This is a short story written by an AU student as part of our Creative Submission series. If you would like a work to be published in the Student Movement, please email your submission to tjhatra@andrews.edu.
I first began to think that Wang was lying to me when I asked him why he was on the phone with his great-aunt Ju, and he said that he was helping her with Facebook. I found this strange. His aunt doesn’t have Facebook—how could he be helping her with Facebook if she doesn’t have it? Wang had no reason to lie to me about his great-aunt Ju. In fact, he has no reason to lie to me at all.
Then, when we went to Costco, he stayed in the bathroom for thirty-five minutes. This was unusual—especially since his eyes were puffy and blotchy when he came back. I asked him if he had been crying and he said no, certainly not. His contact got folded in his eye and he had to dig it out. That explanation felt dubious at best for obvious reasons. I told him so. He really should not be a liar, especially not to me, because I care about him a lot and I have known him for years. Wang insisted that he was not lying, only proving that he definitely was: I already suspected that he lied about his great-aunt Ju, and only liars lie about lying. He said he didn’t appreciate me calling him a liar, because even if he was lying—which he wasn’t—one lie does not make him a liar. Besides, he told the truth about his great-aunt Ju; she had asked him to help her friend log into a locked account.
After thinking it over on the drive home, I decided to give him a chance. His great-aunt Ju calls him all the time for help with her phone or computer, and she has many friends. He was still technically lying, though, because he wasn’t helping her with Facebook—he was helping her friend. If he wanted to not be a liar he would have said that he was helping his great-aunt Ju’s friend with Facebook. Wang got a little misty-eyed and said that nobody would say they were helping their great-aunt Ju’s friend with Facebook when they could say they were helping their great-aunt Ju, which is basically the same. I reminded him that a) he should handle his emotions and b) that’s still a lie. Besides, he still lied about what happened in the Costco bathroom.
I thought we should have a backyard stone-throwing contest to decide whether he was lying or not. Wang complained at first, but he agreed after I reminded him that I have been paying for his things and letting him live in my house. I paid for them so they are my things, and so is Wang in a sense. He got mad and yelled that I never consider his feelings, which I felt was uncalled for. And wrong. Wang doesn’t know his feelings like I do. I thought about telling him that, but I kept it to myself.
We ultimately decided that we would have our backyard stone-throwing contest in two weeks. I spent a great deal of time weeding the lawn and painting the fence blue so that it would look nice. After all, I wanted Wang to enjoy it. Unfortunately he was cross on the day of the contest, because while we were eating the soup I made for us I said that the way Chinese people slurp their food is kind of uncouth. Wang—who was not slurping—got angry with me and said that I forget to brush my teeth, so doesn’t that make me just as uncouth? I didn’t say anything even though he was being very rude, because Wang is Wang and I have known him for years.
It was beautiful and sunny and clear outside; the sky perfectly blue, matching the fence wonderfully. The two tin cans I set up the night before looked as shiny as ever, and our stones nearly glowed with polish. We agreed that we would make three attempts to throw a stone into the cans: if I landed more, then Wang was lying about what happened in the Costco bathroom. If he landed more, he was not; if we tied we would go again. I went first, carefully choosing my stone and throwing it overhand—I won awards for throwing in high school – so that it would fly evenly and gracefully at a flat 180 degree angle. It landed perfectly, provoking a satisfying tink that rang throughout the yard. I sensed that the wind was changing direction for my second throw and altered my technique accordingly, so the stone landed just as well. My third rock whistled like a bird through the air as it glided cleanly towards the target in my best rock throw yet. It cut like butter; even, smooth, not a hint of destructive curvature or spinning. The wind was true and so was my throw, landing the rock solidly inside the can with a resounding twang. It was Wang’s turn.
Wang had spent some time in the early afternoon picking out rocks, and he had quite the stones for his throws. The first was a smooth, medium-sized garden rock that carried enough heft to ignore the wind but was also light enough for maximum throwing capacity. Fortunate that he chose such a worthy rock, because he threw it underhand and lost some control of the rock’s trajectory; it just barely made the can. I told him that he should throw overhanded instead for more control. He ignored me and threw underhand anyways with a simple movement that was lacking for style, his rock yet again barely making the can. As I watched it fall inside with a clatter, I began to wonder if we might tie after all. He spent a lot of time preparing for his third throw, looking carefully at each rock left in the selection and weighing them against the one he already chose, tossing both up and down to test the weight and smoothness. He looked up at me with a pinched face and said that all of this was unreasonable, idiotic even, and he was done with me and my nonsense. I got angry, then, because I had already gone through all the trouble of setting this up and Wang wanted all of my hard work—the blue fence, the shiny tins, the smooth stones that I spent hours polishing individually so that he would like the way they looked—to go to waste. He was being unreasonable. He was being idiotic. He is the liar here, not me, and if he has any respect for himself at all he’ll square up and throw that rock like a man.
And so he did. He heaved with all his might and his final throw soared, spinning like an off-kilter dancer and angled at almost 45 degrees. I was frankly astounded at the speed that the thing flew across the yard with—seemingly flying straight and true despite the spinning, despite the exceptionally poor angle. I could almost hear it whistling defiantly at the wind as it sped, momentum growing, no indication of slowing down or stopping. It was a mere speck in the air when I realized that it wasn’t going to stop. Together, Wang and I watched as the rock zipped across the yard, far past the can, far past even the fence, spinning, spinning, spinning somewhere off into the grass.
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