Johnny, imagine life
He turned another page of that Life magazine slowly, and tried to concentrate on the reading material. There on the coffee table in my living room is a cup of coffee he poured a while ago, he sipped and turned himself into the magazine again, still concentrating.
Johnny is a growing up Asian adult; he is now 35. Johnny has a hard, rigid square face. His nose is straight with rigid curve over the nose bone. When he smiles, his mouth shows a curve line at the bottom, lining downwards at the corner. The bottom of his face shows a capital “U” shape on his cheek with his strong and rigid cheek bone.
“Faith……” the pastor raise his tone. And Johnny is listening to his preach. Yes, Faith, Johnny thought. Faith is a bridge linked between a believer and God, the only bridge. If you are a believer, you exercise your spirituality lifetime on your faith in God. Johnny thought. And Johnny is not young and naïve. He smiled with his mouth half open when he was listening to the pastor. Thinking about to have a cup of tea after the worship.
Johnny turned into a coffee shop, bought himself a cup of tea. That’s after the worship when Johnny went to the downtown shopping mall. It was Sunday afternoon, the shopping mall was crowded and many people stopped by at the coffee shop. Johnny had his lunch in the church. His church offered the lunch after the worship service, and for three Canadian dollars, you can get a meal with a chicken leg and some vegetables.
Johnny walked into that America store, started to look at the clothing. He saw a tie, weaved with light red and blue stripes and dots, the lining is light blue, nearly pale with floating colors. Just like an American flag abstracted into the tie, Johnny like the tie even though it is a little flashy, such as a manager wearing a flashy tie. Johnny bought that tie since he loved it in the beginning. Suit, Johnny saw lots of nice suits. Maybe get a new suit, Johnny thought. After thinking for a while, he though,”na, ……..I have lots of suits.”
Yes, Johnny is a manager working for a local high technology company.
The sun was shining for the whole Sunday afternoon. Johnny went outside the shopping mall for a cigarette. He was standing there, lighted his cigarette with his iron made Zippo. The Zippo is an American product with some acid etched flowers and bushes on its surface. Johnny loves his Zippo.
Outside of the shopping mall is the parking lot with a iron topped side walk. The bricks are rigid and gray. The downtown shopping center is top class shopping center. Lots of people coming and going, and for daily it hosts hundreds of thousand customers. Johnny flicked his cigarette butt after he finished it, and then he went inside.
“Desire……” Johnny thought about it. Now Johnny sit in the coffee and ordered himself a cup of Cappuccino. Johnny looked at wish magazine and look at the all the priced items showing inside the magazine and the beautiful house decoration in it. Desire a house, he thought, a beautiful house decorate with Persian rugs and all the oriental antiques Johnny so loved. As long as I can afford it, the house, in turn Johnny thought.
Johnny had lifetime dreams about being a manager of a high technology company. He was newly promoted after the former manager went into the position of the director of the company. Yes, I could get paid more and doing more important things, to manage, Johnny thought and nodded at himself, satisfying, then he sipped his Cappuccino. He thought, maybe someday he will also make a director too.
Johnny went home.
The apartment is empty. The warm light orange color of the living room wall made the living room look very empty. It is fully decorated with brown color coffee table and black leather sofa and it looked very spacious and clean. And on the wall facing the entrance, there is an ancient Chinese painting with two Chinese calligraphy couplets on its side hanging. The theme of the painting is a horse in the wild woods by Lan Shining, the Qing Dynasty famous painter. The couplets reads the scenery of the spring and running stream; also from Qing Dynasty, they are scholar couplets. There is a lily bouquet in the modern blue and white porcelain vase, and on the side of the wall, there is a cabinet featuring Johnny Chinese antique collections, among those there are a Qing Dynasty blue and white porcelain vase and a large bowl. Beside them, the fine carved jade pieces are scattered in the cabinet nicely.
Johnny is a single man, married and divorced with no children. And he can not imagine life without money.
In about a month time, Johnny was unemployed. The economy was in the downturn, lots of people lost their jobs. Likewise, company decided to go downsizing and cutting some management jobs and some other employees; Johnny lost his favorite job.
Now Johnny was, unemployed, had to make some money on living selling his Qing Dynasty antiques on EBay and also some other auction companies such as Sotheby’s or Christie.
Life became hard for Johnny. More than often, he could not sell anything on the antique auctions and he had to rely on his welfare check and his little saving from his previous employment. Johnny was depressed, then he suffered from depression. Without the stable six figure income from his previous employment, Johnny became unhappy.
Life is hard, Johnny’s friends from the church say. And they try to help him for him to prepare for new job searches. But Johnny could launch new job campaigns, and often very few interviews from new employs were conducted. Johnny struggled.
The manager job Johnny had was his second job, his second company, Johnny had experiences in America as well. At that time, he worked as an engineer. Johnny thought maybe he could go back to America to find a job. Johnny didn’t care to work as an engineer again. He now imagined and prepared for himself that he works again as an engineer after he became a manager. At the same time, he also tried to search for a manager job.
Life became tough for Johnny.
Outside the window, the flower was blooming under the sunshine of the summer season. In a sudden, it rained. It was such a heavy rain fall. And after the heavy rain, the rainbow appears in this Northern sky fabulously. It created a decent contrast with the appearing blue sky. The sky looked very much like it being clean washed. Johnny had a deep breath. The air was very fresh after the rain. Then he sighed.
Johnny heard from the auctioneer that he could sell his horse by Lan Shining for eight thousand dollars. He was very happy for the result, right after the auctioneer told him. “It would make my life easier,…….” Johnny thought. And he was engaging to sell the painting afterwards. Johnny was still looking for his job, manager or engineer again. “Hey, I am capable……” Johnny thought tentatively.
Bad situation did not steal away Johnny’s faith in God, graciously. Even stronger, his faith, he often read Bible and searching words in Bible that links to his current situation. It would comfort his and ease him. Like, “God close one door, but He will open another.” Johnny had strong believes in that. And as usual, Johnny thought of life is to suffer, as a Christian. Yeah, life is sad, and happiness is important, maybe you are the only happy one living for your own life. When thinking about this, Johnny tried to be happy.
Johnny did not become a manager again, or an engineer. It seemed the economical situation forbade him to perform the trade again. He is still searching and searching, and in his part time, he tries to sell Chinese antiques, imminently. Yes, this life, maybe the inadequacy of money, but maybe this antique business will make my life better, Johnny thought, for now.
In the main time, Johnny tried to write, mainly casual writing such as poetry and fiction, even adding some dramatic scenes. For a casual living like Johnny, it seems adequate, and Johnny enjoyed it. It does not seem very hard for him, for his education level and literacy. He tried to publish, both himself and submitting works to publishers. Occasionally, he has some luck. It may come up to be his lifetime dream again, if not career, by writing. Johnny thought to write for money to support his own living ow.
Yes, life may seem to be unfair to one. But fair enough, one may find some better alternatives for one’s life itself. Keep dreaming, Johnny, imagine life.
