Ping: it's my mobile, as I stand there and look, in the night-fallen park of the neighborhood where my parents still live, down at the paving stones I as a boy used to turn to hunt mole-crickets. In a reverie prompted by the new high-rises that were built in my absence, now towering over me and the park and the paltry memories of my childhood, I stand in place. Another ping: messages from a friend, from across the Big Continent, a hello and a link to something that can help with my finances.
Sitting at the desk in my old bedroom the next day, staring out the window. Against the blue sky, the crown of a ginkgo tree. I know that tree; neither the ginkgo nor I used to be tall enough for it to be viewed from there — where I used to do homework, or pretended to, and discovered masturbation. Leafless, the grown tree's bare greyish bones tremble in the wintry breeze. A magpie builds a nest. With a twig in its bill, this passerine hops around the trunk’s axis, scans for the correct deposit of her latest find.
I already know the end to this. But I don’t have a clear vision as to how it should get there. My eyes start to wet. As if steam rises from my chest to thaw the eyeballs. With even my vision blurred, I can see where this ends. And I remember...
We had stayed up all night just to chat outside her house. It was in the first week of June, the day I left China for good. So much that still lingered when we eventually did part. What’s heavier than the eyelids?, she quipped. I think I smiled turning away.
The pages in this book are vignetted, as they yellow from the outer edges. There's a glow around the gutter, the dark cleft that binds still blacker than the ink. The pages in this book resemble the shades of your skin. How yours used to beat against mine and softened me. The letters remain as black as I remember them, but appear softer now.
