over both shoulders, they were young and fresh-faced. They spoke to computer screens while walking nowhere on treadmills, holding expensive cups of coffees in their hands. One time, she unlocked a door to discover that the floor was a pit filled with plastic balls. On her good days, the place reminded her of the night markets from her youth. The same bustle and color, the same business frenzy unfolding around her. Yet the vendors at the night markets had a hunger in their eyes they couldn't hide, no matter how casually they pretended they didn't need the sale. The children in these offices – they were well-fed and soft, had known nothing of true hardship or struggle. Every evening, Rose – the name she placed on her job applications in brackets to appear more "American" – arrived to clean up after these working children. She would swipe through the turnstile with the identity card attached to her waistband. Though her identity card was meant to provide proof of her membership, she couldn't help feeling that it repeatedly failed at its task. She did not belong to this place, this life. Pushing her janitorial cart from space to space, Rose's mind would wander as she emptied plastic trash containers tucked under desks. Sometimes she would marvel at how much food was thrown away as she wiped counters in kitchens dotted around the offices, her mouth watering at the selection of organic snacks but knowing the treats were not for her. Sometimes she would glance at the computer screens, the ones that hadn't turned black. The screens were often filled with letters and numbers that made no sense to her, as though a child had mashed the buttons on the keyboard until the screen filled up. The fact that these combinations of symbols meant something, created something – it astonished her. Most of the time, she thought about Julia. Rose would move silently between the desks, leaving a trail of cleanliness in her wake like a tornado in reverse. Occasionally someone would look up from [End Page 44] packing away their belongings and flash a smile in Rose's direction. She would nod silently, avoiding direct eye contact unless they looked like Julia. So many of these young girls looked like Julia, with their silky black hair tied into ponytails, their tilted eyes magnified behind thick glasses. She often thought of Julia's childhood, when she was round-cheeked and still adoring of everything Rose did. "Mommy, look at me!" "Mommy, watch this!" Her childish voice repeated requests for attention until the sweetness became grating, a sugary treat that became sickly. Rose regretted her feelings of annoyance now, wished she could go back and kneel before Julia, giving her all the attention she craved. Sometimes she remembered Julia as a teenager, and the cold feeling that descended between them as Julia grew distant and scornful. Rose could never figure out how to reach her, didn't know how to traverse the choppy seas of age and language to bring her sarcastic American daughter back to shore. So she did the only thing she could think of to keep...