There were three daughters of the Feng family, and when the father lost his business and the mother lost her mind, the three daughters were left to serve others on their own china, long ago sold for half its value to a family of gloating pretenders.
The first daughter married a nice young man from across the way, not a family of any importance but he was a hard worker and that was enough. The second daughter died young, and since no one cared to remember her family, much less her, her life was brief and short and unremarkable.
The...
The first time I ever saw Eve, she was laying down on a blue picnic blanket that convered a smooth cement floor. She was holding a bundle of pink and purple balloons resting her head on a bright polka-dotted pillow and staring up at the clear blue sky. Her image printed itself onto my heart. I walked up to talk to her and looked down and her dark brown eyes looking up at me. I asked her what she was doing. She took such a long time to answer my question that I was afraid I'd offended her.
When she...
Deluxe. Platinum. Gold. That is the key to success, she said to the audience, wine glass in hand. Everyone broke our clapping. She smiled, made a short, stunted half-bow and left the stage. She passed through the crowd with elegance and with purpose, deftly sidestepping those stumbling drunkenly about and avoiding any pitfalls into small talk and conversation. They smiled as she passed, vaguely recognizing her, but not exactly sure what her name was. Passing by a waiter, uniform and immaculate amidst it all, she left her wine glass on his tray. It was only a pleasantry, after all. It...
The baker is making a pie.
Why, oh why,
Was I not invited?
You had a big party.
I wasn't invited.
I never am.
It's a dance, this time.
And I'm still not invited.
Why?
I guess it's better to say,
I'm uninvited.
More than enough.
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
The warm dirty mist saturates every poor. Across the street relentless construction of new industry raged on erasing the remnants of an older time.
The girl tries to imagine the world as it was, as she has learned in her history books. But now only progress and drives her world. She can not hear or picture the silence or the wildernesses she imagines and longs for. She grows weary of the diminishing magic of the unknown.
He set the plate before her. It steamed, smells of carmelized meat and cinnamon wafted up to her nose. "This is my lust."
He still spoke with inflection, they had not dined upon his theatricality, his sense of timing, his desire to surprise. There was an order to these things, and while he still had that order, he would continue. The assembled guests mumbled their appreciation, though Dowager Harriet was still chewing through the last bites of his shame.
When the Boddhisatva-to-be had announced this meal, the good and great had tittered that he had finally lost his mind. Spent...
They had forgotten to close the window flap on the tent the night before. It was early morning now, and the light had started to come in; a cool, damp air had already come in and settled into the corners.
She had been awake for about 20 minutes, annoyed by the light that irritated her even through her closed eyelids. Michael was curled up in the corner, half in his sleeping bag with one leg hanging out. His shirt was undone and had spilled open, and even now he smelled like booze. His bandage had bled through the night and...
She could tell I was faking it. After twenty years of marriage, she could read my thoughts like a book. She spoke to me with her eyes and, although she was silent, I heard everything.
"What's wrong? Why won't you talk to me?" Her green eyes shone as she "spoke." I looked down and my eyes fell on my wedding band. How much longer would this last? I knew what I had done. I had lied to her. A marriage can't stand on lies - I know that.
She looked at me again and reached for my hand. I squeezed...
She closed her eyes and disappeared. The notes swallowed her, refusing to let her go. The beat aligned with her heart beat, giving her the illusion of impossible strength. The music grew louder until it was an explosion--as if thousands of butterflies instantly fluttered. She wished she too could fly away. Fly like the waves of the sound. Fly like the butterflies.
But instead, she was bound like the hair on her head. Bound by responsibily. Bound by expectation. Bound by fear of the unknown.
There once was a man in a sphere
Whose outward appearance was queer
He was hard to mistake
For the sphere was opaque
Because he had filled it with beer