By William Haryanto
Papa is standing on a chair, and he holds a bat as if he is going to play whack-a-mole tonight.
“Can I play, Papa?” I ask.
“No,” he says, “it is unsafe. You better go inside now.”
Mama pulls me into the house.
“I want to play with Papa,” I say.
“Shh…” she says. “Papa is protecting us.”
“From moles?”
“Yes,” Mama says, “the moles want to eat us all. They have pitchforks. They think we Chinese are to blame for everything.”
“Why?”
She points to her arm. “That. The color of our skin.”
“But,” I say, “moles can’t see colors.”
This is such a good piece on many levels of the characters, I catch my throat.
Nice work.