Work Text:
Of all the things that Ray Xu is expecting to happen, on what turns out to be his last hour on earth, the wormhole that opens up on the far wall is probably last on the list.
And yet, there it is, unmistakable even though this is the first one he’s ever seen. Like someone has reached into his brain and deposited the knowledge of their existence as if it’s always been there. One moment he was considering the itch that has developed at the injection site of the IV that is currently pumping painkillers into his system, the next it hits him: ah, yes, this is completely normal.
It starts like one big mirror; his current self reflected back at him, hospital bed and all. He looks tired, he thinks, despite the fact that he does little else but sleep, nowadays.
But then the image shifts, without changing at all, and he’s looking at things he thought he would never see.
There are no tears, he notices. Not because they won’t exist, of course, but because this vision of the future is sparing him that detail out of kindness. Instead, he sees laughter.
A group of boys gathered on thick duvets on the floor, their mugs forgotten about as they bicker about the game of Monopoly that’s been upended. Ray knows exactly who has scattered the pieces in a huff: his son has always been a sore loser. He gets it from his father; Yan always plays for the fun of it, but the Xu boys like to win. Somehow, she always emerges victorious and Ray has wondered, more than once, whether the woman he married is far more cutthroat than she likes to make out.
It’s too late to ponder, because the image has changed again.
A dark room and colourful lights appear, complete with clouds on the wall. Ray briefly considers that he might have finally lost his mind, until he realises that those clouds are painted boards; works of art made especially for whatever prom or party he’s seeing.
Maybe it’s a disco. Do schools still have those? Ray remembers trying to explain to his wife the distinct awkwardness of standing on one side of a school hall while the girls lined up across the way. Dear Yan, who has never felt a moment’s awkwardness in her life.
That’s how they met, incidentally, when she saved him from the humiliation of not being able to pronounce anything on the menu when he wandered into a Chinatown restaurant, convinced he was the epitome of cultured.
She had laughed kindly at him, and not really stopped. Until recently. He misses that laugh.
Except, there it is again. His Yan, head tipped back and teeth shining under the kitchen island lights as she talks into the phone. Her sister is on the other end – Li is the only person that Yan can still use her Cantonese with – and the two of them are engaged in a fierce back and forth. Ray’s Cantonese has always been a little patchy, but somehow he understands her perfectly.
Elle. Beautiful. Girlfriend. Soulmate.
Ray hopes that his son meets her soon. Unlikely, given that he’s just started at the same all boy’s school that Ray terrorised in the eighties. He’ll have to find himself a hobby that gets him out of his shell, or at least out of his bedroom, but Ray knows that Yan will be his cheerleader. It’s nice to know that this Elle will come along too, one day.
There’s a final image on display when Ray feels his eyelids getting heavy again. It starts off static – a single, unchanging freeze frame of his camera on a shelf. It’s his pride and joy; bought on a belated honeymoon to New York from a shop that was bursting at the seams with lenses and film. Originally, he had longed for the romance of a film camera; of a dark room and hours spent swirling an exact cocktail to slowly reveal whatever beautiful thing he has captured with his lens.
Yan had wound her arms around him and pressed her growing belly against his back to remind him that their spare room would soon have a different purpose.
So, he had brought the digital one home instead, and that purpose had become his favourite thing to capture.
On a Sunday morning, with one sock and that worn, floppy bunny that they picked up from a charity shop.
On every first day of school, knowing that within half an hour their neatly presented boy would look like he’d walked through a hurricane.
On every Christmas, birthday and Chinese New Year; out of focus and posed alike all taking up space in the boxes of albums that he’s accumulated.
Now, he sees that same camera; held up in Paris and hiding a wide grin as it captures more and more memories. Ray imagines those boxes filling up, ad infinitum, until the entire house is bursting at the seams with portraits of love and laughter and life living on. He sees himself in that same stance; the slight hunch as the gaze seeks out the best lighting; the frozen grin of concentration before the button is pressed and the mechanics whirr.
Ray’s fingers twitch with the memory of it all.
It’s a beautiful thing, to see yourself live on.
Then Tao – his son, his boy – steps back into the room with an armful of snacks and the beanie his grandma knitted him at Christmas pulled right down on his forehead. He’s a good foot and a half shorter than the version of him currently projected onto the crisp white wall like a heavenly private screening. Ray can see it all, though, the future as it plays out behind the boy he knows will one day be absolutely fine.
“Always did love the cinema, didn’t we?” are the last words that will leave his lips but, when Ray takes his final breath, he knows that it’s okay.