It was the year of 2019.
A fine young lady in her teens was schooled in the local Hong Kong scene.
(For the sake of the story, this lady will be named Millicent.)
……
One would assume that a student would be told how to get good grades. Millicent was told to get more sleep. Everyone around her seemed to see how she resembled the undead, except herself. Perhaps she thought that was why she was beautiful.
We have a saying in Cantonese, “One has time to die, but none for being sick.” It described Millicent’s circumstances well. She was busy, so she just did the next thing she knew she still could. Millicent didn’t have time to consider if she was put under too much pressure or if she could actually manage it all. Millicent didn’t have time for silly questions.
…
In a twisted way, Millicent found her work manageable. She was a Class Prefect, Secretary of the Music Club, Liaison Officer of the Debate Club, Senior Editor of the Editorial Board, Senior Leader of the Chinese Orchestra, member of the Intermediate Choir and second in class. Milicent slept 5 hours per day at most but she never felt tired.
Millicent worked. Every day, it was 8 hours of school, an hour-long lunch break broken down into a 20-minute queue for her lunch, 5 to 10 minutes for her to actually consume it and 30 minutes of practice for various things, followed by 2-hour long rehearsals or extra-curricular activities after school. By the time Millicent got home, it would be around 7. She would have dinner and start her homework at around 11 or 12, hoping to get most of it done by 2 or 3. At 6, Millicent would awake to the sneering sun and its rays of death. The day would go on the same as the previous one.
In this pedestrian Game of Life, Millicent needed a purpose. Millicent followed the advice of the voice inside her, beckoning and stifling ceaselessly. She joined competitions.
And so the innocuous girl begged her parents to pay for entrance to six solo competitions that semester, one of them being a Non-Open Solo Verse Speaking Competition, her strongest suit. You see, Millicent had won the championship last year, and a first runner-up the year before, when she started training for it. Foolish she was to think she might have a penchant for performance, a bud of talent in her – It was her secret pride.
…
It came time for the competition, an evening in late November. Who would have thought, in one’s penultimate year of school, one year away from the most important exam in one’s life, that there would be enough time to prepare? Poor Millicent was underprepared without the one or two freer months to dissect and digest the poem well. But, as the voice said, only losers would aim the gun at the sky. We couldn’t have that, of course.
So the little competitor soldiered on. Millicent kept running the lines, repeating her routine in the waiting area, pacing back and forth, back and forth. The paper on her hand was harassed by palm sweat. The ink bled away like fortune in the hands of a New Money. As Millicent assailed her pinky finger, her heart leapt to her throat as if a child on a brand new trampoline. She gulped with equal force in response to the heartless act, exhausted and disquieted.
“You may enter.” announced the Adjudicator’s Assistant.
Eager girls crowded the entryway. Millicent, still battling the zest and vigor of her organs, blended imperfectly into the passionate mob. Within seconds, everyone entered a room with nice chairs, bright lights and a wooden stage. Millicent took the seat labeled with her number, 31, and effectively embarrassed her parents as she wiggled and wriggled away. Soon, it was announced that there would be an intermission after Contestant Number 25. And then the competition began.
…
Milicent listened to different renditions of the poem, some more literal, some demonstrative, some with props – which instantly earned them a disqualification – and some unnaturally slow. The impatient candidate just waited in her seat, reciting every word with the other contestants, judging how she would do better.
Then came the break.
Since Millicent had extra time, she thought she ought to grasp every bit of it to practice. She recited the poem over and over, line after line after line, checking every word she had to stress, every tonal change, every emotion to convey. Millicent’s scrutiny awoke the voice. It said it wasn’t perfect enough.
Millicent panicked.
“Please return to your seats,” announced the Adjudicator’s Assistant.
The pinky was under attack again.
“Number 31.” announced the Adjudicator’s Assistant.
How her heart was encouraged!
The voice reminded Millicent that she was an actress. So, donning on a mask of a heroine, Millicent opened her mouth.
It all faded to black afterwards.
…
Millicent bowed and returned to her seat, somehow shaking yet numb. The voice plighted her the whole time and she didn’t wear her glasses, so she couldn’t see anything before her, nor could she analyze the faces of the Adjudicator, her competitors or the audience. She could only hear the voice’s contemptuous cackles, how it told her she would lose, she was an unworthy imposter born into the wrong body, the wrong home. Millicent didn’t respond. She couldn’t anyway. Objectively, she had botched her performance. She wasn’t loud enough, clear enough, immersed enough, proper enough, dramatic enough......
She wasn’t enough.
The other contestants’ steady steps and agape mouth made Millicent all the more certain that she couldn’t be champion. It seemed, then, that every utterance articulated, every bit of silence was like little termites gnawing at her nerves. Millicent desperately wanted a way out.
…
“In third place, Number 3, Number 16 and Number 31. Congratulations!”
Huh. Congratulations. What mockery.
Millicent went up to accept the “prize”. Her paralyzed hand met with that of the austere Adjudicator’s. Little Millicent tried to keep her gaze straight, attempting to stifle her tears and the urge to murder him. After that, she grabbed her mother and went into the car. She asked her father to drive away as quickly as possible.
“點呀？// How was it?” asked Millicent’s concerned mother.
“可唔可以唔好同我講嘢啊？// Can you stop talking to me?” replied Millicent, already inundated by an ocean of tears.
“你唔好咁同媽咪講嘢。// Don't talk to your mother like that,” Millicent’s father scolded, his words scalding her.
……
On and on the lecture went,
On and on Millicent's tears fell.
Gone with the tears was self-respect;
The voice’s nonsense had taken effect.
Soon, Millicent was fully wrecked,
All because of the word “perfect”.
So was this day marked with woe;
Once a black dot on the calendar, now a black hole.
Guilt, shame, fury, distortion!
Summoned upon the voice's intrusion.
The guilty girl cried, cried, cried and cried,
Crying inside for a chance at goodbye.
Boohoo! Boo! Hoo!
Resignation was not an option.