#lu li

a variety of sketches that I may or may not finish

Lu Li (CHN), FX, 1992 Olympic Games

Lu Li is standing in his room, staring at his bed.

He thinks: of the dream called ‘family home’. The space he occupied as a child, then left as a married man; a home he has tried, in a half-dead, half-drowned way, to reconstitute now, to live in, as whatever he is.  

When he’d come back from Chi Zhen’s place, he’d called a soft apology to his mother, waiting silently in the living room; he had put the food she’d set out for him away in the refrigerator. He’d undressed, gone to brush his teeth, closed the door to his room. Turned off the lights. Put himself to bed, as if his body and heart might respond to instructions the way his phone did; as if he could sleep on command. 

He can’t sleep on command. His body and heart are impervious, impossible. Here he is, standing on the carpet. Nothing can be put to rest. 

He was prepared for the dreams; he knew as soon as Chi Zhen touched him that there would be dreams. He is not prepared for this awful restlessness; he’s ready to throw off his sweats, throw all the covers off his bed, strip the paint and paper off his walls. The sheets on his bed are tumbled navy and grey; the duvet cover, snarled at the foot of the bed, is a subdued dark plaid. The bed is both too small and too large. 

No one has ever slept in it besides himself.

Swaying a little on his feet, Lu Li closes his eyes and pictures a different bed, unexpectedly modest in scope, the sheets smooth and arctic white. At his fingertips the ghost memory of a blanket, woven of something softer than any pelt or coat he’s ever touched, the fibers slightly haloed. 

Why did you take him back up there tonight? Lu Li asks himself.

He thinks of the sleeping pills on his little table. He’d rather not be awake for this. There is no buffer now, no oblivion, no easy way to dismiss it all as a dream, the kind of dream people sometimes have about their work partners.

Lu Li has become a specialist in silent, unmoving non-reactions. He’s become a specialist in numbness. Good at being a rock, bad at being a person, he thinks finally. 

He stands in his room with his eyes closed and thinks impossible things. He thinks them, despite being a rock. 

He remembers Chi Zhen’s breathing as he slept. Remembers Chi Zhen trembling as Lu Li bore down on his hip. He remembers Chi Zhen on top of him, how Chi Zhen had braced up against his body, his stockinged foot pressing into Lu Li’s bare foot, sole to sole, to help him get leverage. He remembers Chi Zhen’s obvious instinct for the kill, veiled by his compassion. Remembers helping him push bruisingly deep into his psoas, remembers Chi Zhen drawing back from some… 

Some cliff edge, Lu Li thinks.