Lightforce

Chapter 1

A scrap-yard

El Cajon, California

My name is Min-Su Li, but nearly everyone calls me Lee.

I’m twenty-four years old, and I live in San Diego.

That, right there, pretty much encompasses everything about me that can be considered ‘normal’.

The rest? Mmm…Not so much.

Maybe I’m exaggerating. I’d had a shitty day, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Even though this day didn’t register as high on the shitty-o-meter as the more recent one I just described, it still sucked pretty hard. That’s why I’m here; my mood always improves in this place, well, usually. Of course, coming to a massive, abandoned scrap yard to meditate and clear my head doesn’t seem quite normal either, but I’ve been coming here for a long time. I’m perched on the hood of something old, with angles and fins. Most of the junk here is just that, junk. But occasionally something with style is discovered. This car underneath me has a lot of style, which is probably why I like it, because I’m often told I don’t have any style whatsoever. Usually I can clear my mind, be in the moment, empty myself. There’s a smell here, a feel of rightness. Some people get it in parks, or bowling alleys, maybe in old, wooden pizza parlors; but not me. I get it surrounded by random metal and rust, and the faint hint of old fuel. It takes me to that peaceful place. Not today though, my brain is too busy puzzling. Fine, uncross my legs and open my eyes. I’ll just be in a different moment, and indulge my brain.

What the fuck is normal anyway? I’ve asked myself this for years, because I really don’t know. All I do know is that I’m not. Let me qualify a bit: It’s not like I have extra limbs or a penchant for replacing reality with my own version of it. But normal by, say, societal standards? That’s the question. You get plenty of definitions of normality according to TV and social media, or so I hear; I don’t do much of either. It’s probably not normal to be in your second year of Med School, a place where you have been excelling, and then suddenly realize your academic decline is because of burnout.

Yeah, that’s an amusing notion- ’Suddenly realize’. It’s been going downhill for a bit longer than ‘suddenly’.

“Your work has become flaccid and uninspired,” Dr. McCallister had said sternly. “In a year and a half, you’ve gone from the top one percentile to the bottom sixtieth. I’m not even going to get into how many labs you’ve missed.”

He leaned in with a steel glare that I’d seen a lot over the last six months.

“I think it might be time for you to make a decision.”

It was semester break; I had two weeks to decide whether or not I should come back. His tone made it clear how he felt about it. I really couldn’t blame him for being disappointed in me, he had sponsored me. He had believed I would eventually be the next big thing in the field of pediatric surgery. And at first, I believed it too. At first, I advanced at a pace that surprised everyone. I was allowed, and encouraged, to take classes usually reserved for third and fourth year students. I was a superstar. I was on fire. But I didn’t realize the fuel source was finite. And the enthusiasm, quite honestly, burned out just after this term began. For a while I went through the motions. But it didn’t take long for my loss of desire to reflect in my work, my attendance, and my attitude. And now I was facing the inevitable consequences. I had nothing to offer but a weak apology, and then getting out of his sight as soon as possible. But as I was leaving, he softened slightly.

“Lee-You are a young man. You have a world full of options. And it’s obvious that this isn’t your ‘thing’. Find your ‘thing’. I imagine whatever your ‘thing’ is, you’ll be great at it.”

I might have been able to leave his office with a warm, fuzzy feeling of hope, but then he added,

“Talk to your Dad, he’s a good guy.”

My dad-was not going to be happy.

Dad. He was a good guy, this was true. And he was also a tough, stubborn guy. He raised me alone. My Mom died when I was a baby. Dad accepted me (more on that later). He provided for me, and I was never wanting. But it was provision only of what was needed, not extravagance. He taught me values and discipline, but he wasn’t what anyone would call nurturing. This is another entry to add to the list of things not normal: my parentage. My Dad is Asian, Korean to be specific, and my mother was white. Growing up a mixed-blood in San Diego’s microscopic Asia-town community was tough as it pertained to kid relationships. Kids are assholes to each other, fuck what Sesame Street and Barney had to say about it. If Barney sang, ‘I’ll punch you...you punch me...’, he’d be far more accurate in his musical assessments as it pertains to my upbringing. It’s because of this that I didn’t hang out with other kids much. “Lee the loner” was the first of a few flattering nicknames.

I wasn’t bored, though; there was a lot of work to do. Work at home and with the neighbors. Sometimes it seemed never-ending. But while us kids were doing it, and whining about it, the adults were telling us it built character. They were right, of course. But, at the time, it seemed like all it did was create sore muscles and unnecessary competition. Good sportsmanship? It doesn’t exist in kids, it’s an annoying condition placed on kids by parents. I’ve honestly never met a genuinely “nice” kid. Cute kids? Sure. Sweet kids? Maybe, but that’s usually motivated by the kid desiring something that sweetness will help achieve. But nice? I’m doubtful. And yet I wanted to take care of their injuries and illnesses. Perhaps my educational conundrum was clearing up in my own mind after all.

I had another great tool for alleviating boredom: I had the books. Dad owns an antique bookstore. A massive collection of dusty old 2nd and 3rd printings of classics from...everywhere. He has ancient Greek to modern American, works of literature from nearly everywhere you could imagine. Many of the volumes are in Chinese and Korean as well as English. I’m glad there are English versions, I don’t speak or read a word of Korean. Most of the kids I grew up with don’t speak their native languages, as we were bussed to schools with predominantly English-speaking teachers. And because we were kids, which meant we were assholes, we all westernized our names, to the chagrin of the adults.

I loved the books, but some of the literature was over my head. And even now, some of it is seriously out there. Moby Dick? Obsess about whales much? War and Peace? Let me sit here and read until I’m fifty. But most of it was-beautiful, beautiful and terrible and everything in between. I was in Rocinante with Steinbeck and Charley as they observed and rediscovered America through the author’s dying eyes. I could visualize the smoky skies of the newly industrialized London of Dickens’ time. I moved with Pip as he moved through his development. These works, and so many others: Poe, Shakespeare, Hugo, Homer, to name a few.

Mr. Pyang is one of my old, very old, fossil-level old neighbors. He has said, many times, that I like reading these things because I possess the old soul of an ancestor. This ancestor was probably a bookkeeper or teacher. He claims it’s an ancient Chinese myth of familial soul transference. Personally, I think it’s bullshit, because I’ve Googled it and haven’t found a damn thing. But I still like the idea of the myth, it makes sense to me. I was reading this stuff while the kids around me were listening to Flo Rida and watching whatever number of ‘The Real World’ they were up to. This, of course, was more fodder for fights. I was the emotionally dark, serious kid who talked like a ‘white dude’ grownup, and looked like the Korean Charlie Brown, with my bald head and white skin to go with my slanted eyes. The adults let us fight it out, establishing our own ranks of leaders and followers, and they didn’t coddle us when we were bloodied and bruised. Apparently, this also fell under the umbrella of character building. My dad, in his wisdom, knew there was no ‘Kumbaya’ing my way out of fights, so he made sure I learned how to fight with skill. Judo was first, followed by a little Aikido, and a lot of Ju-Jitsu. I really took to the grappling martial arts. Being able to put someone to sleep was fucking cool. As I got better, it became less enticing for the up and coming pure-blood bigots to use me as punching-bag-pre-school. But there was a cost. I became mean spirited, and somewhat of a bigot myself for a time. I even broke my loner tradition and ran with some of the ‘bad’ kids who styled themselves after ‘gangs’. I was committing petty crimes, instigating stupid fights,...