LI YAO

OUT THE DOOR

translated by Tingya Jin and Deva Eveland

Out the door, out the door. He'll go out the door. Has this fifty-year old man ever been twenty or thirty? He looks in the mirror. No. He has always been fifty. And though he is toying with a razor in his hand, he is actually expending more energy to fiddle with the ideas in his head than to shave. 

Were he to turn right, at this very moment he would see his wife squatting in front of a pot of orchids, only a few green leaves clinging to its stem. This is a pot of moth orchids, she thinks to herself. When you flower, they will know your beauty. Like a sprinter readying herself to run, she holds her body in check. She presses her left knee to the ground, so her buttock rests on her left heel, putting most of the weight on her toes. This leaves her with two principle options for the positioning of the right half of her body. Option one: place the right foot forward, in which case the right thigh would slope down and the right knee would stick up so that the right elbow could rest on top of it. Option two: slide the right foot backwards and lift the heels. In this case, the right knee would correspondingly sink below the waist. Actually, it would be best if she switched between the two positions every thirty seconds or so to ensure blood circulation and avoid numbness or paralysis of the legs. Also worth mentioning, the woman's long hair is naturally dense and black. At her age this is something remarkable, though right now wouldn't be the best time to see it: she has just washed her hair, and it shines with a dazzling array of white light. 

If the gentleman turns 90 degrees further to the right, he will be facing their daughter. It can be said that she is sitting on the sofa, or it can be said that the sofa's seat and the backrest are collapsing gently together around her. She presses her two knees together and locks them inside a knot created by her two arms, forming a firm shelf on which to lay the chin. The portion of her face below the mouth, including the chin, is actually hidden from view. From a distance (if there were such a distance), she might look like a clenched fist. Since her eyes are directed ever so slightly up (Announcement: birds are oviparous and have feathers, therefore bats are not birds) she has to lift them higher than she would like and her raised eyebrows create a few folds on her forehead. When she feels uncomfortable, she casts her eyes down to look at her ten toes laid out side by side, hanging over the edge of the sofa. There seem to be more than ten toes at first glance. The red nail polish was not painted recently and there are some traces of chipping. The living room surrounding these three people, which is perfumed by an air freshener whose lemon scent blankets its 20 square meters, is of limited utility because of the large and small items furnishing the space. 

Draw three lines between the items so far specified (razor, flower pot, sofa) and form them into an isosceles trapezoid. Please note that the sofa acts as the shorter base in this trapezoid, while the longer base is to be drawn between the razor and the flower pot. The legs of the trapezoid are formed between the sofa and the razor and the sofa and the flower pot respectively. Along the axis of symmetry which bisects the trapezoid is an animal which is both static and in frantic motion (a 42-inch Konka LCD TV; a nature documentary about birds). Many birds, maybe tens of thousands, fly to the same destination. Sports shoes and casual clothing appear next, followed by beer and two varieties of convenience foods (you will of course be familiar with this form of advertising). It seems that these items are made out of birds, and the place where the flock of birds retreat to is a factory where bird products are manufactured. The chocolate-colored TV cabinet reflects the images on the screen. One particular feeling stands out from the shimmering images: The birds are mostly white. 

The TV cabinet is not fully utilized. Apart from a DVD device and two remote controls, there isn't anything else placed on it (the television doesn't count since they have already molded together). But looking at what is behind the TV, one finds a black multi-purpose power strip with six plugs. The empty sockets seem to mock the crowded conditions to the left of the television. On that side, there is a water cooler with an old-style wooden-handled mop leaning against it, a large mirror with a height of more than one meter (and in addition, hanging half a meter above the ground). Each of these items is slightly overlapping the other. There is even a man crowding into this same space. Of course, he could just as easily have chosen to shave in the bathroom. He would have exactly the same facilities there. 

"I don't want to shave in the toilet. The smell there is too strong," he explains to his wife. The right side of the TV stand is a wide empty expanse, making it easier to recognize the existence of the wooden floor. As for the flower pot, the water flowing from the spout of the green watering can, and woman kneeling: they all quietly but articulately declare: we were not always here . Indeed. The wife makes a hasty escape from the appreciation of flowers which do not yet exist. She gets up and walks to the window occupying almost half the side wall. With both hands clasped, she pulls open the heavy dark red curtains. Twin shadows on either side land gently on the floor like pouncing cats. The coffee-colored tea table placed in front of the sofa glows white, reflecting many shimmering panes. The glass-surfaced coffee table has two levels. The upper layer is empty and a few circular water marks, impressions left from the bottom of a cup, now dried, can be identified. A glass ashtray with a diameter of about 15 centimeters and a green matchbox (name of a hotel with sesame-sized black lettering) rest on the lower shelf. The ashtray is very clean. A sea-green plastic trash can (lined with a black bag) leans against one leg of the coffee table. It hasn't been emptied today: though already filled with rubbish, the exact contents cannot be clearly discerned. 

The physical space outside the perimeter of the trapezoid is also sizeable, though containing relatively few items. An automatic washing machine (white) sits near the corner of the wall on the right side. A drain pipe is inserted into the water outlet hidden behind it. A plastic basket containing the clothes to be washed is on one side; the dormant wall-mounted air conditioners (white, like all air conditioners) hang on a wall near the ceiling, and the exhaust pipe punches crudely through the walls to extend outside. A second sofa, brown, with a shorter back, rests against the right edge of the first. There is a red phone sitting on top of it, though this must be ascertained by looking at it from the side (looking down, one would only notice the white checked handkerchief it rests underneath). There are two doors functioning to seal the living room off from the outside into which the man hopes to venture: one is to the right of the window and leads to the balcony (though it has been left open, so that the living room spills out onto the balcony); the other is to the left of the sofa, on the back wall leading to the stairs, and can be further extended to a place that is not anything at all. 

The man will go out. Time builds up behind him, pushing him toward the door with impolite thrusts: yes, he will go out soon. But looking at the three people in the living room, and observing the surface of their bodies, we see pajamas, pajamas, pajamas—they are still fully, absolutely, indoors. 

He puts on a pair of black trousers. They hang loose around his legs, which are rather skinny in comparison with his plump upper body. A sky-blue cotton shirt is now half on, an arm still tunneling through the sleeves. The hand just stretches out of the cuff and stops suddenly, his arms still wide open. The man draws his lips back into a grin and presses the tip of his tongue against his teeth as he inhales, making a hissing sound. In other words: he breathes in a cool breath. Pain... Arthritis, slipped discs. He looks at the mirror and looks at his elbow. And then twists his neck again, as if it weren't a mirror but an X-ray picture. He closes his eyes and looks inside. The pain is like some kind of colored gas. It gradually spreads out in the dark space of his interior, leaving only the slightest lingering feeling, faintly flashing. With a burst of unexpected energy, he tugs both ends of his collar and folds them down against the shirt. And then he does the buttons—from top to bottom. The top button is like a hungry dog that has been tied up and strains against its lead, desperately reaching for the buttonhole. But if we slow down, a repetitive astronomical landscape comes into view: a series of lunar eclipses, in which each moon goes from new to full as one descends down the shirt. When the man begins buttoning the bottom two buttons, he can almost hear them crying out to complain: "You really are obese." The ripples of fat are flocking towards them, but they intercept it and stuff the contents under the cloth. His shirt-bound stomach balloons out in obedience to gravity, flopping over his waistband. 

He tips forward on his feet, his head pointing at the mirror for a quick inspection. The man turns his neck to the right and examines the left side of his face in the mirror. Then he cranes to the left to see the right side. No wrinkles have snuck up on him. In fact, he thinks he might actually be younger than yesterday. Contented with this conclusion, he draws his head back and stands at attention. He looks into the mirror and draws his face into a serious expression. Then he narrows his eyes, gives a threatening look. His face relaxes and spreads out (as if he has somehow become larger) into a smile. It seems like a new face, cheerful and strong. Wanting to try out his new face, he turns his smile toward the living room. His anxiety melts away. His daughter's eyes are drawn in by something on the screen, stuck there like a pair of fuzzy flies, dead. Below her gaze, the wife squats on the floor next to the coffee table. She is putting tremendous effort into showing her dissatisfaction without words—dissatisfaction that she alone is contributing to the family. The man turns again and strides toward the door. His image disappears confidently from the mirror, as though he has accomplished something important. Outside the boundaries of the mirror, he pushes the door open and kicks into a pair of leather shoes. Now he looks out the door, his face expressionless, as though completely unaware of the actions of the body beneath it.