Door 402, Pinshang Apartment, Lian Feng Lu, Ningbo City, Zhejiang, China.
May 27, 2012
There comes a waking moment in your life when you aren’t afraid anymore. No, it doesn’t come to you when you tell yourself there is nothing to fear. Instead, it creeps in unnoticed, slowly but deliberately, quietly into your soul, this strength. You notice it at most difficult times, lose it at play, gain it in solitude, until you are overwhelmed by your own strength that you begin fearing it. You fear your own strength, ha-ha, but you don’t run away this time. You let its force eat you up, throw you up, then take your place. You turn into somebody else. Or, perhaps, you have now become yourself.
Ancient Coffee, Lao Wai Tan, Ningbo City, Zhejiang, China.
February 13, 2012.
“There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song - but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.”
He hops off the mildewy sink and lands cleanly on the lid of her fiancé’s toilet seat. It’s the second month of winter. Condensation is fogging up the lone bathroom window. His fluffy tail curls up, shivers, then hides under him as he rests his paws on cold white plastic.
It’s been an hour now since she carelessly undressed in front of him, yet still she lies in there, her nipples hiding between bubbles and froth. You’d think she’s a life-sized doll in a life-sized toy bathtub, if not for the fluttering eye movements from left to right and back, the hurried flipping of pages of an old paperback, and the occasional heel splashes.
There’s a high-pitched scream she cannot hear. It’s the water’s. His master is ripping the water apart, her lithe body separating families of molecules, lovers, best friends. They may be too minute for him to see, but he feels their pain. The collective sound of agony and loss is making his ears itch. A hind leg scratches.
She stirs a little as a shy wind finds its quiet way through the half-opened door. Her toes automatically turn the faucet on, scalding joins lukewarm, the water’s still screaming, but that’s what water does all the time anyway. He stretches and yawns.
She’s about to fall into a lonely nap with to-be-forgotten dreams. The book’s cover is dipping, its edges are getting wet, water is creeping, it is screaming, it’s screaming, the wetness reaches her wrist, and for a moment, just that sudden silently loud moment, she hears the scream.
She awakens. She stares at him. He looks back at her, through her, twitching his whiskers.
Meifeng Island, Qiandao Lake, Chun’an County, Zhejiang, China.
November 15, 2011.
Qiandao Lake (Thousand Island Lake), Chun’an County, Zhejiang, China.
November 15, 2011.
Lingqi Cave, Shiping Village, Jiande City, Zhejiang, China.
November 14, 2011.
Jiande Temple, Jiande City, Zhejiang, China.
November 14, 2011.
Funny how they sit and sigh
as if they will live forever
Funny how you see bored faces
like they’ve been to the world and back
Funny how you talk to me
and feign wisdom
Funny how I respond
and fool you back
You won’t ever die, will you?
You’ve got it all figured out.
You know the innards of this world.
And we must follow your route.
