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She wrote and erased several sentences. Such task was a great challenge. To carry out the task, she was not allowed to refer to herself anymore, not to adopt the most natural method at least. That one-lettered word she always took granted for was now a taboo. And the absence of the word made the word’s presence even stronger. Thesaurus seemed to be a must, but as a student who constantly worked on words and forged terms, she was too proud to use the help from a thesaurus. Other than self-reference, she also had to abandon the present tense. That was harder for her than for her fellow workshop partners perhaps, for the present tense had always been the most natural way for her to narrate, or at least express herself. Her mother tongue does not have a developed concept of tense, when people narrate on events that took place before; they only resort to the aspect. Rather than “One could not sleep at all on July 14^th for people were loud on the street” they would say “On July 14^th one cannot sleep for people are loud on the street.” She was amused to see how one event seems to have become a statement, a truth that would apply always just now.

Yesterday she bade a temporary goodbye to Europe. She would love to name that European place, but the rule does not allow. The name of the place happened to have the taboo letter. Anyways, she bade goodbye to Europe and was now on the plane on her homeward journey. How she would love to name her hometown as well! She always thought that the name of her hometown evoked huge wanderlust. Though people would confuse the name of her hometown often. There was another place that evoked just as much (maybe more) wanderlust. She used to be rather unhappy about that, but soon afterwards she got used to that. Rather than a strong statement as “No, not that country, but the one near PRC” to embarrass people, she would just let that pass.

She would land on Hong Kong soon. The temperature would be around 30ºC,  stated the broadcast just now. After she landed, she would only be one stop away from her hometown. Soon enough, she would be able to see her parents. They would meet her up. Her red toy poodle would be there too, and maybe even the soon-to-be-newly-wed. One page reached. She was somewhat proud that she had not broken the taboo yet. But just at the moment a thought occurred to her: had she not planned to work on her term paper on the plane?  

Kitchen

(Dad I know you read my blog. This is fictional, just so that you know...)

According to the patriarchal discourse, an ideal woman needs to both master at culinary art and be presentable in social occasions. She always finds the idea appalling. Why don’t you just marry your cook and dress her as a social butterfly? Though from the inside she is a rebel, she still strives to be a pliant daughter, or at least aims to look like one. So there she is, one and a half hour before dinnertime, she would help her mother wash the vegetables, set the dishes, and serve one dish after another. She always waits beside the kitchen door, waiting to be called upon, intimidated by the steaming heat within the kitchen. Her mother used to be a very charming woman—petite, always smiles, naturally flirty, and good-humored. There are pictures of her 20s to prove that. But when she sees her mother’s tiny figure sweating, frying the vegetables or fish with a giant spatula, she cannot help but feel sad for her. The best of her years are gone now. Her mother is no longer the hearty girl courted by numerous suitors, but a mere mediocre, maybe even clumsy housewife. She wonders if that will also become of her. Upon this thought, she shakes her head tremendously, hoping to banish the thought away. This is not what she wants to end up, a clumsy sweaty housewife in a hopeless steaming kitchen. Some people say she looks just like her mother, while some other says she is no way like her. But in the pictures she took with her mother she still sees they have the same shape of eyes. Her mother did not have a college education. As if carrying out a vicarious wish fulfillment, she always goes to the best school growing up. She is not particularly hardworking, but passably intellectual. She lives up to the parental expectation without putting too much thought into it. It just seems like the right thing to do: go to college, participate in class, and get good grades. In her first year of college she read Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and afterwards she cannot stand her mother’s tiny figure in the kitchen anymore. It is a pitiable scene, she tells herself. She does not want to end up like this. She will not end up like this.

“Tell Papa dinner’s ready,” says her mother, waking her up from the long trance. “Will do,” says she, walks to the phone. “Dinner’s ready, Papa.” She sits herself down on the corner of the dinner table, waiting for her father to come down stairs from the 5^th floor, where he has the fancy amplifiers, plasma TV and all his electronic gadgets. “Smells good,” says her Papa. She forms a smile, waits for her mother to come out from the kitchen. 

The Water Tower

The Water Tower, a tower made of water. How do you consolidate water to construct tower if the temperature does not permit? So the temperature has to permit. So let there be winter. Let there be light. Let there be water. Three elements and one wonder—let there be The Water Tower.

The sun shines through the transparent walls. The refraction of the light deteriorates the way the inhabitants perceive. The outside world is right there, seemingly of walking distance, but the form fuzzy and escape seems impossible. Some very old inhabitants might still remember the exact form of a maple leave. Maple leaves must be ages ago. Ages ago as in they were still babies and the eternal winter, not yet befell.  

Conversations are frozen as ice cubes. Fire is prohibited for logistical reasons. All they can do is wave bare hands, in hope that the ice cubes will melt. In the end people don’t bother to talk. What is the point of talking, if it takes ages to decode what is spoken? Especially the decoded conversations oftentimes are nothing but a long whimper. Living in a confined frozen space, what else is to be spoken?

The inhabitants do not talk. They sit by, but not against, the transparent wall, for fear that their skin might be stuck on the wall and it takes a hundred inhabitant’s laborious waving to free the pathetic being pinned and wriggling on the wall. Incidents like that used to happen, but now people do not bother to rescue anyone anymore. If you get pinned, you die. Since with such low temperature, the corpse will not perish. They will remain as Snow White in the glass coffin. Maybe with not so charming an ending posture, rather their struggles and fear frozen at the prime moment. Perhaps the inhabitants think those people are responsible for their own stupidity. Perhaps a tower made of consolidated water does not translate to solidarity. The inhabitants just happen to be there. There is no sense of community since even the oldest inhabitants cannot recall how they end up trapped there in the first place.

The inhabitants do not wait for Godot. Since waiting entails hope, and hope is nonexistent in this frozen space. The sensibility to the world is somehow lost. (Except getting pinned on the wall. That sight is still embarrassing even in this frozen water inferno). The inhabitants do not feel the cold, neither are they cheered up by the sunlight. Sunlight only means sight, but for most of them sight is meaningless as well. The refraction ruins the point of sight. If they cannot tell real from surreal, what is the point of looking? You might wonder if they get bored. But the truth is they do not, for they no longer perceive the passing of time anymore. Paralysis is the epitome of The Water Tower, and inaction seems to be the mantra.

You might ask, “How do they feel?” Despite the disassociation of sensibility, despite the inability of sensing the temporal advancement, the inhabitants do sometimes feel lonely. No, since the temporal concept does not exist, “sometimes” might as well be replaced by “eternally.” Any frozen moment is the eternity. The inhabitants are eternally lonely. As mentioned above, the sense of community does not exist. The only sense of union proper is the collective consciousness of loneliness. What else to expect, if they are trapped, not talking to each other, and indifferent to each other’s suffering (or more precisely, getting pinned on the wall and wriggling)? The loneliness is so present that it transforms into an incessant series of screams. The inhabitants might have already lost their hearing, so the screaming gets lost within their minds. It will not be hard after all to imagine their mindscape. It will not be hard after all, since the very reason why they cannot feel the cold is their minds are already the coldest place—colder than the polar waste. At least cold enough to freeze their sensibility.

So is the tale of The Water Tower. Here no verdure is to be seen, only frozen water and refracted sunlight. Let there be light, let there be water, let there be winter. Let there be The Water Tower.  Let there be the collective consciousness of eternal loneliness.

The Wasps

The wasps. What crazy pronunciation. What a cluster of sibilants. One wasp flies into a bottle and traps itself. Its wings get damp and cannot come out. Five minutes later another flies into the same bottle and joins its struggling fellow. Maybe they are neither suicidal nor stupid, rather awfully romantic-- what can be a more byronic death than drowning oneself in an Africola sea? 

We watch the wasps dance in wonder. Arch enemies in a duel-- made for each other, made to destroy each other, with one being destined to die in another's wings. Might also be lovers. Refuse to be separated from each other. Could not be born together, but at least will die together. This ultimate performance of buzz dance drains the final living power of the skinny striped torsos-- dueling, or the final consummation.

Consummation at last. Lovers or arch enemies, to every wasp a romantic ending.

Wasps in a bottle. A rare sunny Berliner afternoon in summer 2011.