The moon was bright, but the clouds scudded across the ground constantly threw it into darkness. The world was silent and lifeless after the torrential rain. It was as if the tempest had scrubbed all into eternal peace. Out of the nothingness, a teenage boy scrambled out of his house into the soaked grass and tumbled around mumbling to remember what he’d been doing an hour earlier. He was so confused, and when he tried to remember it was as if his mind was a blank slate, it felt like it had left his body and all his memories were scattered carelessly into the evening air. He was perturbed that he was unable to grasp his thoughts as he tried impossibly to collect them.

“Mother.” He whispered. “Where are you?”

There was no reply.

A lack of insecurity besieged him. He panicked.

Jack started to walk towards the direction of town, wanting to find a place where crowds gather and to get away from the gruesome house that he lived in. His body visibly trembled when the breeze flapped against his clothes as he groped his way through the dark streets.

Jack wandered aimlessly, guided only by the luminescence of the moon towering over him until he reached the town center and a clamor arose from a pub across the street.

Pubs were usually the best places to ask for all kinds of information, and maybe this way he would find his mother. Without thinking, Jack walked towards the pub and opened the door. Waves of shouts, tumult, and earsplitting music hit him from every direction. Noises pinched his head like a vice and he immediately regretted the decision of coming in. Just as he was about to turn back, a beefy hand clutched his shoulder.

“Jack!” The person hung on to him drunkenly with a breath that smelled like rotten meat. “What brings you to town?”

He backed up a few steps and stared blankly: he did not know this man at all.

“How do you know my name?”

“Who wouldn’t know the famous boy who lost his mother two years ago and lived all alone in his massive old castle and is never seen after? I admire your courage, boy,” the man gave out a little laugh, “even I cannot get by without my wife feeding me. As for that haunted castle, no one had the guts to live there till you and your mother moved in.”

“My mother is NOT dead. You don’t understand. I am not alone.” Jack retorted defiantly, thinking that two years of not coming into town had got such rumors spread! Even if his blackouts were getting worse from the first occurrence two years ago, he could still remember his own life.

“HA—look at him—he had completely gone out of his mind! It was all written in the local newspapers… One of the few homicides in all these years…”  The man looked to others in the pub. Then he turned back to Jack and asked, “You were the one who called the police, weren’t you? And acted all composed when the police asked you questions about your mother’s death.”

Hearing this, Jack blinked. He was nonplussed. “No. My mother is still alive. I see her smiling face every day—she cooks my meals, washes my clothes, sweeps the house, and changes my bedsheets. I’m not crazy, and maybe you are—now, if you could speak the truth, do you have a clue where my mother could be?” Suppressing his anger, he replied with his greatest sincerity.

The man squinted at him. He fell silent for a moment, then burst into uncontrollable roars of laughter. “HAHAHAHA—are you crazy? I don’t know what you are thinking about, making up stories that do you no good… It is the way it is, and accept it, kid—your mother is DEAD. Check the newspapers yourself. Spunk up and face the facts.” He gulped down the rest of the liquid in his goblet and smacked his lips, weaved back to his seat and sat down, never taking another look at Jack again. Laughter arose from the man’s table as he explained to others and, occasionally, people gave Jack nasty glances.

Jack was left standing there alone in bewilderment. A moment later, humiliation swept all over him. Accompanying the uncomfortable feeling of being isolated and made fun of was an endless confusion that questioned his mother’s existence and truth of the matter. Then his head started throbbing excruciatingly, deterring him from doing further thinking. Amid the pain there was one thought that floated around in the chaos but became very distinct in his mind: he ought to punch the man until he speaks no more, because no one is allowed to talk about his mother like that.

In that same second, he seemed to disappear from himself. His mind was painfully filled with violent thoughts and wrath clutched to his body like a serpent, with its venom permeating into his skin and making his blood boil. A voice started ringing inside his head, telling him to immediately take action.

With a sudden impulse, Jack marched over to the drunk man who was taking swigs of liquor, cracking vulgar jokes, and totally unaware of Jack standing behind him. The hand had raised itself and without a word, the man was punched on the back of his head and his face smacked directly into the bar counter. How Jack did it he did not know and would never know, but at that moment he finally untied himself from his mother’s aprons and manned up. He stood there, looked at the scene he had made in triumph, and grinned such a mad contorted smile that even he couldn’t recognize himself.

The next moment, the bar descended into dreadful silence. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at the embroilment. Slowly, people watched as Bill picked his head up from the bar counter, spun around to face Jack and shoved a quick, powerful fist on Jack’s face, sending him to the ground on all fours.

Bill looked condescendingly at the face beneath him, sending off a snort of derision: “Get up.”

Jack managed to scramble on to his feet with difficulty. “How dare you…” Without letting him finish the sentence, Bill cast another hard blow on Jack and he again dropped to the ground in agonizing pain. Jack clutched his stomach and curled up helplessly against the cold hard ground.

Around them, a crowd had started to gather. People were shouting, cheering, and whistling clamorously, but not a single person went near.

Bill bent down, drawing himself closer to Jack. “What happens next is not my fault,” he said. With these words, a rain of fists landed on Jack with dull thuds, each blow causing him a tremendous deal of pain.

The crowd cheered on the man once more: “Bravo, Bill!” “Go get him!”

Jack wished he could just faint away. Yet, he got more and more somber with each assault. “Your mother is dead,” the man’s words rang in his ears. No, my mother is not dead. He thought indignantly. Thwack. Well, she could be dead, because everything feels so surreal to me now. Thwack. Is my mother still alive? If not, who is the “mother” that I still see every day then?

Jack plunged into a desperation so deep that he did not dare to find the solution to his problems. “I don’t understand this world,” he muttered under his breath, enduring each fist punch that attacked him with full force. He closed his eyes. All the clamor around him sounded so distant now; he suddenly felt detached as peace started to enter his mind. He started thinking.

He had convinced himself not to face the reality because he couldn’t believe what others believed in—but what if that is the immutable truth? But is it also possible that truth could be two-fold? …Truth is indeed a fallacious paradox, Jack thought as he stared into the pub ceiling. But with this realization he became fully present, fully conscious.

 “Who said you must be right?” Lying on the ground, Jack’s attention started to refocus. He firmly fixed his eyes on Bill and sneered. Blood trickled down the side of Jack’s face which was covered in bruises and scrapes. His white shirt was stained with blinding scarlet.

“Who said there can only be one correct answer to every question?”

He continued, unafraid. “Well, if you believed hard enough, why can’t you make things the other way? Truth looks different through everyone’s eyes, and what right do you have to accuse me of what I believe in?”

Bill suddenly straightened up. All around them the crowd silenced. A second later, everyone except for Jack started laughing so crazily that the bar shook dangerously with a potency to collapse.

People laughed in hysteria, “Fact is fact—there is no way to change it.”

“This poor kid—he is definitely crazy.”Bill looked around the bar and shook his head violently. “I thought he was a courageous boy—it turns out that he is only a coward who dares not face the facts.”

That night, Jack did not know how he managed to get out from the bar. His every single step back home hurt, and he thought he was about to shatter. Walking down the empty streets after the midnight with cold wind blasted his skin, tears started streaming down his face. He desperately wished for his mother to come back to him, give him comfort like she used to in his most fragile moments, tenderly clasp her hands around his head, and whisper into his ears that “everything is going to be okay”.

“The outside world is so dangerous and so fully of malice, mother,” he said to himself. “I wish I would never have to go out to look for you again… Please come back to me… PLEASE.” When Jack finally reached the house, he was still in a state of trance.

Jack trudged up the wooden stairs to his house and repeated to himself over and over that everything is going to be okay. Then slowly, the door creaked open in front of him. Jack looked upward. His mother was standing behind the threshold still, placid and waiting. Around her, a timeless aura seemed to have lighted up her pale face in a dreamy color. She smiled softly towards Jack and reached out a hand to him: “Welcome home.”