User:Yuanchosaan/Beautiful World/I

{|width="60%" I: Presto For the fifth morning in a row, Artemis Wu was late.

The plan: sleep at midnight, wake up at 6:02am, eat some cereal sadly soaked in cold soy milk, out by 6:32am, catch the 6:41am tram that was five minutes from his house.

Naturally, Artemis had finally crashed somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter past two in the morning, slept through the first, second and third alarm he had set himself, had been diverted by roadwork blocking two streets, and was now crammed on the 7:23am tram with what seemed like an entire flotilla of school children and businessmen.

After a lifetime of this kind of thing, one would think that Artemis would be used to it, and yet, somehow, the small calamities of his life always managed to take him by surprise. With only a trace of bitterness, he reflected that of course he would end up with a target who was a morning person.

Artemis shifted his violin case uneasily over his shoulder, only just avoiding whacking the heads of the three small schoolchildren in front of him. Their mother gave him a brief frown, then returned to looking at her phone.

He was uncomfortably aware that he was still panting slightly from the run he had been forced into to make the tram (12 minutes between morning trams! How could the city council justify that?), that he was hot and more than a touch sweaty, and that he could almost feel a bruise forming beneath where his violin had been bumping on said run. With great restraint, he managed to prevent himself from sinking through the floor.

Two stops later, the children evacuated the tram in a chattering crowd, a sudden emptiness that he felt as an almost palpable breath of relief. Artemis took the opportunity to snatch a seat in the brief moment before the students were replaced with a platoon of businessmen and women dressed in almost identical ashen suits. They probably did not glare at him for it. Probably.

With much greater care than he had demonstrated before, he placed his violin case between his legs and brought out a sheaf of blank musical sheets. Naturally, several of them escaped his grip as the tram lurched forward and scattered across the floor and over his neighbours.

Now they were definitely glaring at him. Artemis smiled back sheepishly and did his best to gather the sheets that were within arms’ reach.

He couldn’t find the one where he had left off the previous night. It had been rubbish anyway. Might as well start again. In neat cursive, Artemis pencilled in the words “Waltz for Angela” at the top of the page, stared at it for three seconds, then erased them. A waltz? What was he thinking? That didn’t fit at all. “Concerto” was no better. It lacked personality. “Sonata” was right out – far too sad. He needed something that would capture her – Andante, perhaps. But if hearing that, people might think of a relaxed, loping stroll, not at all the purposeful-and-yet-light stride which he pictured when he thought of Angie walking…

He had had exactly the same argument last night with himself. Artemis folded the offending piece of paper, now besmirched by pencil smudges, and took out a new one. At the top, he wrote “Angie”.

“Hey! Boy.”

The sudden Cantonese exclamation almost made Artemis drop his papers again. He looked up into the rounded sunglasses of an elderly Chinese woman who was stooped over him. For one brief, panicked moment, he thought it was his third grandaunt – but the colour of her brightly-hued hat was, thankfully, a different shade of eye-searing violet.

“Sorry!” he blurted out automatically.

“Do you speak Cantonese? I want to get to Fitzroy Gardens. Does this tram go there or am I going to have to switch again?”

“It doesn’t. You’ll have to swap at Southern Cross station, I think.”

“Aiya,” the woman harrumphed. “Such trouble.”

“Try line 48 or 75.”

“OK.” Without a breath, she continued, “What a long way to go. Let Aunty sit down.”

Aunty said in English. With an inner sigh which he was well-practised at suppressing, Artemis gave up his seat. Perhaps that would be it. His hopes of making a little headway by composing in his head instead were dashed as she continued to ramble at him.

“Your Cantonese is pretty good for an Australian boy.”

“Thank you. I live with my grandaunts and they don’t speak much English.”

“Not perfect. I can hear the accent.”

“That’s so, yes...” Again, Artemis suppressed the desire to sink through the floor of the tram, and probably through the tracks and part of the earth’s crust as well. What was the point of being able to walk through walls if you couldn’t use it to avoid situations like this?

“Still, you’re a good boy for living with your family and speaking to them in Cantonese. Too many Cantonese boys are basically gwei lo.” She delivered a withering gaze of contempt to the surrounding crowds identically dressed businessmen. Some of them were Chinese, and Artemis was fairly certain they could understand this conversation. “Aiya. My own grandchildren don’t speak it. I talk to them but it’s all, we live in Australia now, how come grandmother doesn’t speak English – but they sure know how to ask for my cakes! When I die, all they’ll remember is how to order food in yum cha. At least I’ll be dead then and won’t have to witness their shame.”

“Is that right?”

“Exactly. What a good boy you are. Now, where are your family from?”

“Uh…” Somehow, he didn’t think “somewhere in Guangdong” was going to cut it for Aunty Terror. “Guangzhou,” he said desperately.

“Really?” she said with interest. “Which district? I have a lot of family there.” As quickly as she had asked, she appeared to lose interest in her probing enquiry, and launched instead into a rambling tale about her sister-in-law, punctuated by the occasional question directed at Artemis. Art went into auto-pilot, nodding and adding an affirmatory syllable at the correct intervals. This, too, was unfortunately familiar ground.

So routine that Art didn’t realise he had reached his destination until the tram doors were sliding closed. He gave a small yelp of dismay which he semi-successfully turned into an apology to his new Aunty. Her voice followed him as he edged as close to the doors on the opposite end of the tram as possible.

“Why learn violin when you can play erhu instead?”

The doors opened to the next stop. Freedom.

Artemis spent a few seconds blinking in the sunlight, then set off at a dash towards Fitzroy Park, his violin case bouncing against his knee as he ran.

It was 8:04am.

He was already too late.