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Part I
Life always throw you surprises, put there by the writers of our
fate, to spice our story up a little bit, to make our lives
interesting enough to catch the readers’ attentions, to make
them want to continue reading the plot that is your life, that
never-ending story of creatures trying to survive the world
surrounding them, the familiar conflicts of man vs. man, man vs.
society, man vs. nature, and man vs. self. Hmm... Never thought
learning those conflicts in English classes would help me in my
future thoughts of the world.
“I asked that man back there for the fishing lake...” Another
flicker, the smokes filling the car cockpit again.
Was that just a one-time character of my life’s story? Was God
just mocking me by showing me a beauty under the skies, and then
pull her completely away from my miserable life? Sigh, will I
ever see her again? Thinking about it, who was she? A stranger
with green eyes, borrowing a part of my heart and love, not
returning them to their home.
“Motherfuck! Did you know that we only had to turn left on that
traffic sign to get there?”
Life sucks. For every happiness you receive from it, you have to
pay it back with torture, suffering, and sadness, in a 300%
interest. For every century of peace, there’s always 5 centuries
of war. For every sweet taste you get out of chocolate, you have
to burn it off with six hours on a Stairmaster. And for every
fresh fish you cook, you have to torture yourself by degutting
it and peeling it’s scales off. We might as well be in Hell, at
least then we’ll know why we’re suffering so much for such
little happiness.
“There it is, see that dark hill over there?”
I don’t think I should think anymore tonight, it’s not really
healthy at all. But then again, is it possible to shut off all
thoughts? To feel the peace that is all around you, to not feel
with your mind, to not see through eyes? Is that even possible?
That’s just as impossible as turning on and off your emotions of
love, a light switch in the machinery of man.
“Here we are.”
I shouldn’t think this much, it’s not normal at all. But then
again, it is hard for a writer to not think at all, for that’s
how writer stories are born, from those continuous thoughts and
feelings, inspirations captured from the audience outside. A
song, a person, a ladybug on the shoulders of a newborn baby.
Stories popping out without warning, characters come to life
with just a moment in a paragraph, ready for that moment of
fame, not caring whether it makes them memorable or not, just
wanting to appear, wanting to be alive.
But then again, isn’t that just like life itself? We pop out
into existence without a warning, discovered when doctors tell
our mothers that they are pregnant, congratulating them on the
creation of a new life. Coming to life with just that moment in
our Universe’s history, a grain of sand in the vastness of the
desert, ready for that moment of fame, when we try to make the
best of ourselves, to make our existences known in the future
generations who’ll come.
But still, we do live just for the heck of living, not caring
whether our actions are memorable or not, just wanting to
appear, to be alive, to feel the blowing wind, the warmth of the
Sun. Art imitates life, and life imitates art. Live the life you
love, and love the life you live. Wise words of thought,
thoughts of wise words, words spoken out without thought, just
the wisdom that mankind finds in them.
I was still staring out the car window, as our car slowly came
into a stop, resting finally under the coolness of the night. I
jumped out of the small car, trying to wake up my sleeping legs.
It was awfully quiet, and awfully dark too. Just the perfect
setting for a ghost story.
And just like that, believe it or not, a ghost story popped out
of my mind, inspired by the dark settings and the quiet
atmospheres. The story would start with the hero, arriving at a
fishing lake, lost of the directions he was supposed to go. But
then he sees this beautiful woman on a white horse, and he asks
her of the place he was supposed to go, and she leads him on her
horse. He arrives safely and thanks her of her help. He asks her
of her address, and the woman gives it to him. The guy is
desperately in love with the woman, so he visits her the next
morning, only to find a tombstone in the place she indicated.
The hero asks around, only to have a villager tell him that the
woman was dead for more than 500 years now, as she got lost in
the forest, and starved of hunger, with her white horse at her
side.
“Ya done peeing yet?” The loud yells of my dad brought me out of
my stories once again, interrupting and destroying any useful
thoughts in a matter of seconds.
“Uh-huh!” I yelled back, as I zipped my pants close. I jumped
out of the pee-fertilized bushes and ran toward the little
Hyundai. Dad was already finished with his pulling out of
fishing equipments from the trunk.
“Get the cooler up the hill, will ya?” Dad mumbled through his
cigarette smoking, trying to carry as much stuff as he can,
while still being able to smoke that little cigarette of his.
“Very well, my lord.” I said in an English accent, bowing
gracefully before him. “With pleasure. Ah... Anything else, my
lord?”
“Shut up, boy, and get moving.”
“Claro que si, y con gusto tambien.”
I smiled as I said this, bending down to pick up the blue
plastic box. “Estare esperando por ti, senor Lin.”
The cooler was lighter than I thought, even though it was filled
with ice cubes. The hill was about three stories tall, all
covered by dying pale-green grass, which were stuck on this
light-brown rocky surface. There was a cement stair though,
right on the left side of the small parking lot, a rusted metal
rail accompanying it.
I easily jumped up the stairs, eager to get above land dwellers,
to finally achieve some height in my life, some way to get away
from the boringness of the world
below. Dad was slowly climbing up, taking up as much time as he
can down there, his mouth still holding that smoking cigarette.
I finally reached the top, after jumping for what seemed like an
eternity, and what I saw on the top, well, was really so
amazing, that mere words would do no justice for it. I
remembered putting the cooler down, and looking out onward,
toward that sight, my soul trapped in it.
It was just a dark abyss up there, no light shining from light
posts, no houses to block the view, or become the background of
it. It was just, well, peaceful dark, where you couldn’t tell
when sky begin and land ended, just the way our ancestors viewed
the vast earth of nature, open and wide.
I just couldn’t take my sights away from it. It made me feel
peaceful, calm, thoughtless. I wasn’t thinking anymore, but just
staring, becoming one with nature, blocking everything else
away. Is this how the world felt before houses were built on its
face?
A cool breeze graced me, as I heard my dad’s heavy footsteps
approach me, my eyes still trapped by the sight. “Beautiful,
isn’t it?” I heard him speak, his rough voice breaking through
the silence of nature. I just nodded as a reply, still savoring
and enjoying this moment of peace and nothingness. “You can
never see this kind of beautiful sights in the city, since it’s
full of houses and all.”
I nodded as the reply once again, still not blinking, not
wanting to miss even a millisecond of this moment. “Well, I’m
gonna start setting up.” Dad said in a quiet voice, as his
footsteps were heard once again, except that it was going away
this time, away from the silence. A loud engine noise was heard
from far away, approaching the small lake we were on.
I finally turned away from the dark abyss, unwillingly, and
walked after my dad. Was this what souls saw after their earth
bodies died? A dark and peaceful abyss, where you couldn’t tell
where sky begin and land ended? Is that our life after dead? A
peace that we were never able to achieve in life, a peace only
attainable when you’re dead?
I looked at that sight again, the car engine stopped its voice
below us, as I approached my dad. “We’re gonna have to start
catching crawfishes for the bait, just as the sun starts rising
up from the horizon.” Dad said as he took a small dead bluegill
fish, and started cutting it to pieces.
“When’s the sun going to rise up?” I asked as I arrived, picking
up a fishing rod from the pile of fishing equipments.
“Pretty soon.”
“Hmm... What a shame.” I replied, turning to look at the sight
one last time, before the rays of the sun breaks them into
unrecognizable pieces.
“Yep, pretty soon our asses will be baked crispy brown by the
desert heat of the Sun.”
“Yippee.” I replied unenthusiastically, as I picked up a piece
of the massacred fish, and placed the hook into its tender pink
meat. Another yawn escaped my mouth, as my eyes blinked sleepily
in the dark.
My dad looking at me, that lighted cigarette still in his mouth.
“Are you tired, boy?”
“Nah, I’m okay. As soon as I replace the caffeine that I just
peed on those bushes down there, I’ll be fine.”
“Hmm... There are some Mountain Dews in the cooler.”
“Yeah, those will do.” I smiled, as I put the fishing rod down,
and slowly walked toward the cooler.
Dad finally finished tearing the fish apart, and stood up to get
a fishing rod. “Why don’t you just go take a walk or something,
you know, rest up a little before you start crawl fishing.”
“Ah...” I let out a sigh as I sat on the cooler, resting my body
a little before the start of the day. I looked around the place,
seeing not a lot in the still darkness. “Sure, don’t see why
not.”
I got up slowly, as the horizon slowly painted itself orange,
announcing the arrival of the king of the skies, the god of the
trees and plants. My legs walked on their own, the mind
short-circuiting in the overheating of the non-rests. How long
have I been up already? A day? Close to a day? More than a day?
Twenty-four hours and one second?
I heard nothing but the crushing noise of the dried grass, that
crunching sound that accompanied every goddamn footstep of mine.
The orangeness of the horizon was slowly spreading across the
sky, like a never-ending virus, destroying the peace and the
darkness that had lived before it.
My eyes perceived a small cement dock after a few minutes of
walking, under the dim lights of the beginning of a brand new
day. The dock went out about twenty or thirty meters out into
the little lake, metal rails on the sides of it, as if it would
protect people from falling off the dock.
Hmm? Someone was already on it, looking out toward the horizon,
standing still on the end of the dock. She looked like that
red-haired girl I saw back at that gas station, the one that was
in that Chevy station wagon.
I blinked sleepily, as I slowly approached the lake dock, the
girl’s image becoming clearer and clearer. Was my mind playing
tricks with me? Did I just pass out back there on the cooler,
and this is nothing more than a dream? ’Cause it was that
red-haired girl I saw back there, the same clear green eyes
watching the horizon.
I saw myself slowly approaching her, walking silently on the
dock behind her, my eyes slowly clearing itself up, caffeine
pumped by the passion of the heart. Her red hair danced slowly
in the cool breeze, as the sun slowly peeked out of the
orange-red horizon, accompanied by the silent waves of the
little lake.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” She said as I slowly approached her, her
eyes still watching the lazy rise of that golden globe.
I tiredly looked at the rising sun, its dim rays stinging my
eyes a little bit. It wasn’t as peaceful and beautiful as that
dark abyss I saw before the destroying sun, and it wasn’t as
impressive neither. It was just as good as watching the sun set
on the western lands, in fact, if you took pictures of the
sunrise and the sunset, and then made someone else compare them,
I’m sure they’ll say that they’re both similar, and that they’re
both the same.
“Yeah, it is beautiful.” I lied after a few seconds of
sun-staring.
She turned then, and looked at me. “You’re that stalker from the
gas station, right?” She asked in a soft voice, as if afraid to
break the silence from the moving waves.
“And you’re that staring girl from the green station wagon,
right?” My mouth blabbed out unconsciously, my mind too tired to
stop the remark from flying up. Oh, crap, now I’ve done it.
She didn’t get mad though, but smiled at the remark. “That’s a
good one.” She said, laughing a little.
“Yeah. Ha, ha, ha.” I gave out an embarrassed laugh, as I placed
my hands into my pant pockets, something I usually do when I get
nervous, a habit that I’m unable to change.
We stared at the sun for a little bit more, as it tiredly
climbed out of that eastern horizon, stressed by the busy
schedule it has everyday. “My name is Elaine.” She said
suddenly, as she extended her hand out to me. She wasn’t that
younger than me, but seemed to be about the age of Lisa. “But my
friends call me Elly.”
“I’m Liang-Tang.” I answered in a smile, taking her hand in
mine. Her hand was soft and warm, like something out of a dream.
“But everyone calls me Tom.”
“Really? I don’t see how you get Tom out of that.”
“It’s a name my English teacher gave me when I was a kid.”
“Oh.” She said, as our hands separated from each other’s
embrace. “So tell me, Tom, what are you doing here? Continuing
your stalking on me?”
I’m here because I fell in love with you back there, and
followed you in order to my express my true feelings. “Nah, I’m
just selling some crack to some customers of mine.” I joked,
unable to talk seriously for even one small second. “You want
some?”
“That depends.” She joked back, looking around embarrassingly
still. I noticed then that she was wearing a white sweatshirt,
faded blue jeans below those, and walking shoes to accompany her
outfit.
“How about
you?” I asked in a confident voice, happy to be here with her.
To be so near to her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here on a fishing trip with my uncle.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, how about you?”
“I’m fishing with my dad.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, he had to pay me twenty dollars for me to come.”
She seemed surprised at this. “Why?” She asked curiously.
“Because I didn’t want to come to this place. The only way he
could get me to come was to either pay me twenty bucks or
hypnotize me into loving fishing trips. But since the ‘Do it
yourself hypnotism’ book costed more than twenty dollars, he
just decided to pay me the twenty smackers to save the problem.”
“Right, whatever.”
“No, I’m serious.” Don’t you just hate it when you tell the
truth, but they think it’s a lie, and when you tell a lie, they
think it’s true?
“Elaine!” Someone yelled behind us, in a really loud voice. I
turned and saw that fat mustached man I saw back at the gas
station, the owner of that green Chevy station wagon. “Come on,
it’s time to go!”
“I’ll be right there.” She yelled back, as I turned back to look
at her. “It was nice meeting you, Tom.” She said in a softer
voice, as she shook my hand once again, her green eyes staring
into mine.
“The pleasure is all mine.” I answered, as our hands parted once
again. I stared at her, as she slowly ran toward her uncle,
turning her head back just once, our eyes meeting one final
time, before she turned them back to her uncle, and walked away
from me. I had lost her once again, only moments after having
her back... |
