In a single moment...

At times when I sit on the bus, I cannot help but wonder what is happening in other's consciousness. I sit, and I see two people listening to their music, and I wonder what music they are listening to? Both of them are (re)acting the same way, but perhaps one is listening to rap, and the other to experimental-post-modern-electronic pieces. Or the two people sitting beside me, both taking a nap (or perhaps trying to). What are they dreaming or thinking? How about the couple standing near the door? The guy has his arms around the girl's waist, and how lovingly the girl looks up, trying to catch the guy's eyes, while the guy is directing his eyes to the bosom of the woman sitting down in front of him. There is an old man at the front of the bus, looking forward, and a young girl standing, looking backward. And what about everybody else on the bus? All of them who stares away from each other, onto one ad after another, only to come back to the first and begin the process again. *Ding* somebody has to get off, and everybody is being very nice, letting each other to have the empty seat. Most fascinating of all is the Bus Driver, who sees through hundreds of passengers each day, even if some of the passengers take the same bus everyday, and they see each other at the same time everyday. Being does not reveal itself if it does not reveal through words, yet how we abuse language nowadays.

If only I can crystalize time into a single moment, and collect each fragment of consciousness from each passenger...it would be an interesting revelation, no?

秋景 (四) / Autumn Scenery IV

大地冰針刺,
枯葉眼淚流.
雨傘苦笑掩,
靜坐博學樓.

* * *

Frozen needles drive to the earth,
Tears fall from the dry leaves.
The umbrellas cover the weary smiles,
As I sit quiet inside Brock Hall.

秋景 (三) / Autumn Scenery III

青山白帽子,
大海金鏤衣,
雁群紅霞繡,
孤影看不見.

* * *

Youthful mountain with a white cap,
Great sea with a sparkling jacket,
Geese sew through the blushing clouds,
The lone shadow can no longer be seen.

秋景 (二) / Autumn Scenery II

青清池水木旁流,
通紅楓葉鏡上浮.
單蜓寡雲空中舞,
美女石橋伴我遊.

* * *

Flowing by the woods is the jaded pond water,
Floating on the mirror is the reddened maple leaf.
Dancing in the sky are the cloud and the dragonfly,
As a nymph accompanies me across the stone bridge.

秋景 / Autumn Scenery

眼見綠海浪接浪﹐
耳聽微風落葉落。
夏日香氣乘風去﹐
秋月繁星心裡降。

* * *

Observe the grassy sea, wave after wave,
Listen to the gentle wind - leaves, fallen leaves.
The fragrance of summer is carried away by the winds,
But the stars of the night has decended into my hearts.

The Candy Wrapper

I had promised a little girl that when I stroll by the playground today, and she would be there, that I would bring her a piece of candy. So today, as I went for my stroll as usual I dropped by the playground to find her. When I entered the playground I only saw a baby girl, not yet three years old, sitting on a bench. She sat in absolute stillness, and her puffy face looked at me with her large black eyes. She neither cried nor smiled, just simply sat still as a marble statue, and for a moment we just looked at each other, until she broke the spell and cried for her sister. Her sister, six years old, was the girl to whom I've promised a candy for. The girl had been playing on the swings and forgot that I was supposed to come. When she heard here sister's cry and saw me turning around, looking at her, joy overflown from her, and she spilled it all to the ground by running around the playground with her arms flung open. Twice she ran around before she realized that she was detaining my time. She came to me, excitedly, but grew a bit shy. As she approached me I took a piece of candy out of my pocket and handed it over to her. Her hands quickly unraveled the candy wrapper, and threw the candy into her mouth. Then she muttered some words - thank you, probably - and ran to the closest garbage can. I watched her in silence, and wore a smile upon my face. She was about to throw the candy wrapper when all of a sudden she just paused, looked up in the sky, then ran back to me. She stopped, and looked at me with a full smile, and asked: "Do you want the candy wrapper?" I looked back at her, and could not help but laugh out loud. That day I left the playground, and everything seemed to have lost its seriousness. Her innocent question had killed the spirit of gravity, and everything all of a sudden sang and danced...

As for the candy wrapper, I thanked her for giving it to me, and when I had reached home, I put it into a small jar along with the other candy wrappers she had given me in our previous meetings.

A Fable

Everytime a boy met someone, he would be given a bag and a book, and whenever he was to meet that person again, he would carry the bag and the book with him to the rendezvous. He possessed six bags:

From A he received a large backpack, and a thick tragedy.
From B he received a purse, and a wonderful comedy.
From C he received a handbag, and an autobiography of himself.
From D he received a handbag, and an autobiography of D.
From E he received a small backpack, and an epic poem .
From F he received a small backpack, and a book of love poetry.

In every rendezvous, he would take whatever book out and read it to the person, and when the meeting was over, he would mark down the page, leave and go home. He would never read the book alone, only with the giver.

One day, the epic poem was finished. Nothing more was said between him and E. There would still be meetings between them, but for the longest time there was only silence. Such silence was unbearable - he was too used to having words surrounding him, like all his other meetings. The silence persisted on, and he dreaded his meeting with E. But one day E bought paper and pen to the meeting. E had started a story - it was a story about two people travelling through a distant forest - and it was bought to him. He was to take it home to finish it. He took the story him, and indeed, finished it. The next meeting, the same form of silence persisted, but this time the substance was different. As he observed E reading the story he no longer dreaded the silence. In fact, the silence was far more welcoming than the words from before. It was in this silence that E read his heart, and he read E's heart, and the two hearts fused together - an unspoken bond that was simply too much for the limits of language. He and E no longer spoke to each other ever again; nor did he wish to speak, for in every written exchange he could hear E's voice loudly and clearly. They would write a new epic together.

It dawned upon him that in eventual time all the books would be finished, and the same process would occur again. He would then bring pen and paper, and he would write with them the biographies, the tragedies, and comedies. There would be times of dread, but those, now he knew, were just preludes to a new bond. He no longer feared silence; he welcomed it. But he should not rush the books, however heavy they were on his shoulders everytime he carried them to his meetings. Both the spoken and the unspoken he should enjoy.

One thing should be mentioned: at one point of the meetings F took back the bag and the poetry that was given to him. He was very confused at the moment, and did not realize how much it hurt him to feel such unbearable lightness. While he still attended to the rendezvous, he talked on constantly. He would not give F his ultimate gift - his silence.