Yi Jun Phung
My ama says I sell death like roasted char siu
And tian ah, no one should willingly buy it, from me or anyone else. Every time I bring up estate planning, she reacts like water flicked on hot, screaming oil. Says she saw aba coughing up steak-red blood the other day — my penance, she adds, for packing up dead people like dead meat. I’m not supposed to correct her; the doctor believes it might derail her recovery if she remembered aba was really dead. So I hold my tongue, let her describe how red aba’s blood was. The nurse nearby hushes her, says we’re scaring the other residents. Ama waves her away like she’s more fly than human.
I notice how her arm flab, once soft and tender, has fallen off her bones, how the rough sourplum-coloured skintags on her wrist reaches, reaches, reaches her elbow, how her tofu-white hair frays at the end, like cracking vermicelli noodles she’d loved to cook for the kids. But to ama, I’m the one who looks like death, being in the business of one.
I try to tell her about Mrs Trin, who came into my office alone smelling like honey and hot oil, her skin glazed with some kind of liquid gold. She announced she wanted her own burial plot next to someone who isn’t (wasn’t) her husband, asked for the highest point of the hill so her fat, greedy children won’t be able to visit her. Giving birth to a char siu would have been better, she said. Fed them until they were adults and now they still ask for change back. I tell ama there are people like Mrs Trin, the ones with zest, the ones who look death in the eye and cackle, the ones who rip up the box of chocolates instead of never knowing what they’re going to get.
All ama does is blanch at my story. Most of my customers are like her, who think death is a dirty word, who think one should not have to choose to be buried or burned. Customers like ama often have to be dragged, whipped, tugged by their adult children into my office. When they’re inside, they’re quiet, simmering in their own petulance until boiling point. Once, I was explaining our ala carté burial services, how embalming is the common add-on to make the body look presentable. The old man became a flambé of hot bubbles, his cheeks torched red. I am not a slab of meat! he screamed. His children had to temper him down, with sweet words, with an icy drink, with a good rub, and eventually, he lost steam. They said they’ll try again next week, but they came back the next day: his heart gave out. I told the embalmer to go easy on the blush.
I get an ill-timed call from the office, and ama’s thin lips shape into a thin line, because that means someone’s either dead or preparing to die. I want to get her out of this sour mood, so I talk about safer topics: Mark’s not retiring yet, the kids are off to college soon, and her other daughter is still too busy to visit her. The last time I heard from her, she had called me selfish for dumping our mother here, said ama should be staying with one of us as long as it’s not with her. Ama pretends to listen, but I know she’s still brining in salty au jus like the old man was.
A nurse interrupts us, says it’s time for ama to have her medicine. I don’t let ama wave me off, and in a rush of words, I ask if she wants to be cremated or buried. She spits at me, says she wants to go home. I wipe her saliva off my chin, ask where she’d like to be laid to rest. She calls me ungrateful, says I want her dead so I could get her inheritance. I tell her she has no money.
She tells me giving birth to a char siu would have been better than giving birth to me.
I tell her that aba’s dead.
Then we both sit there, stewing in the words we cannot take back.
Most of Yi Jun Phung's past work revolves around retail & fashion, having contributed to Inside Retail Australia and Inside Retail Asia. Now, she's having a (mostly) splendid time diving into the world of fiction. Her work was previously published in Gown Lawn, National 2024 FlashFlood and Free Flash Fiction. Find her work at https://yijunphung.blog/.
