Where the Sunflower Seeds Shed

By Heidi Rong 

葵花籽 (sunflower seeds)

Pronounced: kuí huā zǐ.

Winter mornings in Chéngdū. Time did not move—not in that ordinary, mundane way, not in the way of clocks ticking, of hours counted and days measured. It stalled. Like the slick wet pavement and bright-eyed birds, yes—but even they seemed to move within a slower rhythm, like thoughts half-formed and content to remain so. Plastic stools scraped pavement. Newspapers, folded in fours, skimmed by idle hands. 

Snow did not fall—nothing so crude. It composed itself, snowflakes curving into hair, to the crook of necks, and stayed—neither hurried nor fleeting. Cold, pooled where it chose: in the folds of second-hand coats, the decline of slim collarbones, the creases behind knees and elbows where the body, no longer paying attention to itself, had grown tender.

Mist gathered above rooftops—never in haste —it coiled into the seams of winding brick roads. Homes wear their years in soot, and shirts—hung like flags from lines—drink in the aftertaste of yesterday’s rain. 

I guess it was in the air.

The wind, too. A whiff of something, of coal, maybe, of spitting oil, of pickled mustard greens, fermenting patiently in blue-lipped jars. The morning seemed to, otherwise, hold its breath—an intake, dense and sure, not unlike that of a fruit before its fall.

Winter, simply is. It exists independently of our need for permanence or clarity, drifting across the porous threshold of breath and lapse, carried not just on the airy sigh of lips but on something stranger, more persistent: by the wind, perhaps. Still, I try to recall the mornings I spent. They slip, they shimmer, they condense—yes, like moths drawn to flame, not by force but by some silent affinity with the air—and though I cannot hold it, I feel it is always there, and always just beyond what I am able to reach.

We, the cousins and I—children then, though ‘children’ feels too simple now—gathered to construct a world from its slow refusal to pass. It was a ritual, of sorts. Sat on warm planks, a platter of sunflower seeds and mangosteens to our right, a deck of cards to our left. We cracked the seeds between our teeth, salt glued to our fingertips—gritty, tacky. The rhythm—practised, unconscious. We sustained ourselves on mangosteens. They assert their mould, curiously and specifically, the second when one’s thumbs finally break the skin of a mangosteen—its dark rind stubborn, until, suddenly, it yields, and what was concealed—milky, sweet—brims forth into one’s cupped palms. I would tug at my favourite cousin’s sleeve, nagging at her to pry apart the most obstinate mangosteens, while she sighed, loudly, letting me think I might help, grinning, muttering that I’d never crack a single fruit on my own. She would give me the first bite, always, teasing me about the sweet sugar stuck on my teeth. 

We clustered together—knees drawn, elbows pressed, the wooden planks beneath us radiating that thick stored heat, the kind that makes everything slow, drowsy, like the streets outside where the grey curls. Where water jellies in gutters, in the wee hours of morning, where the sun stretches its yolky arms like taffy pulled too thin.

We sat. We stayed. Hours swallowing us whole. 

Cards flipped between fingers. Arguments shouted for show, not victory. Rules bent, forgotten, plucked back when convenient. And always—we peeked. Not to cheat, but because it was our custom. Some would stomp their heels for emphasis, while my littlest cousin twisted her braids tight whenever she swore she was right.

you peeked — uh — no I didn’t — yes you did — what — mhm I saw you — same— you liars —

The chitters volleyed back and forth, not for truth, but for the sheer pleasure of noise. Protests unfurled in Mandarin, quick and scattered like crickets. Fights, as they often did amongst young ones, created almost every minute. Limbs, knees, and egos tangled as if the world depended on it—or at least our bruised pride did—as we stumbled over our shoelaces.

Meanwhile, watchers—the quieter ones, children still, but already connoisseurs of such things—egged the rogue ones on, lobbing sunflower seeds into the melee. There was no resolution. There never is, in such games like ours. Only the fierce assurance that we were here, in this moment, and that the world, with all its cold and consequence, existed beyond the paper-thin walls of that room and would not enter so long as we kept moving, kept laughing, kept losing ourselves in the wildness of our little games.

Laughter, the song of crickets.

Now, years—years that stretch like threads pulled too taut, fraying at their edges—I see my cousins, only occasionally, at sanctioned intervals determined less by desire than by calendars and decorum. Our passage together siphons in slivers, petty exchanges—how are you? yes, yes, fine, and so-and-so’s mother, her health, the same, really, and oh, how awful the weather is today—the words tart and strange, like fruit rotting before it ripens. I fumble, words slurring, my accent so pronounced, so western. I mash my lips together. My words trip, thick as cloth, words curling back before they’re born, a twitching, rebellious thread, and the accent slicks to the syllables, plastic wrap, sticky, clinging, something I can not breathe through, and I clear my throat, again, again, swallowing the bitter metallic mistake, cough, fingernails carving little pale crescents on my palms, white against brilliant red, warmth rising in my face, I imagine folding into the thin air between them, the intervals where sound should have been, and then I wonder if—

they notice it too – how – my – tongue 

catches wrong every time the sound tilts sideways jagged where it should rise flat where it should break it stumbles out warped and I reach I claw for old words and they slip through me scatter scatter scatter and I try again and again but my mouth fills with air spit silence I swallow and it burns and I hear it—

hear before they do—I try to choke the word mid-air blindly hold it still fix it but it slips twists splits apart my throat closes gestures wild desperate but nothing lands afraid they only—

mean everything somewhere else somewhere far away where mouths bend the same way where the sounds fit like skin where faces look nothing like mine but not here in this city not in this blood not to these faces like mine not here—and in the same motion—

then the bird will come a little white bird pulls me into its ribs against the blue sky—away I am flying to a home that will not hold me any tighter than this one does. 

and then—I am alone again, in Sydney.

I live in a suburb where the lawns are trimmed, and roses bloom on schedule. Somewhere no one ever parks on the wrong side of the street, and neighbours wave from behind a white picket fence. It is pleasant, but unbearably so. Somewhere where snow does not fall, and mangosteens do not grow. Time, here, is a metronome, steady and predictable.

I shift on a vinyl bench. The heater hums somewhere near my ankles, breath tinny. A plastic bag of sunflower seeds from the Asian grocer slumps half-open beside me. On the front, a crudely drawn sunflower grins at me—blunt yellow teeth, bug-like eyes—the kind of smile, I suspect, that knows nothing of seeds or sun. I dig through the bag and choose a handful. I eat the seeds slowly, deliberately—crack, split, flick, tongue. Salt granules stick to my fingertips.

I see them now. Sunflower seed shells. Thin and splintered. And I think I almost hear it again—the crickets, the clink of elbows, cards softened with wear. A shoulder brushes mine. The planks are warm again. Voices crowd back in—

whose turn is it — mine — no it’s mine – pick a card —— what no you just went — it’s MY turn — you don’t even know the rules — nuh uh — guys rule number seven says — there is no rule seven — no it’s real — sigh here we go again— doesn’t count — counts double — triple — INFINITY — guys stop yelling — i’m reshuffling.

The shells fall where they may. 

I leave them, just in case.