In the Counseling Room
Today’s visitor was a boy. As soon as he sat down, his first sentence startled me.
“I am afraid of all teachers.”
What kind of boy is this?
During this time that belongs to the classroom, why would he come here to me instead of attending class?
Why does the sound of shoes treading on the playground and the roll calls of P.E. teachers keep drifting in from outside the window? This, like background music, seems to better explain the boy’s experience.
Later, he answered nothing; he kept staring at my shoes, staring for so long that it made me feel embarrassed. After I flipped the hourglass, his attention seemed to focus entirely on the hourglass; in any case, he just wouldn’t look into my eyes. Not once did he look into my eyes.
He also said that for so long, he hasn’t even been able to remember clearly what his classmates look like, because he dares not look at their faces. The reason he dares not look at their faces is that when looking at someone’s face, one tends to look first at their eyes—look at their eyes! Heavens, he lamented thus, but I cannot see others’ eyes clearly at all. My eyes are but a chaos; my irises are of a monotonous brown; I have nothing. I possess no fair skin, I cannot write a fine hand, and I have no melodious voice.
Really? He said.
He still clearly remembers the few people who praised his voice for sounding good, and he has always treasured those beautiful memories like sweet springs; merely recalling them occasionally is as delightful as tasting sweet wine.
The first was in the first year of middle school, when he bravely did a reading sharing on the podium for the first time. For the girls who had not heard his voice despite school having started for several weeks, the voice of the introverted him was simply akin to a mystery. Later on the internet, he was told his voice was very pleasant, via an anonymous message from another girl in the class who also had a pleasant voice.
The second was his science teacher in the third year of middle school, who was very young. Another aspect, also very young, that made him admire him immensely was that he spoke bluntly before the whole class about the injustice he received at school, and frankly confessed his thoughts of seeking death and resignation. He felt that such a man was a person far more sincere than all those other hypocritical teachers. Towards all other teachers, including those who treated him well, he harbored a nameless fear. At that time, he called on him to answer a question, then smiled and said with sincere surprise, “So your voice sounds this good.” He sat down silently, saying nothing, but at that moment, he was truly, truly happy.
The third time was during a summer camp in the second year of middle school. On the journey back to school after it ended, he sat together with the most outstanding girl in the school. She merely saw there were no seats in the back rows while there was a seat next to him, so she sat down beside the boy for convenience, completely lacking the habit of other boys and girls who never sat with the opposite sex. She shared potato chips with him; he only dared to take one chip at a time, and his hand trembled every time he took one. She praised his voice for being pleasant, but he foolishly tried to explain why his voice was pleasant: by not speaking, the voice becomes pleasant.
Since then, he has never heard anyone praise his voice again, because he stopped speaking altogether, to the point that many strangers suspected he was a mute. He always wore a gloomy face; occasionally he was indeed in a bad mood, but even when he was in high spirits, he would still over-manage his expressions. This could be seen from the fact that he would stifle his laughter when hearing dirty jokes, and was seen stifling his laughter countless times.
His father passed away very early, so this was frequently considered the cause of his illness. Yet he emphasized many times that he cared not a whit about his father’s death, so much so that his family felt he was cold and heartless, loving no one. But he said his father was an impressive man, because he successfully quit smoking for the sake of his mother.
He said he was truly afraid of teachers.
But under my questioning, he added: You are actually quite alright.
I smiled.
He seemed to hope very much that I could change his life at school. Only then did I notice that although the cold wind outside was biting to the bone and it was almost snowing, he was still wearing the autumn school uniform, not the winter padded coat.
Why dress like this? Are you cold?
He said that on the way to this building, he was blown by the wind until he cried. He felt that all parts of his body were snatched away by the cold wind, and he had absolutely no control. He felt endless pain spreading through every part of his body; the cold wind seemed as if it were going to dismember him. He struggled to hug himself, yet could only shed a few tears.
Then why not wear something thicker? The school must have issued winter padded coats, right?
Because that would be very strange! He said. Isn’t wearing the winter uniform a very strange thing? It’s as strange as wearing a padded coat in summer, but obviously, wearing shorts in summer is also strange, an unreasonable behavior.
In what way exactly is this strange? I really couldn’t quite understand.
I don’t understand myself either. The only vocabulary I can think of is “strange” or “inopportune,” and my brain really hasn’t told me why it is strange. He spoke thus.
Do you know how cold I am in the dormitory during winter? Do you know that due to my father’s negligence, after my mattress was mistaken for a duvet cover, how narrow and cold my quilt was, how helpless I was in the freezing night, unable to fall asleep?
I curled myself up tightly and forcefully, half-wrapping and half-covering myself with the narrow quilt, hugging my thighs tightly like an infant, yet trying to avoid more unstable contact with the quilt. Because the quilt was essentially made of ice, as cold as trouser legs in winter. I was so cold I was about to cry again. But that day, no one noticed my coldness; everyone regarded my silence as the same normality as usual. I find this quite absurd.
I wanted to hug him, but his body was somewhat stiff.
He said he was not used to hugging others and would feel an inexplicable fear.