In Greenpoint, Brooklyn, by the East River, there is a four-story red brick building. On one of those floors, Mrs. Chung lives. Mrs. Chung has a husband and three daughters, but her daughters only visit occasionally and do not live with her.
Whenever I run into her, she’s usually very happy to see me, greeting me with a big hug and a long greeting. But sometimes, she passes by me like a total stranger. I have to quickly figure out whether to greet her or pretend I didn’t see her. It’s a bit of a hassle to prepare for these moments in advance.
One day, Mrs. Chung suddenly started screaming loudly, as if her voice was crying out. The building would shake with her shouting, and then she would suddenly stop, only to start yelling again. Sometimes she would scream for a while, but then suddenly stop, and it could be a month or even two weeks before it happened again. At first, I thought she was fighting with her husband, and I was ready to call the police in case something serious happened. But I never heard her husband’s voice.
Mrs. Chung would scream, but normally she was quiet and shy. She is of mixed Chinese and Indian descent and immigrated from the Caribbean. She suffers from severe depression and lives in isolation from her children. She also goes for mental health treatment. Later, I found out that she had moved between several homes in this neighborhood.
The people in the building started to get used to her behavior. When she started screaming, everyone would wait in silence, hoping it would end soon. Someone might want to call the police, but no one actually takes action. We just accept it, thinking, "Here it comes again. It’s starting!" After screaming, she would feel bad and avoid looking at people.
She had bought a long pad made of soundproof cotton to place under the door, perhaps to reduce the noise.
Every morning at 7 a.m., she would leave for her job at a nearby shipping company and return home at 4 p.m. with groceries. Her once slim figure began to grow larger, and she started wearing more clothes, even a thick hat. Her appearance started to look strange, almost like a bear coming down from the mountains. The heavy breathing and hot air around her made it seem like her condition was getting worse.
One day, she went to work and never came back. She had been hit by the truck from the shipping company where she worked and died suddenly. She was 58 years old. When we heard about her death, no one in the building reacted. It seemed as if everyone thought she had simply stopped shouting. Instead of accepting her death, it felt like we were still waiting for her cries.
No comments:
Post a Comment