Milo with Soaked Oats Cadence Cheah
I added four tablespoons of Quaker instant oats and three scoops of
Milo powder into my green mug. Boiling water dissolved the mixture into a thick brown oatmeal; and my nerves untangled to the smell of malt.
Holding the mug in my hand, I walked out of the kitchen into the corridor.
Here I had a choice: take a few more steps to enter the living area, or take a right for the stairs up to my room.
Ahead of me, I caught the side view of Popo in her usual spot. Her tiny frame, hunched, occupied the couch in front of the flat-screen TV. The
morning light that landed on her face made her cheeks sunken. I watched as she lifted her steel mug up to her lips using her skinny right arm.
Instead of resting her arm on her thighs afterward, she lowered it to the
level where it could prop on the red stool beside her, as if it was too much
weight for her diabetes-stricken legs to bear. The ceiling fan whirred in the background.
While studying abroad, I usually went home in summer. Each time I
was back, I found myself having to re-navigate who Popo was. I always thought time worked differently for her, and I drowned myself thinking what could be left of having time steal so much from someone that
quickly. That morning when my parents had gone out for work, I noticed
how quiet it was. I was first upstairs. My ears were searching for sounds
from the living room below, and I panicked when I could not locate Popo’s feet shuffling into her couch, nor the TV chatter.
With the excuse of making myself an earlier breakfast, seeing Popo was
reassuring. She was in her usual spot, breathing, still alive. Mortality liked to haunt my imaginations. I was obsessed with tracking the amount of
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