Watering Heaven

Chronology of an Egg

March 6: I first meet Sarah Chao in Beijing over tequila shots after a game conference. I tell her I think she’s beautiful and she tells me she has an unusual genetic quirk that scares off most men.

“Every time I have sex, I lay an egg.”

I assume she’s joking, get her email address. She’ll be coming out to the States in a few months and we agree to hang out then.

July 8, 7:45PM: Four months later, she’s in LA and I take her out to an exhibition about talented circus performers who’ve died in the act. We eat dinner at a ‘fusion’ restaurant on the Sunset strip, a motley of Asian and South American cuisines which end up tasting like neither.

8:04PM: X-ray profiles: me, Ethan Zhou, game designer, grew up in San Francisco, lived in China for three years researching iguanas and pandas. A previously broken ankle, pinky, and nose are the primary radioactive blips on my scan. Sarah Chao spent half her life in Kentucky, the other half in China. She’s a producer, outsourcing work for an online videogame, has a thick scapula, slender ribs, tender forearm, rounded pelvis, almost perfect mandible — and no broken bones.

9:02PM: As we exit the restaurant, she grabs a marker from her bag and tags a Mandarin character on the wall.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“The food sucked and it’s my duty to warn people.”

I’m not going to argue with her, but her vandalism extends to crowded bars, two empty nightclubs that force everyone to stand in line, and even a drunk guy’s forehead. Please love me, she writes in Mandarin.

“You know what you’re doing is illegal,” I say when she tags four badly parked cars.

“So’s drunk driving,” she replies. “Words should have gravity. If you can’t get arrested for a word, it probably isn’t worth using.”

9:18PM: We wander through Sunset, a plastic-boob-infested cornucopia of shallow snobbiness that doubles as a playground for celebrity wannabes. Paparazzi hound some Asians from a Koreatown-based reality show.

“This is what people in LA aspire to?” she asks.

“Not everyone.”

“What’s your aspiration?”

“In the long run, I’m still trying to make up my mind. But in the short term, I’d really love green tea ice cream.”

9:45PM: Green tea ice cream reminds me of my uncle Stan, who used to be a hippie and flew to China for a cultural exchange through his university more than thirty years ago. He arrived with a massive Afro, sparkling silver suit, and sunglasses bigger than his palm. Unsurprisingly, he was an outcast. A small vendor gave him the idea to start an ice cream store back home and he returned as soon as he could, setting up shop in Monterey Park where I always ordered green tea ice cream.

One lunch, he told me an old Chinese folktale about a fox who fell in love with a prince. The fox begged a powerful spirit to turn him into a human and the spirit agreed in exchange for the fox’s soul. But being mischievous, it turned the fox into a man. When the man tried to express his love for the prince, he was locked away and executed.

My mom told me Uncle Stan shoved a thousand Tylenol pills into his pistachio ice cream (his favorite flavor), and fell into eternal sleep.

“Does that mean you have one eternal dream, or millions of different ones?” I asked.

I don’t remember her answer. But I do remember a stranger who tried to come to the funeral and was turned angrily away by my family. He said, teary-eyed, “I just wanted to say good-bye.”

10:08PM: We meet up with four of my friends who want to go swing dancing at a techno club. Jim and Larry have zoot suits on; Lillian and Suzy are wearing swing skirts and rhinestone brooches. Lillian carries Jim around like an accessory: he loves her but she always plays innocent. Suzy’s dating a guy named Brad Pitt who looks nothing like the actor, while Larry’s one of those unfortunate people who blames his woes on his wife (he’s always telling me not to get married till I’m fifty). All four are great dancers.

I’m mediocre, and that’s being generous.

10:14PM: I comment to Sarah about the epidemic of ordinary people dressing up as superheroes including one in a zoot suit who scares off thieves by blaring on his trumpet. “Who are your superheroes?” I ask.

“Garbage men.”

“Garbage men?”

“Can you image what would happen to society if no one took away our garbage?”

10:33PM: Techno music is blaring; there’s a curtain of zoot suits swerving and veering like acrobats. The mathematics of human bodies equals legions of jitterbugs dancing the lindy hop in tangential algorithms. Jim spins Lillian eight times, skips opposite her. She goes so fast, it’s like the world’s axis has changed and everything’s revolving around her.

10:42PM: I get a vodka on the rocks. Sarah prefers tequila. I down mine and order a double. Someone grabs me from behind. It’s an old friend, Amy. She hugs me, looks scintillating in the rainbow of lights from the strobe. We exchange banalities, I go back to Sarah, and Amy goes back to her army of suitors.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say.

11:18PM: When we step out, Sarah fires up a cigarette. “What’s bugging you?”

“My friend Amy… She used to be married, happiest couple ever. But her husband got skin cancer and passed away. After that, she went crazy and slept with like a hundred guys… I know it’s none of my business, but I just get depressed when I see her…”

She lights up a match, hands it to me.

“Burn your memories away.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Only ‘cause you’re holding on,” she says, then blows out the match in my hands.

12:36AM: Cumulatively, we’ve sucked down fifteen tequila shots. The four dancers decide they want to karaoke in Koreatown. Their favorite place is nearby on Wilshire. The hostess is a lithe Korean girl who has the face of a teenager, the body and dress of a professional hooker. She guides us to our private room. Lillian and Suzy hog the mic; Sarah swings the tambourines. Jim cheers every time Lillian sings, while Larry is gawking out the window at our hostess.

“Wonder what it’d be like one night with her,” he whispers to me. “You could bounce pennies on that ass.”

12:57AM: I’m drunk; Sarah’s drunk and needs another cigarette. We go out for some air. “Two languages I love most are Mandarin and English,” she says as she tags another character on the brick floor. “You realize the first written language was probably by a guy who couldn’t draw? People have been doing graffiti since the beginning of time and there’s languages that we wouldn’t even know about if someone hadn’t tagged all over the temples.”

“When was the first time you did it?”

“My grandpa told me in Manchuria, when the Japanese invaded, the Chinese couldn’t fight back, so they’d write characters on the walls to protest. A lot of innocents died back then, including his brother and his best friend…”

“You were protesting an invasion force the first time?”

She laughs. “One of my junior high teachers accused me of cheating on a test. I was so angry, I tagged bad things about her all over the lockers. I got in big trouble, had to clean the lockers and mop the entire school.”

“No wonder you appreciate garbage men.”

1:07AM: “I got an idea,” she says. “You have a pen and paper?”

I don’t, but we get some from a liquor store. We approach a newspaper box; she pops in a quarter. “Write something,” she commands.

We write about the limits of doubt, the fatigue of joy, how boredom is the culprit of most evils and conspiracies are stupidities justified after the fact. She stuffs the notes into different papers—LA Express with their proffered sex, City Times with local buffoonery.

“I love giving people surprises,” she explains.

1:22AM: While putting in the papers, I brush up against her. Jolts run through me, and I notice her bare neck, her legs under her skirt. She catches my glance but ignores it and says, “C’mon, write more notes!”

1:55AM: After karaoke, our posse hits up a famous joint that serves donuts with yogurt and hot caramel. It’s practically empty. Ten minutes later, throngs of clubbers arrive, desperate guys spurting at the seams, lonely girls wondering if they’ll ever find true love in the throes of drunken bravado.

2:08AM: I really want to kiss Sarah.

“You’re both left-handed,” Lillian marvels.

“Is that special?”

“It means you’re both right-brained!”

My four companions want to go to an underground rave club where they still serve drinks. Sarah says, “I think I’m done for tonight.”

2:45AM: Being drunk always makes me feel a thousand times lonelier than I am, and Sarah looks beautiful as I drive her home.

“I think video games have an inferiority complex,” I tell her when we get to her apartment. “They compensate by trying to make everything look super realistic.”

“Anything wrong with reality?” she asks.

“No no no. I’m just saying — actually, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

She simpers. “Good night.”

“You don’t wanna… I don’t know.”

She looks at me inquisitively.

Say something smooth, be suave, be cool.

“Good night.”

I want to punch my mouth, flush my head down the toilet.

She asks, “You wanna watch a movie?”

I’m through her door before she is.

2:51AM: She shows me a collection of movies she’s made with friends: Vertigo: The Happy Ending. Romeo and John. Citizen Kane’s Redemption. Peace Club. Planet of the Cats. I pick the Godmother Part One.

2:57AM: She pops popcorn; we sit on her couch, flick the movie on. She says, “Tell me a sad story from your life.”

“You first,” I say.

She thinks about it. “My best friend in college fell in love with her pet guinea pig and decided to marry him. When she told her parents, they had her institutionalized.”

“Wow… That is sad.”

“Your turn.”

My head is a blur. I have a lot of pathetic stories, mishaps, mistakes, acts of stupidity, more rejections than I can remember. I used to stutter like a hyena; I was so pimple-faced, girls refused to talk to me. She’s quiet. I stare at her. She’s looking straight at me. I kiss her. She shakes her head. “We shouldn’t do—” But it’s too late and our lips lock. The sound of violins in the movie are mottled by occasional floods of bullets.

3:31AM: We hold hands after we finish and she says, “Promise you won’t hate me.”

“For what?”

Her forehead is covered with sweat.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I t-t-t…” She lowers her head, gets up and runs for the bathroom.

“Are you okay?”

“No!” she shrieks. “Shit shit shit!”

“Sara—”

“Bring me a pillow, now!”

I grab a pillow from her sofa, hand it to her. She’s naked, arms clutching both walls. “Wait outside.”

“But—”

She’s quaking, she screams, her veins throb. A small protrusion forms near her vagina and splits open. There’s something poking through, and blood covers the surface of the object. She grits her teeth, screams. Goo builds up and there’s a viscous mess. An egg drops on the pillow. She stumbles, takes a deep breath, picks up the egg (which is about three times the size of a normal one), and washes it off in the sink.

She walks past me to the kitchen. Takes out a frying pan. Cracks open the egg. It has a light red yolk, and she warms it up. Two minutes later, she sits down at the table. “Have some.”

“Umm…”

She gives me a fork. “EAT!” she commands.

I take a bite, am stunned. She asks if I need salt or Tabasco. I shake my head.

“This is the best egg I’ve ever had.”

4:19AM: Once we finish, she says, “If you’re not here in the morning, I understand.”

“Is it every time?”

She nods. “One of my ancestors burned down five henhouses and killed over twenty thousand chickens during the Opium Wars. The farmer who owned the land cursed him, and all the women in our family have laid eggs since.”

“Is that a true story?”

“Not sure,” she replies, walks to her bed and passes out.

I go to the kitchen and clean up, throw away the egg shells. Look through the hundreds of books she has on foreign languages.

9:22AM: Next morning, she wakes up.

“You’re still here,” she says, surprised.

I hand her the marker she used for tagging. Put out my palm.

“Mark it,” I say.

Forbidden City Hoops

We went out at daybreak, as soon as we could see. We hustled through the shopping menagerie of Wangfujing, through the barren plains of Tiananmen, into the crimson maze of the Forbidden City, to a hidden corner where the guards had set up a basketball hoop to shoot a few during their breaks.

I was afraid of getting caught but Alice, my girlfriend, assured me that no soldiers came out this early — too afraid of the phantoms and spirits of ancient court officials.

Chinese with dark hazel eyes, she was the stubborn dilettante who enjoyed the chaotic stringency of Beijing, looting its bazaar of experiences and bartering with street merchants for old teeth and dragon horns. She was like a defiant Chinese hornpipe, her melodies clashing with the pipes next to her, the sound changing timbres faster than a tuk-tuk racing down the streets of Chang’An. There was nothing she liked better than her own private basketball court. With her own private rules.

“These rules are stupid,” she’d complained when I began to teach her the refinements.

“Rules are rules.”

“Why can’t we change them?”

“Because that’s the way they are.”

“Emperors and empresses could change the rules anytime they wanted.”

“You want to be the new empress of basketball, be my guest,” I said.

“Okay, how about we play with the rule, you can’t get within a foot of me, and anytime you do, I automatically get an extra point.”

“What kind of rule is that?”

“A good one.”

The next day, the rule was, “If you hit the rim, it counts as a point.”Then there was the day she permitted wrestling, so whenever I went for a shot, she’d tackle me, grab the ball, and put it in for a layup. Last week, she declared, “It’s opposite-point day.” Whenever I scored, she’d get the point. Whenever she scored, she tallied it for herself.

“Is that fair?” I asked.

“Who said anything about fair? You forget where we are?”

Never. The palace of the Ming and Qing emperors towered majestically; the symmetry and planning, coordinated to a brick. Grandeur was the theme and bright red, its coat of armor. The site was so massive, it was a marathon just to find the bathroom, marching past the serpentine cypress trees and the statues of turtle gods.

I marveled at the idea that once long ago, I wouldn’t have been allowed to enter. Now, tourists swarmed the palace, snapping photos. The original name was Ziji Cheng, or Purple Forbidden City, the purple referring to the north star, which was the heavenly abode for the Celestial Emperor. Even though he was considered the most powerful of the gods, he wasn’t responsible for the creation of the world. In fact, the Chinese are the only major civilization without a creation myth. It was as though they’ve always been in existence.

Much like Alice. I couldn’t imagine my life before her.

A production assistant from Shanghai, she had quirky eyes that seemed incapable of stillness. I was a photographer from the States, discontent with the brittle tapestry of loneliness and its withering ramifications. Forced beauty had been my addiction, evaporating when I realized I wanted something more than the veneer and sham of digitized desire. It was fleeing a shoot for Calvin Klein one afternoon that I had discovered our basketball court.

I fell in love with Beijing’s eccentricities the moment I landed, the lavish landscape of skyscrapers intermingling casually with the ancient hutongs and decrepit apartments. It all seemed like part of the canvas of a brilliant beatnik engineer suffering delusions of petulance, never satisfied, always proud. Flaws weren’t pariah here; foibles were badges of character, not something to be brushed away in Photoshop.

I started dating Alice when I asked a group of models during a shoot for good food recommendations. No one answered except for the lone production assistant carrying coffee for the talent.

“Beijing has the best food in the world,” she declared.

Then she went out of her way to prove it, bombarding me with dishes like braised beef and rabbit tail grilled to impeccability. There were feasts of frog cheeks and deer brain served with the famous kaoya, Peking Duck, wrapped in duck sauce and cucumbers, simmering yellow wine to accompany the mung bean soup and the curry salted crab. I ate whatever she threw at me and she appreciated my boldness by accepting every date I asked her for.

After our eighth date, I asked if I could come by her place.

“Sorry, can’t do that,” she replied.

“Why not?”

“I have twelve cats and they get really jealous.”

“I can handle jealousy.”

“Not when they’re scratching your face and peeing all over your clothes. How about we go over to your place instead?”

I laughed, wondering how serious she was. “Sure.”

My living room is generously proportioned, but television sets occupy every square inch: huge dreadnaughts, small kitchen units, old antiquated relics, brand-new flat screens.

“I’ve never seen so many TVs in a room,” she said.

“I collect them from the dump, and I make sure every screen plays a different channel.”

“Why?”

“I love the music of discordance,” I answered, then flipped on all the TVs with the master control.

“Wow,” she said. “It’s kind of romantic in a weird way.”

I kissed her. She twitched, but kissed me back. We stood in each other’s arms, basking in the histrionic rays of television tubes that synchronized to the blend of comedy, drama, and infomercials.

We made love in a haphazard dance to the drone of a thousand channels, and, when we finished, she whispered to me about her childhood. “My mom used to own a clothing store in Hebei and that meant I got to try new dresses every week. I sooo enjoyed dressing people up, and my best friend was a mannequin,” she said. “Is that strange?”

I grinned, running my fingers along her hair.

“One of my favorite feelings in the world is to make someone feel beautiful,” she said.

“Is that why you got into the fashion industry?”

“Either that or get an office job… and I’m allergic to offices.”

Whenever I saw her, she was wearing a different hat: a pink beret one day, an azure cap the next. She wore beanies when we played hoops, and her general zeal for winning expressed itself boldly in the lucid hues of her hats. Mahjong, jiangqi, our basketball games — didn’t matter — she hated defeat and reveled in victory. After winning each morning series, she sauntered through the subways, singing songs that had never been sung, brushing confidently past the buffet of pedestrians obsessed with their daily compulsions.

“You know what I think I deserve for how badly I beat you?” she asked.

“What?”

“Honey sprinkled on top of a garlic sweet potato filled with custard from inside, and a brownie on the side with caramel poured all over it.”

“That sounds like a recipe for a heart attack.”

“Yummy,” she answered with a mischievous grin.

She had a fierce exterior, and it was hard to imagine the night debilitating her will. But she suffered continual nightmares; she dreamed about the end of the world in a submersion of candy wrappers, and soda cans that devoured the ocean.

As soon as she nodded off, she’d grind her teeth in a quick series of stutters, little tics of motion pulsating from finger to calf. I’d hold her in my arms, thinking about what happened after we’d been dating five months.

We were meeting to watch a Chinese opera. I rushed to our rendezvous point, saw her on the other side of the street. She waved, took a step forward. At that moment, a taxi swerved to avoid a woman lugging her baby in a quick dash. And hit a motorcycle that lost control and smashed into the trashcan next to Alice.

I was unsure of what to do. She had jumped out of the way, but had tripped over the sidewalk. I rushed over, saw that she was okay, and went to the motorcyclist. There was blood all over him, but he was conscious. I dialed for emergency help.

The medics rushed everyone to the hospital. To my surprise, Alice had broken her ankle and shattered part of her knee. As she was about to go into surgery, she looked at me and asked, “How come you didn’t take care of me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just watched when the accident happened and then you went to the motorcyclist first.”

“I saw that you were okay.”

“But you didn’t even ask me how I was.”

Before I could respond, she closed her eyes and went in for her operation. Why hadn’t I rushed to her side?

She was confined to a wheelchair for three months. When she was finally able to walk, she did so with a bad limp. If she was disappointed, she did her best to hide it. “I’m alive and my stomach is intact,” she said. “And I can still walk.” But I noticed cruel glances from people passing by, and so did she.

I tried to cheer her up by renewing our culinary excursions. At first, we faced difficulties just finding places with wheelchair access. But even after she could walk again, she seemed reluctant to go out. “I found a great Shandong restaurant, wanna go?”

“Not really. I’m pretty tired,” she answered.

“But they have your favorite kidney coriander dish and it’s supposed to be awesome.”

“I don’t wanna go in a taxi right now. It’s too far.”

Not only had her enthusiasm for food dwindled, but an undercurrent of melancholy sieved through her like sticky porridge.

She spent months in rehab. While dozing off in the hospital lobbies, she lectured me about one of her hidden passions — finance. About variable interest rates, derivatives, Bernanke’s warnings, why Warren Buffett was against portfolio diversification, and the housing crisis in America, topics I was aware of only as catch-phrases from TV. I enjoyed the lessons and she did too as it gave her an opportunity to forget about her own situation.

“You need to save, to have at least six months backed up,” she admonished me.

“Yes boss,” I answered.

After her treatments ended, we both hoped she’d make a full recovery. But her step continued to waver.

“Will I be ever able to walk again without pain?” she asked the doctors.

They weren’t sure because of further complications in her torn muscles. “You need to be active about trying to heal it.”

We did bike rides through the city to strengthen her knee, weaving into a fleet of bicycles, playing Entourage through the winding tapestry of the labyrinthine roads. Cars honked impatiently as they waded through the haphazard morass of traffic, and we imbibed the scents of burning ginseng and pork wontons from the street vendors. In the evenings, we’d hit the local gym and swim like trout, sucking up hot ramen afterwards.

“I hate noodles,” she complained.

“Then how come you always eat them?” I asked.

“I always find myself drawn to things I hate. Don’t you ever do that?”

The truth was, with every taxi ride through the city, I prayed for another accident. Not so that either of us would get hurt, but because I wanted to find some way to make up for my previous lapse.

One day, we were watching her favorite TV show, a comedy/celebrity interview/star search bonanza that usually left me cringing. An NBA player I wasn’t familiar with happened to be a guest. He did some tricks with his basketball, taking part in a dribbling competition with two teens that were China’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters.

“We should play again,” she told me.

“When do you want to start?”

“Tomorrow.”

There was drifting snow on our court the next morning, and our breath steamed out of us. We were nervous about getting caught, we argued more about the rules, and our hands froze.

Our ritual continued four times a week. Even if she wobbled as she dribbled, she was getting better, learning to adjust for the weakness in her knee, insisting on practicing at least 500 free throws a day. She fell a lot, but when she did, she’d hop right back up.

A month in, she took a particularly bad fall. I rushed to assist her in getting up. But I couldn’t help being frustrated with myself as I saw her wince in pain.

“What’s wrong?” she asked when she got back on her feet.

I turned away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked again.

“You think there’s something I could have done to avoid this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean during the accident…” And even though there were a million apologies I wanted to make, my well of words dried up.

She shrugged. “If you feel bad, you can buy me dinner for the rest of my life.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Cheer up,” she said. “Remember, we don’t know what this life really is. Don’t worry about it.”

“But if I had done something…”

“Like what?”

I didn’t have an answer.

She shook her head. “Did I ever tell you the story about Gumang?”

“No.”

“It’s a province where the sun never rises and the moon never sets. People there used to spend more than two-thirds of their life sleeping and dreaming. They believed the waking life was illusion and the dreams, reality. When I look in the mirror and see myself, I can’t believe this is real. But I’m alive, my leg feels a lot better, and the other night, I had a dream I became an NBA star better than Kobe, super-rich too.”

“You think that’s the reality?”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “I hope so… What about you? What’s your dream?”

“Mine?” I thought about it. “My life here in China, being with you — it all feels like a dream. I don’t want it to ever end.”

“Then don’t wake up,” she said.

The workout gave her an appetite, and she devoured our dinner.

The next day, she had a new rule. “You have to sit while you play.”

I sat down. “What about you?”

“Of course I get to stand,” she said.

She gave me a good beating as usual.

Afterwards, I told her, “Congratulations.”

“You’re too easy. I think I need to find better competition.”

“Are you talking trash to me?” I asked, laughing.

She looked over at me, a worried glint crossing her eyes. “Okay, rematch.”

“What’s the rule this time?” I asked.

“Whoever makes a basket, we both get a point.”

“But then no one wins.”

“Actually, it means we both win,” she said. “Now c’mon, I’ll let you take out.”

The Wolf’s Choice

I.

v=Hd was the equation for the rate at which galaxies sped away from one another, the H standing for Hubble’s Constant, the v, for the vapid volume of velocity. The third variable was d, representing distance, the diametrical disposition of difference. And somehow, these three digits summarized the universe into a trinity of letters, simplicity exemplified. It struck me, when I first learned the variables, how it would have taken a thousand times more energy to resist change than to accept it.

I’d spent eight months wandering through the honeycomb of Asia, shifty Bangkok, grand Beijing, contemporary Shanghai, futuristic Tokyo, all convicted in the nexus of modernization and unshackled faith. I was adrift, tugged and pulled by the gravity of solitude, a festering hunger driving me like a relentless martinet.

“When did you get so afraid of loneliness?” May, my ex, had asked a month before I left. “You used to love being by yourself.”

She always talked about the beginning of time, the constant motion of the universe.

“Everything in life is us trying to reproduce that first moment,” she said. “That frenzy of unsustainable energy exploding into a billion directions.”

Was she trying to reproduce that moment when she poured Drano into her coffee? She melted her esophagus and stomach, bombarded her entrails with acid and left as the shell of a dead star. I became an imago mired in puberty, a roach who woke up one morning and found he’d metamorphosed into a human.

When I returned to my workplace in the States, I’d overcome the manifestation of my inner turbulence. In the hospitals of Seoul, I’d cut my cheeks, reshaped my nose, incinerated my brows, elevated my chin. When I first took off the bandages, I thought the doctors had pulled a joke on me: I couldn’t see any difference. Only after I compared my mirrored image with old photos from two months before my convalescence could I see how much I’d actually changed.

My first day back, several colleagues entered my cubicle, about to welcome me when they stopped, confused by my appearance. “Did Keith move seats?”

“It’s me,” I said.

“What?”

“It’s me, Keith.”

There was a momentary pause followed by uncomfortable glances.

“How come you look completely different?”

“I had plastic surgery.”

“What?”

I explained in more detail. They weren’t sure how to respond, staring at me for a long time, leaving as quickly as decorum would allow. For the next few days, everyone responded similarly, discomfited by my transformation. My actions didn’t help the situation: I withdrew completely, unable to take part in their subtle machinations against one another, the politicking of leverage and advancement as cubicled alphas rammed each other over email.

I thought I could find solace with my family.

“How could you change the face you were born with? It’s a disgrace,” my dad said.

“I needed change in my life.”

“By cutting up your face!”

“…”

“Look, your mother is having a really difficult time dealing with this. We’ll talk later.”

My younger brother called me an attention whore who’d betrayed all my values. “Don’t send me any pictures!” he shouted. “I don’t wanna see the freak you’ve become.” He and my mother held prayer vigils for my soul, calling members of their congregation to help me find my way back.

Back when I was getting surgery, they ran a psychological profile to make sure I was mentally fit. One of the questions was, What is heaven like? I told them about a dream I had, a big throng of people from all different religions having gone to hell. We were outraged because we didn’t know which religion was right and we wanted to know what happened. A horrendously disfigured monster came down and said, ‘You just left Heaven.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Hell is a factory to make Heaven — Earth — and we spend millions of years building it so we can live there. Before we go back, our memory gets wiped so we can forget the suffering we endured here. But we always end up destroying it so we get sent back to build a new heaven.’

Surprisingly, the doctor found the answer refreshing. “When do you want to start?” he asked.

II.

I was a programmer for an online game where everyone got to play as a customizable plant. Our company did well and a big publisher purchased us about a year ago. Immediately, they looked for ways to reduce costs while my supervisors started training candidates from the India and China branches. “We’re training our replacements,” they sarcastically commented, then taught them everything they knew.

Traveling through Asia, I saw the inevitability of the shift towards an Eastern labor force, their hunger and passion blazingly palpable despite working at a tenth of our cost. I found it difficult to attend meetings and engage in bullshit jargon to raise declining morale. What was the point, when it was all going to be outsourced anyway? My supervisors sensed my negativity, stuttered directions awkwardly, their eyes peeking furtively at the contours of my re-sculpted nose.

It took them seven weeks to garner the courage to tell me they were making ‘cutbacks.’ And even then, they sent their lackeys to do the dirty work.

“We love your work, but we can’t afford to keep you,” the thin red-haired HR girl named Nikki told me.

“It’s okay,” I answered.

“Thanks for understanding. Here’s all your documents… Hey, I have a strange question.”

“Yeah?”

“I feel terrible about this whole situation. How about I take you out for a drink?”

“Excuse me?”

She shook her head. “Forget it,” she said, embarrassed.

“No no. I… I’m free.”

“Really?” she sparked up.

Nikki was tall with sapphire eyes, a gait filled with frivolity and taut sensuality. She was known for her elaborate dresses, her flashy business suits that vaunted as much flesh as they hid. Lightly freckled with flaring lashes, there was an exotic intangibility in her aura, a riveting sheath that could blind and tantalize.

“Let’s meet at 6:30.”

I went back to my desk, packed up. Even though I’d expressed nonchalance during my termination, I was disappointed no one came by to say farewell. I headed down to the underground parking lot with my belongings. Waiting by the valet, there was an elderly male with grizzled hair, a gold tooth, and suspenders for his white collar shirt. He had ruddy cheeks and a pimple on his nose. I recognized him as one of our vice presidents.

“You too?” he said.

“Yep,” I answered, surprised he’d received the axe as well.

He sighed. “It’s all about numbers.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” he asked. “I missed one mortgage payment while I was off in the Bahamas. A day after the deadline, three of my credit cards were canceled. I spent four weeks fixing the problem, screwed up a big contract, and now they’re giving me the can. Can you believe it?” He sighed. “What’d you do?”

“I had surgery on my face and no one wants to look at me anymore,” I answered.

He burst into laughter, then turned grim. “Too much wit killed you, eh? Personality, charm, individualism — quirks of the past. You want to survive now, be like a virus.”

“A virus?”

“Symmetrical, methodical, easily reproducible, but still susceptible to improvement and change. The perfect employee.”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so?” he said, and a mad glint flared across his eyes. “You’re a number, I’m a number… but I’ll show them I’m not just any number.” Around the corner, the valet was bringing a SUV. The VP charged out in front, arms wide open, about to get run over. I sprinted at him, slammed into his body, both of us rolling as the SUV skidded to the side.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“Saving your life!”

“My life is already over! What am I gonna tell my wife? I’m just a goddamn number they replaced?”

“Being a number isn’t so bad,” I said. “It’s the most guys like us can hope for.”

He looked at me, said, “I’d rather die than be a number.” Then burst out crying. “Can you hold me?” he asked.

A minute later, the valet pulled up in the VP’s Porsche. He didn’t say good-bye as he drove off.

III.

Nikki met me outside our office building and we decided to walk towards a local bar.

We chatted about the charm of a childhood driven by infatuations, wondered why drugs had become so emotionally trendy, then pondered which new disease would end up destroying civilization.

“I used to work at an epidemiology office,” she said. “The disease center I worked at thought we were due for a big plague that’ll down the population in half.”

“Half?”

“Yeah, half.”

“Were there any diseases that were especially nasty?” I asked.

“Lupus.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s when your cells start committing suicide and your immune system makes antibodies that attack your own tissue, making your face bloat up like a wolf.”

“How’d you go from there to here?”

“Be surrounded by diseases or people all day. Which would you choose?” she asked.

We arrived at Dash, a three-story bar filled with young, rich singles. In Asia, I was used to people’s friendliness: you could approach almost anyone and strike up a conversation. Here, I saw the disdainful looks from girls who’d size me up and dismiss me, the millions of unspoken rules that were inviolable. I’d forgotten how divisive love could be.

Certain I was doomed to futility, I was surprised when Nikki downed three Long Islands and said, “Ever since I first saw you, I thought you were hot.”

“You did?”

“You know, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but a lot of girls are really attracted to you. Is it true you had surgery?”

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Well I didn’t see you before, but it looks great. I had my boobs done and I’ve had a tummy tuck too. If it looks good, who cares, right?”

“Right.”

“Why aren’t you drinking?” she asked.

I shrugged, looked at the bar. Saw some ketchup and mustard. “Wanna see something gross?”

“What?”

I grabbed bottles of both, asked for a cup, poured a mix of the two in.

“You’re not gonna actually drink that, are you?” she asked.

I took the cup and downed it.

“Oh my god.”

“When I was in China,” I explained, “I had a craving for American food but everything tasted a little off, so I started drinking ketchup and mustard.”

She burst out laughing. “I’ve heard of people going crazy for their cravings, but you’ve just taken it to another level. Tell me more about Asia.”

“Like what?”

“Something that sticks out.”

I thought about it. “In Thailand, I saw a bird that got caught in a spider web. It was tangled up and there were hundreds of baby spiders crawling over it, sucking its life away. I felt so sorry for the little thing.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go back to your place right now.”

“What?”

“I can’t bear to see you sad. Let’s go,” she said, her breath reeking of alcohol.

“I’m sorry, I’d rather not.”

She appeared stunned. “Excuse me?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

“I’m saying let’s go back to your place to, you know,” and she twisted her hips back and forth.

“I know. And I’m sorry, but I’d rather not.”

“You really are a freak, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Yeah, everyone thinks you’re a freak. Why do you think we got rid of you?”

“There’s no need to be hostile.”

“You’re such a freak. I’m glad they got rid of you.”

I bit my tongue, stood up.

“Yeah, get out of here you freak! FREAK! FREAK!” and she stumbled.

“Nikki,” I said, helping her to get up.

“Get away from me!” she yelled, splashing her drink in my face.

A guy with a crew cut and muscles the size of boxes rushed to her aid. “Is he bothering you?”

“Get him out of my sight!”

“You should leave,” he admonished, prince to the rescue.

“Nikki.”

“Didn’t you hear her?” he said. “Get out!” And he swelled his chest up in a menacing pose, clenching his fists.

I stared incredulously.

“Did you hear me?” he demanded.

“I heard you. So go ahead, hit me.”

“What?”

“Go ahead and hit me.”

“You crazy?”

“Yeah I’m crazy, and if you’re gonna threaten me, carry through.”

“You’re nuts.”

And though he glowered, I glowered back.

He shook his head, backing down.

I turned around. Saw him trying to comfort her as I made my exit.

Outside, I was fuming, the muted blast of hip-hop resonating through the street. Drunkards staggered along the block, ranting about misplaced desire, while swarms of women were being chased by horny guys hiding their loneliness with exaggerated machismo. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with Nikki. Quite the contrary. It’s just, I could still feel the embers of May shining light-years away even though she’d supernova’d into nonexistence.

I walked without direction, traversing aimlessly. While I passed an alley, I heard a shuffling sound, a pile of garbage collapsing on itself. I looked more closely. A scruffy dog emerged from the bundles of trash. He was an ugly mutt, hair patched together. He crashed into the wall, dumbly falling over. Was he blind? He stumbled his way over and growled suspiciously.

“It’s okay, I’m…”

But he made several rapid barks before charging me, biting my arm.

I could have lashed out but didn’t. Instead, I petted him, trying to soothe his rage and calm his nerves; he was scrawny and I knew he just wanted food. After a minute, he let go, his anger sated. He actually looked guilty, wagging his tail and standing there helplessly. “Wait here,” I ordered.

He followed despite my command. I bought some bandages and snacks at a store, tossed him scraps while I sat on the curb and cleaned my arm.

The dog nibbled on his food, sidled next to me. I stared at him, found myself in a talkative mood. “I went on a trip to Asia to change everything about myself, but even after it was over, I felt like nothing was different. It’s bizarre because everyone’s treating me so differently. But I don’t feel different inside.” The dog stared blankly, tongue sticking out. I thought of an old tale I’d heard in China. During the life of every wolf, they’d become a human for one day. They’d live, sleep, eat, shit like a human. Afterwards, they could either go back to the pack, or change into a dog and serve humans, understanding how lonely mankind truly was.

“What was your day like?” I asked.

A Beijing Romance

I. Temple of Cats

There was something terribly unromantic about falling in love in Beijing. And yet it was the most romantic city I’d known. Several million people were squeezed into the metropolis that was undergoing constant surgery on its ruptured streets, a gallery of stenches from boiled pigeon to fried pig feet wafting through the polluted oblivion of its emblazoned skies. The face of modernization effused proudly from the immense skyscrapers and shopping malls tag-teaming across the shoebox landscape. Somehow, beneath the grandeur of it all, there was love: strident, audacious love showing its face as both quiescent and clamorous. Affectionate couples went on their first date to McDonald’s; a young man prepared a picnic for his wife at Beihai Park; a desperate teenager asked a girl out forty times before she relented. I met Faye through a friend and the first thing she said was, “I collect stray cats and make them fat. They love kung pao fish and spicy chicken,”

“Aren’t you supposed to feed them cat food?” I asked.

“If you had to eat vitamins your whole life, would you like it?”

I suggested she give them milk instead of water.

“Cats like milk?” she asked, astounded.

“I thought that was common knowledge.”

“I’ve never heard that. I thought milk made them sick…”

“No no, it’s the opposite — they love it.”

“In Chinese culture, the blue cat god is in charge of fortune. You make a cat sick, you have bad luck the whole year.”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

She laughed and I started talking about an opera without music, conjectured about the possibility of recreating the Aurora Borealis using only sound, wondered at the implications of a world without smell. She was intrigued, told me about the genealogy of her woes, the birth of bliss, the tidal wave of circumstance that rendered her fragile in the face of desire. I bought her five cocktails and tried to kiss her. She blew vodka-breath in my face and said, “Only if the cats like your milk.”

She gave me her phone number and after we sang our hearts out at the personalized karaoke station of KTV, I asked, “Are you busy this weekend?”

“Very. I won’t have time to do anything.”

I ignored her and called her for a date. Surprisingly, she agreed. We went to the most posh restaurant I knew in Beijing, the Blu-Lobster, renowned for serving lobster-themed dinners.

“There’s something I should tell you,” I said before our ten-course meal started.

“What?”

“I head back for America at the end of this week.”

“For how long?” she asked.

“Indefinitely. I signed a contract for a job that starts in a week.”

She stared at me, confused. “What was the point of asking me out, then?”

I twisted my lips, trying to find the right way to explain. “Do you think there’s a minimum amount of time to fall in love with someone?”

“Don’t tell me you’re already in love with me,” she said.

I laughed. “I just don’t want time to hamper our possibilities.”

She played with her napkin. “You’re either really confident, or misguided about the kind of girl I am.”

“Neither, actually. But let’s enjoy dinner, see how it goes. Afterwards, you can leave if you want and never call back.”

She glanced at me. The waiter served the lobster bisque soup.

“You’re lucky my cats loved your milk.”

II. A Beijing Taxi

Our second date took off like a Beijing taxi with broken brakes. We skidded down the raucous, car-infested streets, brakeless in the advent of a fleet of blind truck drivers who weren’t paying attention to the streetlights. We fought about everything that morning: my past girlfriends, her past boyfriends, little annoying quirks that already got on her nerves. I was convinced we were doomed. Then we spent the evening in joy, discovering an exquisite restaurant that cost less than three dollars, finding an acrobatic show that used dental floss to balance, discussing how different fashion would be in a world without hair.

Faye was a beauty among beauties, but she didn’t wear her beauty like those who vaunted it. She was a Mandarin lioness with her fierce brown eyes and billowing lips that sparked incendiaries rather than words. Her gait was starkly unfeminine, impatiently brisk and abrupt in its efficiency. She wore jeans and t-shirts, disdaining dresses and the charades of courtship with their peacock superficialities.

“What were your relationships like in America?” she asked.

I thought about how almost every girl I met came with cartloads of baggage and a hurdle of impossible expectations. Now, I was the one carting distrust and suspicion, heaps of cynicism about the whole facade of romance.

“What about you?” I asked.

She was the opposite, someone who’d resisted the weaker, easier path of disillusionment. The flaring conflagration of her love was so pure and simple, even the sun would have been burnt by it.

Sunday morning, I felt ill. The bull entrails and the deer blood soup from the night before had wreaked havoc on my belly. Faye bought me rice porridge and cooked ginseng soup in my hotel, regaling me with amusing stories from her childhood. Monday came and she called in sick to take care of me (she was a producer for an outsourcing company that built computer joysticks).

She mixed the ginseng into the tea, took my temperature. “Didn’t realize you had such a weak stomach. I would have picked a more foreigner-friendly menu if I’d known.”

“Let my stomach adjust,” I protested. “Then I’ll eat anything you can.”

“You sure about that?”

“As long as it’s not tiger penis or pigeon brain.”

“But I love those!” she said.

“Uhh, hold on a sec, I need to use the restroom again…”

While retching into the toilet, I thought about the fact that there were no seatbelts in a Beijing taxi. You could either refuse to ride or leap in, hoping that it didn’t crash. If it did, well, you could console yourself with the fact that at least you had a good time.

III. Hahahahahahaha

Our first few days together forced us to create a new language. Even though she spoke perfect English, Mandarin was still her native language. I spoke broken Mandarin that was barely decipherable and always elicited confused are you stupid looks from bus drivers and store clerks. So it wasn’t that unusual for our conversations to break down into a series of sounds, some guttural, others hieroglyphically primordial, especially when we were tired: Ku ku keh keee. Heheheheheheeee. Ummm, oohh, umm, uh huh, uh oh. Ayyyaaaaaiiiiiiiii. Quuu!!!

It was late at night when we were taking a stroll past a subway tunnel. We saw a couple sleeping outdoors in thick pink blankets: the man snoring, the woman clutching her pillow. They looked like they were in their 30s and I wondered when they were exchanging their marriage vows, whether the thought they’d be sleeping outside like this even crossed their minds?

I mentioned this to Faye, and she responded, “At least they still have each other.”

I knew married couples who were super-rich but hated each other.

I held Faye’s hand. “Mmmmm…”

IV. In the Middle of the Night

In the middle of the night, she woke me up. Talked about cell phones and radiation, how much she hated mathematics as a kid, ranted about the conglomeration of Chin Tai Fook and all the stores that charged so much for artificial enhancements of love. Then said she was craving hamburgers at Let’s Burger with their twenty sauces, that she missed her brothers, finally asking if I was close to my family. I told her my parents had passed away and I’d never really had a family. She cradled her arm around me and kissed my cheek, said, “I’ll be your family.” A minute later, I heard soft breathing: she was asleep. I closed my eyes and joined her.

V. Subway During Rush Hour

Every day during rush hour, a mass of people swelled into the subway station. I stood in line, seeing there were way too many waiting to get on board. Within seconds, I was pushed, pulled, then swarmed into the train. I’d thought there was no way I was even going to get on and somehow, I was in the middle of it, frozen with hundreds of others. If ever I had suffered claustrophobia, the Beijing subways forced me to come to terms with the inevitability of spatial impossibilities.

I was meeting Faye for the video game concert I’d wanted to see. The Beijing Symphony was going to perform classic game melodies like Super Mario and Zelda. In front of the concert hall, she ran towards me and hugged me.

“Sometimes, a relationship is like coffee,” she said.

“How?”

“After a long day, you need a jolt to keep you awake.”

I laughed. “I thought of it more as a subway ride.”

“What do you mean?”

I tried to explain my allegory, the way it pushed the boundaries of what you’d normally expect. I noticed something was bothering her.

“You okay?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I saw a car accident today. Two kids on a bike got run over… I could hear them crying in pain, there was blood all over… I never told you about my friend Zhuqing, did I?”

“No.”

“She was my best friend in junior high, but she was killed in a car accident. I still remember she was carrying milk for our class project because she loved giving milk to crows. She thought milk could make them talk.”

“Crows talk?” I asked.

“There’s a legend about two lovers who met in a dream. The man transformed into a crow and fell in love with a female crow who was part of his dream. Eventually, he had to wake up and go back to reality. Since heavenly law forbade a dream from being with someone from the waking world, they were separated.”

“What happened?”

“The crow loved the man so much, she turned into a human by drinking a special milk. But she had to give up her existence as a dream to do it.”

The bell for the concert started to ring.

“We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” I said.

“No, I want to go in.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

We entered the concert hall. There were people in Mario hats, Halo costumes, Warcraft masks. She grabbed my hand, excited. “Do you know if they’re going to play Tetris? Tetris is my favorite song. I used to play that everyday! Doo doo doooo dooo.”

I laughed. “I’m pretty sure they are.”

“Doooooooooo!” she exclaimed.

VI. The Ruins of Yuanmingyuan

We decided to visit the ruins of Yuanmingyuan the day before my departure. It was a series of palaces that’d been burnt down by European invasion forces over a century ago. Since most of the buildings had been constructed of wood, little remained. But at the Xiyanglou site, the buildings had been European-styled pavilions made of stone materials that’d withstood the fires, preserved to remind the people of their national humiliation. As we walked through the debris, hints of its past immensity echoed. This sepulcher of civilization reminded me of the brittleness of immortality, and I thought of the towns I’d never hear of because there was nothing left. Faye was somber, listening to its history from the guide. Each brick had a story, and she was mesmerized by the tales of Daoist wizards who used magic to walk through walls and call spirits down from the moon.

We finally came across Huanghuazhen, a garden that was modeled after a European maze. In the old days, the walls were very high with shrubbery stacked on top. The king sat in the octagonal pavilion at the center and watched as one hundred maidens were released inside. Holding candles in the dark, they’d navigate their way through the labyrinth, their goal being to uncover the path to the king so they could win a suit of distinction.

All around us, couples of different nationalities were making their way through the maze. Everyone took a separate path and even though the goal seemed obvious, we kept on coming across a dead end.

“This way,” she said. Dead end.

We went left, then right, that way in a circle, ending up right where we’d started.

I was vexed, sighing angrily. “How can we be lost? This should be easy.”

“It’s this way. I’m sure of it.”

I followed. We came across a tree and a wall.

“At least it’s different,” she said.

“This is so stupid!” I exclaimed. “How come we keep on getting lost? Let’s just skip over the walls.”

She looked at me, surprised by my anger. “We’re just having fun,” she said, holding my hand. “We’ll make our way through. Trust me, all right?”

I took a deep breath, surprised too by my outburst. “I just hate that we have to be separated.”

“You could stay.”

“But I’m almost out of money… you could come to America.”

“Visas are almost impossible to get for a single female in China. And besides, what would I do out there?”

I sighed, exasperated that most people took their relationships for granted while I couldn’t be with Faye even if I wanted.

“C’mon, let’s finish the maze,” she said.

“But…”

“C’mon, we can do it.”

We walked methodically, left, right, straight, several more dead ends. She took me this way, pulled me from one direction, took a few more turns.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

“Why?”

She jumped and spread her arms. “’Cause it’s magic!”

After one last turn, we’d found our way out. I smiled, laughing because she was so joyous.

“Come on, let’s go again!” she shouted.

I obliged willingly.

VII. The Notebook of Love

It was early the next day when we arrived at the airport. I couldn’t believe how quickly the week had passed. I held Faye, didn’t want to let go. I knew it was in my best interest to go back to make a living as a computer technician, slaving away to make millionaires billionaires.

Our last meal together was a disappointing breakfast at the airport Burger King. Whoppers and french fries as our love feast.

“One minute,” she said.

I checked the watch, confused. “I still have thirty minutes.”

“One minute,” she said. “That’s how long it took for me to know I was in love with you.”

I stared at her, stunned. “One second,” I finally mustered.

She burst into laughter. “One second?”

“The moment I saw you,” I said.

She held my hand. “Will you come back?”

“I swear it.”

As I took off in the airplane, I realized we’d be separated by the biggest ocean in the world. Before I left, we’d agreed to start a notebook. Faye and I would jot down our feelings, any expressions of love we had, then share them upon our reunion. I started on the plane, writing down my random musings on the chimera of love. Over the years, all my conceptions had been undergoing a drastic mutation, one abortive idea melting into another. What I’d started as a series of juvenile declarations became a book of questions, an inquiry into love’s very anatomy. But I felt so ill-prepared, like all I had was a dulled scalpel and an unfocused magnifying glass. I carried the book everywhere. Over a month, jam stains, drips of syrup, and ketchup marks bore the ubiquity of my musings. I pasted in business cards of favorite restaurants, interesting news clippings, the uncanny happenings of the world. I could feel myself becoming invisible, the depths of my loneliness, unfathomable, except through the inscrutable sextant for the soul. As it turned into three months of separation, I felt like a stump of a person, cauterized, then stitched together, a mannequin held by flimsy band-aids.

One especially cold night, I wandered through the streets of LA. Saw several homeless sprawled on bus benches. I suddenly thought of the homeless couple sleeping in their pink blanket.

The next day, I went into my supervisor’s office.

“I quit,” I said.

“You can’t leave. You just signed a contract for three years.”

“I understand, but this is something I have to do.”

“If you breach contract, you’ll never work in this industry again.”

I stared at my manager. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

I put all my stuff into storage, applied for a student visa. I ignored all the emails threatening me with legal action if I didn’t fulfill the terms of my employment. Returned to Beijing eagerly. The flight seemed an eternity and when I arrived, I ran out of the terminal. I was surprised to find a huge crowd waiting, cheering when the doors opened. Had they all read my notebook? No, they were waiting for some famous Chinese actor. Nevertheless, I waved at the throngs. I was so happy, celebrating this moment of triumph. Rushing through the swarm of teenage girls, I finally found Faye. The first thing I did was hand her the notebook.

She gave me a quizzical look before reading through the first few pages, took out a pen and started writing.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I-N-G,” she said.

“What’s that mean?”

“Con-tin-u-ing,” she replied, “we’re continuing.” Then handed me back the notebook and kissed me.

Rodenticide

I.

“I’m going to lose the election,” said Mayor Douglas Kwan, “unless I come up with something brand-new. Every piece of legislation I introduce gets a beat-down.”

Lying in a motel that charged forty-two bucks a night, he hated the buzz of halogens and their sterile gleam. But it was cheap and the most convenient place to meet the naked red-head lying next to him. Lanky and tall, with ribs like a baseball mitt, she was listening but not very amused. She did little to hide the boredom in her dull gray eyes.

“Your time’s almost up,” she replied.

“You don’t mind fucking, but you hate conversation?”

She shook her head. “I just hate politics, especially the small-town kind.”

“I have bigger things in mind, Kathy. I’ve been talking to the state chair, and there’s a seat opening for the district congress. Old Craven is retiring with a weak heart.”

Kathy yawned indifferently. Noticed a pair of rats running along the wall.

“Ain’t ever made a difference who’s in charge,” she said. “I’d be happy if someone could just get rid of all the rats in Antarsia.”

He left a couple of hundred-dollar bills by the bed stand before exiting the motel room to the parking lot and strutting to his BMW.

II.

Antarsia, named by its founder who read H.P. Lovecraft and concocted a tale about his ‘visit’ to the Antarctic, had a population of 4,298. Tim Sunders lied his way into millions, raving about lost cities buried under a Triassic layer of flora and lava. He promised troves of treasure if only he could get the funding to go back — and he got it. The only thing that kept him from fleeing with his fortunes was his getting shot stealing twenty penguins from a traveling zoo.

His son, Mark, inherited the money, which had been secretly funneled to him. Mark founded Antarsia as a tribute to his father, who had dreamt of an organic metropolis. Every building was a fractal enslaved, molded into a cacophony of mortar and bricks. Mark Sunders invited all his father’s compatriots to town, half of whom were Asian, a haven for those escaping racial prejudice in the early half of the 20^th century. Antarsia became known for its surreal architecture and too many rats. The rat part came about because of a famous entrepreneur, Wang Toufa, who tried to find the cures for baldness and erectile dysfunction, convinced the two were connected. Thousands of rats were shipped in for experimentation. When the scientists failed and the lab was forced to shut down, Toufa freed all the rats. The thousands multiplied into millions and the town became a playground for rodents. Other than curious tourists or travelers who got lost, no one new ever came to town. Except for the new town hooker, Kathy Chao, and a failed film director, Larry Chao.

III.

There was no relation between the two. But Larry Chao owned a house with a back unit, and he had sublet it to Kathy Chao for the past year. Larry was in his late 30s, slightly balding, plain Chinese face, with a potbelly. He watched horror films obsessively, always without sound. “The difference between horror and comedy lies solely in the sound,” he liked to say.

Kathy’s head was shaved bald and she had over thirty wigs. She was discreet, kept fit through continual workouts on her Wii fit board, and had memorized the entire Kama Sutra. When she moved in, Larry asked what she did for a living.

“I’m a professional escort. Things have been tough in Vegas, lots of girls turning tricks since the economy took a nosedive. I figured I won’t get much competition here.”

“I don’t want clients back at your place.”

“Neither do I. They fork up for the motel room. Are you religious?”

“No, why?”

“Just don’t want you to try to convert me. Can’t tell you how many times people have tried.”

“I won’t try to change you.”

“I hope you mean that. I’ve been through two divorces and a hundred failed relationships because people didn’t mean it.”

Larry Chao liked to take walks after dinner. This time when he got back, he saw a flier on his doorknob that read, Mayor Doug Kwan has officially signed the rat termination decree into law. Get involved by, and there was a website, an email address, a Twitter link, and a phone number. He read over the bullet points outlining the costs to tourism, the risk of disease, historical trivia related to plagues they’d caused.

Kathy was sunbathing in her bikini.

“What is this?” Larry asked.

“Doug’s trying to get re-elected,” she replied.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a ‘kill all the rats’ law. You missed the hoopla at the signing. I’ve never seen so many people so excited about a new law.”

Larry stared at the flier, went back inside. A couple of rats scurried along the walls as he popped in a DVD of The Exorcist.

The rats were monstrosities, leery, suspicious, clever with oblong bodies. They’d started out as lab brown rats, mixed with the wildlife and subjected to chemical induction, mutating into mini-beasts. They had red, black, brown, and yellow eyes. Some were bushy, others bald. Their bodies elongated as they scurried along the walls, aggregating in herds, their nimble pink toes clawing wool carpets.

Larry always knew leftovers would be gone the next day if he didn’t lock them up in his fridge. One morning, he found three rats had infiltrated his fridge. It took a whole day to find the opening and close it up. “I hate these fucking rats!” he exclaimed.

It was a shared opinion. No one had been impervious to their raids, food pantries being emptied of their contents overnight. One popular rumor was that the severe flu of last year (claiming four lives) had been spread by the rats. The Office of Antarsia Welfare sent out eighty-two volunteers to drop off rat poison and paraphernalia regarding ‘humane ways to end the suffering of rodentia.’ Tammy Kim, a retiree in her 70s, was struggling with dwindling Medicare and throbbing joint pain when she went to see Larry.

Larry thanked her for the cereal pellets and liquid poison.

“Will you be attending the conference tonight?” she asked.

“I’m filming it for the city,” Larry replied.

From the lens, Larry could see a mountain of dead rats and a blazing fire. Crowds were swarming the totem pole of corpses and there was a frenetic quality about their chanting. Their fists waved fanatically; they marched in synchronicity. Ernest Lai, who hadn’t been able to find work in two years, soundly denounced the hordes of rats. Yoona Chen, who’d failed miserably in her attempt to become a famous singer, mutilated rats and chopped wood tirelessly for the fire. Tim Yan, whose dream of starting a business died the day he found out his girlfriend was pregnant, demanded a new life for future generations.

In the wee hours of the night, Larry spliced together a first cut. He’d muted the sound when he heard a knock. Kathy was standing there, reeking of alcohol. “My toilet’s broken,” she said. Part of her cheek was swollen red.

“You all right?” Larry asked.

She ignored his question and looked at his projector. “You watching a war flick?”

“Footage from today’s rat burning,” Larry replied.

She said, “Play it.”

Larry did.

“It’s kind of scary,” she said.

“I’ll go see what’s wrong with your toilet.” He went to her unit, saw the toilet was filled with vomit and blood. He unclogged it and went back home. Kathy had passed out on his sofa. He turned off the projector and went to sleep on his bed.

He dreamed of rats. One named Zhucheng lost her tail — a pink, gnarled tube with a texture like a gizzard. She was crying a shrill homily and there were flags with emblems of rat ears. He realized all rats were psychics with more understanding of humans than humans themselves — a homeopathic conglomeration of half-defunct diseases. Telepathy is my disease, Zhucheng screamed. I know you’re planning our mass extermination!

I’m not! Larry Chao tried to protest. But he was swimming naked in rat fur. Some got up his ass, which made it itch, and he fell off his bed, startling awake. He went to the living room. Kathy was watching the movie with the sappy trumpet music blasting.

“You should make propaganda films,” she said. “It’s inspiring.”

He turned to her. “You serious?”

“This movie has me excited to kill rats.”

Larry shut off the projector. “The toilet’s fixed. You should get going.”

She nodded. “Thanks for letting me crash.”

IV.

Mayor Doug Kwan spent his evenings perusing a thesaurus and reading Shel Silverstein to his plants. His condo, by no means luxurious, was spacious with a view of downtown Antarsia. He was restless, tossing in his bed. The usual solution, porn, didn’t alleviate his tension, and his new girlfriend refused contact on case nights. He invited Kathy over. They fucked aggressively three times.

“You’re sprightly tonight,” Kathy muttered. “What’d you have for dinner?”

“Politics, babe.”

“Is that some French dish?”

He smirked. “An appetizer.”

He always got talkative after making love. And he could barely contain himself, listing about fifty media sources that wanted to interview him. “Online polls have my rating at an all-time high. CNN just posted an interview, and old Craven called me for lunch next week.”

She untangled her twirled hair. “Does this mean you can forget about your daddy now?”

Doug bristled. “Fifteen years honey, all I heard were backhand jokes. How’s your daddy? Falling in love with some more 12-year-old girls?”

“You should have told them to fuck off.”

“Being a good politician means you don’t need to say a single fucking word and they shut up.”

“You’re a public servant, not a mobster,” Kathy pointed out.

“Only difference is the mobsters don’t have the mob behind them anymore,” Doug said.

He did five different stretches for his lower back, waving his legs around like a contortionist. “You want me to stay the night?” Kathy asked.

“Will you ever let a man make an honest woman out of you?”

“It’s a contradiction putting man and honest in the same sentence,” she replied.

“You’ll let the first honest man kiss you then?”

“I don’t ever kiss anyone, honest or not.”

He pressed his hip up against his abdomen. “Do you ever stretch?”

“I’m naturally limber.”

“Like a cat?”

She shook her head. “I hate cats. They’re too moody.”

“I’m inducting a hundred cats into our campaign.”

“Why?”

“They’ll help people catch rats.”

“Where do you think this is going to take you?”

“Congress,” he stated.

As she was leaving, he handed her an extra thousand dollars. “I’m starting to go steady with a good girl, don’t wanna ruin things… Thanks for the good times babe.” She realized it was her severance pay.

V.

The next week was unusual for Kathy. No clients called. She lingered around home, caught up on some DVDs, and was surprised to hear Larry in a screaming match with an old Asian woman.

“—is part of a city-wide initiative. You can’t just refuse.”

“I know,” Larry shrugged. “But this is my house.”

“It’s against the law to keep rats alive!”

“Sue me.”

Kathy went back to her room, turned on the news. Mayor Doug Kwan was being interviewed about his campaign. “We have 98 % compliance and almost 87 % decrease in the rat populati—” Flipped the channel, got tired of soaps. Saw Larry sitting on his porch with his HD camera, sipping a beer. “Want one?” he asked.

They shared a few.

“You ever gonna start that film you’re always talking about?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve been talking about that movie for five years now.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“My last movie, 58 Random Deaths and Unrequited Love, cost me fifty grand, my marriage, and my life savings. It didn’t get accepted by a single film festival and no one saw it except for the crew,” he said with a mirthless smile.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to probe.”

He waved it off. “You didn’t always want to do what you do.”

“I wanted to be a race car driver. Then an actress. The kind of acting I got to do wasn’t the kind I started out wanting to do. I have a lot of parts of my past most people would consider shady.”

“We all have skeletons.”

“You too?”

“Ones I’d kill for,” Larry answered. “You?”

“I don’t know if any secret is worth killing for… You always want to be a director?”

“I wanted to be a chef. But I was allergic to so many different types of food, it was impossible.”

“Is that why you eat Taco Bell almost every day?” Kathy asked.

“You noticed.”

“I wondered why we had so few rats in our home. Rats are pretty picky about their food.”

Larry snickered. “You mean they don’t like Mexican pizzas?”

“They don’t like poison in general.”

Larry twisted his lips. “Twenty dead rats say they can’t tell the difference.”

“You bugged by a couple of dead rats?”

“I’m bugged by a couple of dead anything,” he replied.

Four days later, Officer Yu came by.

“Larry,” he greeted him.

“What’s up boss?”

Yu smiled heartily. “There’ve been complaints that you haven’t been complying with ordinance 7.822c.”

“What’s—”

“It’s the ‘kill the rats’ law,” Yu informed him.

“Ah…”

“If it’s the killing that bothers you, we have extermination companies that’ll take care of it. The city’ll put you up in a local hostel for three nights and—“

“I’ve already been told,” Larry said. “I can’t comply.”

Yu tilted his head, his brows raised. “Why not?”

“I don’t want to.”

Yu clutched his guard stick, rubbed the sole of his boots on the carpet. “Larry, be reasonable. This is for the be—”

“Sorry,” Larry cut him off. “I’ve made up my mind.”

Yu tipped his hat and said, “We’ll talk more later.”

Three hours later, Yu returned with eight officers. It got the notice of some national media who had come to cover the story about Mayor Doug Kwan.

“What’s going on?” one journalist asked another.

“Some guy’s protesting the rat law.”

The presence of the media unnerved police chief Tom Kong. “We have to show we’re not pushovers just because we’re police in a small town,” he told his officers. “Advise Larry of his rights, but if he doesn’t comply, arrest him.”

When the officers knocked on his door, Larry answered with a camera in hand.

“Either you’ll comply with the law, or we’ll have to put you under arrest,” Yu informed him.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t obey this law,” he answered, news cameras zooming in on him. A flurry of rats happened to stream out at the same time.

Officer Yu put the manacles on. Larry tried to avoid the rats and fell into Yu. Two officers, mistaking his action for an attack, wrestled him brutally to the ground. They dragged him to the police car, dirt smearing against his face, rats rushing out of the way.

Next day, the headlines read, Man arrested for refusing to murder pet mice. Never mind that they weren’t his pets and they weren’t mice either.

VI.

Doug screamed at the chief of police, “Fine him, give him a citation, but don’t arrest him on national television!”

He went to see Larry personally.

“I’m sorry the officers got overzealous,” Doug told Larry.

“It’s all right.”

“You’re free to go.”

Larry startled. Was about to say something but stopped, a skeptical gleam overtaking his eyes. “Thanks for letting me out,” he said.

When Kathy came by to see Larry, he was working feverishly on editing digital footage of rats.

“What’s that?” she asked.

He turned to her, saw she was wearing a blonde wig. “I’m making movie clips to post online. Did you know most rat poisons are anticoagulants? The rats bleed internally for a week until they die of exhaustion, shock, and pain.”

“I never thought it was comfortable…” Three rats were sniffing around the carpet. “They don’t repulse you?”

Larry shook his head, glanced over. “You?”

“I remember seeing them in the subways and they’d be running along the rails. I was just a kid, but they terrified me. I guess I got used to them after I moved here.”

“Even though they’re filthy, pathogenic, and creepy?”

“Sounds like my clients,” Kathy muttered with a dry laugh. “Any time I eat on the bed, they come crawling. I have to chase ‘em off.”

“The rats or your clients?”

She gave a smartass look and said, “A couple times, I was sleeping and about ten of them jumped on the bed. I was scared shitless.”

“They keep the bed warm.”

“I’d rather die than share my bed with rats.”

“There’s worse things than death or sleeping with rats.”

“I can’t think of many… You need help with anything?”

“You still want to be an actress?”

They’d been working for a week straight. Larry said, “They used to use strychnine to kill rats. But during WWII, the Japanese took over the Asian countries where they grew it and Americans had to switch to phosphides.”

“You’re pretty OCD about this.”

He laughed. “I studied that period like crazy. I started making movies because of old Japanese war films.”

“What do you mean?”

“My junior high teacher showed us a war propaganda film the Japanese made to glorify their empire and convince other countries to join them. They massacred millions of Chinese. It made me sick. I mean, it was only 60–70 years ago when these armies were trying to wipe out entire races. I got drunk twice because I was so depressed.”

“You got drunk in junior high?”

Larry’s pupils dilated. “I started making movies to fight against things like that from ever happening again.”

Kathy practiced her lines over and over. “First time I ever acted,” she said, “I played a news reporter. My job was to fuck the quarterback I was interviewing. Those were crazy times. There’s months I don’t remember ‘cause I was partying so much.”

“When’d you stop making movies?”

“After my best friend killed herself.”

“Oh, sorry — sorry for asking.”

Kathy shook her head. “She fell in love with another star but he was gay and only fucked women for the pay. She hung herself after he turned her down ten times. I didn’t understand, what was she thinking? I was supposed to act with him in an upcoming movie, but I just couldn’t do it.”

They watched the final cut together.

“You sure about that last part?” Kathy asked.

“I’m sure,” Larry affirmed.

“But if someone calls you on it.”

“I don’t bluff.”

Five rats watched from behind, sniffing all around.

“It’s like they can smell it,” Kathy said.

“Rats smell death.”

“You don’t sound too optimistic about your movie.”

“No one gives a shit about rats. No one gives a shit about anyone.” He lowered his head. “I just make dumb shit no one watches.”

“The rats seem to be enjoying it.”

Larry furrowed his brow.

“C’mon, let’s post it on YouTube,” Kathy said.

VII.

Doug had been stuck in meetings with the lieutenant mayor and several corporate sponsors. There’d been complaints about the recent spike in electrical bills. The roads on the east side of town had been in disarray since some bad rains a month back and there’d been heated discussion about the proposal to cut education spending in the arts. After he returned to his office, he had forty messages and a hundred emails to answer. But it was a skinny brunette with bulbous eyes that caught his eye. Claire Minford, assistant DA, closed the door and gave him a smooch.

“Things getting out of hand?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Check your email.”

He did, saw several emails from her with the subject line, Rodenticide.

“It’s the most popular YouTube link for the past two days.”

“You came here to tell me about a YouTube link?”

“It’s a documentary condemning Antarsia’s new law. Made by Larry Chao, the guy that got arrested last week. There’s over a hundred thousand comments posted.”

Doug hit play. He winced when he saw Kathy. She looked gorgeous, and the memory of her naked body warmed him. But the image cut to a rat being dissected, then a close-up of a rat’s internal organs after being poisoned. The footage was graphic and her voice, chilling. After fifteen minutes of gag-inducing play, Larry Chao came on and said, “If this rat law isn’t repealed, I’ll kill myself by swallowing rat poison.”

Doug blinked his eyes rapidly in disbelief. Checked his voicemails. A quarter were from animal rights groups, another half from journalists seeking comment.

“Get him to accept the law and it’ll blow over,” Claire suggested. “It’ll be like it never happened.”

“How?”

She shrugged, unbuttoned her blouse. “Be creative.”

“And if he doesn’t listen?”

She lifted up a disk. “Use the information on this to destroy him. And make sure you have that whore locked away.”

VIII.

Is Kathy doing this to get back at me? Doug couldn’t help but wonder. He stopped by Kathy’s place. She was wearing a red wig. “You look great,” he said.

“I don’t see clients at home.”

“That’s not why I came,” he replied.

“Then why…”

“The movie. What is your boyfriend doing?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said. “What do you want?”

“Are you doing this to get back at me?”

“For what?”

“For…”

She snorted. “I’m a professional, Doug. I never take these things personally.”

“Why are you doing it then?”

“I was bored and he needed help,” she answered.

“Why is he doing this?”

“Ask him.”

He handed her a file. “Talk to him for me.”

She looked at the file, opened up, saw the pictures, read through the text. Her eyes widened. “This…”

“Yeah,” Doug said. “I suffered my whole life because of my dad. I don’t wanna do it to him.”

“I’ll — I’ll talk to him…” Her eyes became cold. “I guess this means I should start packing my bags too?”

He approached her, kissed her on the forehead. “You’re a professional. There’s no need.”

Outside, Doug stumbled. His fingers were shaking. He wanted to rush back to Kathy’s side. But he steeled himself. Drove away without looking back.

Larry read through the file three times. Kathy was watching his reaction.

“What do they want?” he asked.

“Retraction,” she said. “And submission.”

“What my parents did… this has no bearing on the present.”

“Then it’s true?”

“It was a long time ago, the…”

Kathy shook her head. “You don’t have to explain… But it won’t look good and it’ll destroy any credibility you might have had.”

Larry made a fist, wanting to punch something.

“It’s an impasse,” she said.

“No, it’s a matter of will.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything in the world is about guts, how far you’ll go to get what you believe in.”

“No one cares about rat guts.”

“I do,” Larry said. He went to the kitchen, brought back a bag full of cereal pellets laced with rat poison.

“What are you doing?” Kathy asked.

“It’s the only way the case won’t suffer because of my past. If I keep my word and kill myself…”

“Don’t be stupid!” Kathy exclaimed. “This isn’t worth dying for.”

“What is then?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“If enough people had the guts to stand up to tyrants, the world would be pretty different.”

“Doug is no tyrant. He just wants power and fame.”

“That’s all tyrants… You want to hear something sad?”

“I think I’m watching it.”

Larry sat down. Put his hand into the pellets. Kathy rushed towards him and tried to stop him. But he threw a handful into his mouth before she could prevent him.

“We have to get to the hospital!”

Larry laughed. “I’m doing this willingly.”

“For rats?”

He shook his head. “Because I believe it’s right…”

She turned away, incredulous. She bit her lip till it bled so she wouldn’t betray herself with a tear. “You’re an idiot, Larry. This won’t do anything.”

“You’re probably right. Born a failure, lived a failure, die a failure.”

She called 911. “Stay up, I’m not gonna let you die.”

But he was already coughing up blood and his face was wan.

“You idiot.”

“Thanks.”

Kathy blinked rapidly, her face weakening. She moved her lips close to his, about to kiss. He stopped her. “M-my lips… poison…” He started convulsing.

The ambulance arrived five minutes after he had passed away.

*

Hours later, Kathy was back in her room alone. There were thirteen missed calls from Doug. She shut off her phone. Noticed an army of rats running along the walls. She grabbed leftovers from her fridge, took off her wig, rubbed her scalp. Spotted a web camera she’d used for chatting, turned it on. Pointed it at her bed and stripped until she was naked. Her body had no hair. She lay down, covered herself with food. Within thirty minutes, she was swimming in a sea of rats.

Staccato

Six weeks of every year, I take a trip to Beijing and invent a new ‘me.’ I usually pick international hotels because everyone there wears a costume too. Mine is ‘Eric Jia’ and I sell vitamins to cows.

The hotel is in the Wudaokou area near one of the main universities, Tsinghua. There’s lots of exchange students here, a thriving cultural mishmash in Beijing.

Partly drugged by jet lag and nocturnal remissions, I chat with Violet, a Korean art student who paints noses over fingers as a motif on misguided sense. Abraham, a disillusioned meteorologist, likes to ask, “If rain were as heavy as bullets, would people have found a way to change weather, or would they have invented bullet-proof umbrellas?” The German brunette across from me refuses to give her name, only dates rich Chinese guys, and has a row with them every night before loud, raucous sex.

I talk about vitamins with the other guests. Cells normally subdivide until they die, I explain, a vestige of reincarnation sucking away at the original. A healthy dose of vitamin E can prolong age and life by increasing the durability of cell regeneration after mitosis.

The first time I see Jean Hua, she’s holding a violin with broken strings, sipping on a cocktail in the lobby. She’s Chinese but has placid blue eyes that appear to drift. Riveting is a word I shouldn’t use carelessly, as I’ve had a bad experience with rivets. But her eyes are riveting.

I introduce myself, tell her why I’m here.

She stares skeptically. “What do you really do?”

“I sell vitamins to help lengthen the lives of cows.”

She finishes her drink, puts it down.

“What about you?” I ask.

“I sell dead moths and play music on broken instruments.” She plucks a string on the violin. It sounds like a screech. She says, “Zaijian” (or “good-bye”) in Mandarin before leaving abruptly.

The next couple of nights, I linger around the lobby, hoping to bump into her again. Instead, I get stuck with Adam. Adam’s spent five of the past eight years in an American prison for kidnapping neighborhood pugs. Used to be religious but couldn’t understand how any superior being could create an animal so ugly. “I wish I could eradicate them,” he declares, shaking with rage. “How can people treat these dogs better than human beings?”

He burps loudly, rants about the evils of signal lights, and scares away women by showing scars on his ass. I wish he’d go away, but he doesn’t and shares his cheap Chinese alcohol that’s 60 proof. “The Chinese bred pugs because they thought the wrinkles in the face made them look like dragons,” I tell Adam, but he’s passed out, and I don’t think he wants to hear about the congruence of ugliness. I stumble to my room and black out.

“A girl committed suicide in your room,” is the first thing I hear when I open my eyes.

Across from my bed is the violin player, Jean. She’s holding my wallet. “Your real name is Emma Jia?”

I try to snatch my wallet away but she dodges my hand.

“You wanna explain?” she asks.

“Can I have my wallet back?”

She shakes her head.

“How did you get in here?” I demand.

“You collapsed halfway through your door. Explain Emma to me,” she repeats.

I hesitate, see the resoluteness in her eyes. “My, uh… My mom had two miscarriages before I was born. So when she saw I was a boy, she named me after a girl because she thought the evil spirits would ignore me that way… Why were you going through my stuff?” I snap, more embarrassed than angry.

Moments of humiliation in my youth flit across my memory. “Emma Jia!” the teachers would call. To which I’d reluctantly reply, “Here.” Always the disbelief followed by giggles and the disdain of boys who’d bully me with fists and cruel chants.

She smiles, amused. “You wanna go to the Great Wall?”

“When?”

“Right now. A bunch of us are going to party.”

“But it’s…” And I check the time. “2 a.m.”

“The night’s just begun. Get changed.”

There’s a group of about fifteen from the hotel. Lily and Rick join our taxi. Lily used to be a phone sex operator in the States until her job got outsourced to Thailand. Now she’s an animal activist whose favorite book is Animal Farm. “It’s such a moving portrayal of how cruel humans are to animals and how they can stand up for their rights,” she says.

“I think the book was actually abou—”

“I know, everyone’s already told me it’s really only about the mistreatment of farm animals. But I think it extends to all nature. You like it, right?”

Rick’s a French hippie posing as a Brazilian food critic who can’t stop hiccupping because he drinks wine and chews gum at the same time.

Outside our cab, there’s convoys of trucks from Inner Mongolia and Hebei floating between cities like dead whales carried by convex currents.

Jean says she grew up raising lizards in Texas, her dad a taxidermist who loved his job too much. She studied biology in college, took part in an exchange program helping impoverished farmers in rural China. She’s been traveling all over Asia since.

We arrive at the Great Wall (Changcheng), an interminable road that’s barely visible in the dark. Alien trees abound. I hear loud rave music. There’s a massive tent sprawling over parts of the wall. It’s a nightclub and there are thousands of people inside.

The club incorporates the Wall so that the primary dance floor is on top of it. A girl at the front door throws up in her Gucci bag; guys wear sunglasses in the night; waitresses dress in skimpy lingerie and fake armor. We climb up a watchtower, buy Maotais. The bricks are covered with graffiti and silhouettes of dancing couples.

It’s muggy and hot out, but Jean’s wearing long sleeves and a blue dress. I’m in jeans, a black silk shirt, a fake Rolex I bought at Hongqiao for two bucks.

“Did a girl really commit suicide in my room?”

She nods.

“Why?” I ask. But as I do, a moth the size of my palm lands on my shoulder. It’s iridescent, a swirl of beige and vermilion. I flinch.

“You scared?”

“It’s huge.”

She laughs, takes it from me. “When moths burn themselves in candles and bulbs, it’s because they mix it up with the light from the moon.”

“Why would they need light from the moon?”

“They use it to navigate. But most never reach their destination.”

“Why’s that?”

“They burn to death in distractions.”

“You really sell dead moths?” I ask.

“You really sell vitamins?”

The Maotais are strong. “I’m an accountant.”

“And I’m a failed violinist,” she replies. “You enjoy your work?”

“I love numbers, especially imaginary ones,” I say. “You realize the fall of society began with the concept of irrational numbers?”

“How so?”

“It quantified madness.”

(Should I have said legitimized?)

“What are you thinking about?” she asks.

“Do blind people have porn?”

“What?”

I explain how that question compelled my cousin, Amanda, into a ridiculous pyramid scheme involving ‘malleable silicones.’ She ended up melting into excess blubber as she became the prisoner of her own volition, living in the prison cell of an unpayable mortgage and a moral repugnance designed to earn brownie points in heaven.

All possible by tricky accounting legerdemains, perpetrated by none other than… her best friend: me. We partied across Europe, backpacked through Mongolia, cruised down the Amazon. We got a gig in Hong Kong as ‘tofu mascots,’ sold makeup for pennies in Mexico, and vowed to eat a hamburger in every city in the world.

After her financial collapse, she punished herself through food, created a penitentiary of fat as a moat around her life. Last time I saw her, she’d ballooned to four hundred pounds, barely able to move.

“What about your music?” I ask Jean.

“A true musician doesn’t use passion. She transcends it.”

“You did that?”

“I got mired in the staccatos.”

I’ve always had a hard time with accents, and my Mandarin is horrible. But more and more Chinese talk to me in Mandarin and I don’t know what they’re saying. Dance areas are separated by different styles, a tango section to the west, a salsa mix in the north. I show Jean some moves and she spins around me like a mispivoted merry-go-round, orbital, then rectangular.

“What were some of your staccatos?” I ask.

“Misplaced desire,” she replies, “and frail fingertips.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s this story,” she starts, stumbles from drink. “A heavenly moth fell in love with the sun. Half of every day, they’d lie together, and her wings would cover the sun so it’d turn into night. A couple thousand years passed, and the sun fell in love with another moth. The first moth was cast out. But she still loved him and orbited the Earth, content reflecting the sun’s light to the rest of the world.”

Some of the tango dances have us leaning into one another, and she warns me, “I’m not looking for a boyfriend.”

“What are you looking for?”

She smiles. “A pet.” She bites my shoulder, a painful stab that makes me jump back, her teeth clenched.

“That hurts,” I groan.

She lets go.

“You have a favorite type of pet?” I ask.

“Pugs,” she replies. “I adore them.”

Around 4:32 a.m., Lily tells us we’re moving to our next stop, an outdoor concert for a Thai band that’s inside one of the old guard towers. All their songs are about local crimes: a man who blew up public toilets, a girl who replaced shampoo in hair salons with bleach.

One of Jean’s friends, Zheng Lei, has bought her flowers, asking nervously how she’s doing. He’s wearing an expensive suit, thick glasses. They prattle a few minutes before she excuses herself, wanting to go rollerblading. Outside, there’s the echo of drums and electric guitars blending with a choir of crickets.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she says. “Lei would be following me the whole night if you weren’t.”

“He likes you?”

“He asked me to marry him on our first date.”

“What’d you say?”

She gives me a dubious look and says, “A couple days before we were supposed to meet up for the first time, it started snowing like crazy. He gave me a call, told me he’d take me to work. I told him, it’s all right, I don’t wanna burden you, but he said he was already waiting downstairs. He brought up breakfast and that was our first date.”

“He’s devoted.”

“Is that the most important trait in a lover?”

“What do you think?”

“Lei owns a bank, is a multimillionaire, and is good-looking. But he’s soooo boring. All he ever talks about is money.”

“Being interesting is the key?”

She shakes her head. “Voluntary blindness.”

We rent rollerblades and even though the Wall is steep, with high slopes and sudden drops, we ride across as fast as we can. I stumble after a few meters, alcohol making my balancing act tenuous. She laughs at me and swirls around, making bold brushstrokes with her legs. I jump up, fall again, get up, race after her, lose control, drop too quickly, and crash into the side of the wall.

“Oww…”

She laughs again. “You have really short legs.”

I give chase across the Great Wall but it’s hopeless. She rides through like an electrical impulse on axons and dendrites.

“My daddy used to go rollerblading with me when I was a kid,” she says. “Hey! Mr. Short Legs. Are you listening to me?”

“Did you just call me…”

She smiles. “I heard you can’t really see Changcheng from space.”

“It’s supposed to be like looking at dental floss from two miles away.”

“You use dental floss?”

“Sometimes. You?” I ask.

“I think it should be a law. Floss before sleep every night.”

“What would that achieve?”

She giggles and pecks me on the lip. “You know how many times that’s ended in disaster because of bad breath?”

Zheng Lei rents a limousine for the others, but Jean insists we sneak away in our own cab. “Something I wanna show you.”

About fifteen minutes from the Wall, there’s a decrepit cave lit by torches. There are scrolls lying on the ground, some ancient columns with chipped red paint. Inside is an old man covered with gray hair, humming to himself.

“He’s an old Taoist monk who’s been meditating here for thirty years,” Jean explains. “He hasn’t eaten a drop of food the whole time.”

“Sounds miserable.”

“Moths don’t eat, you know that? They’re born, they transform, they fuck, then they die.”

“I admire their purity.”

When we arrive back at our hotel, it’s morning. We stumble up to her room. I kiss her, she kisses me back. “Sorry, I gotta use the restroom real quick,” I say. I use it, return. She’s passed out on her bed. I lie next to her and fall asleep.

My eyes open around 3 p.m. She’s still asleep. I notice her arm sleeves are rolled up. There are scars underneath, her flesh dark and twisted. Beauty, burned to cinders — it’s hard to look at.

Her eyes open and she sees where I’m staring. “It was a cooking accident because I burned my fingertips. I got out of the house but my arms were burnt. The whole house went down. My daddy went back in to try to save my violin and burned to death.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You can leave now,” she says.

“But…”

“Just go.”

I wait for her at night. The next two days. Finally, I see a maid enter her room.

“The girl here checked out yesterday,” she tells me.

I’m disappointed. But I understand. We all have our costumes. None of us likes to be found out.

Gradients

Sharon Wang, historian or poet depending on her mood, hires me to photograph a Chinese man who claims he can fly. “8,726 needles in him,” she says, “and Mr. Li Tong starts floating.”

She doesn’t pay me much, but I have a secret crush on her, and Li Tong lives in an abandoned amusement park about two hours from LA — meaning we’ll get to spend some ‘quality’ time together.

“You think the world would look very different if your eyes were shaped square?” she asks.

The digital frame on my camera is a perfectly symmetrical square. “It’d be a lot more angular,” I reply.

I became a photographer because of my best friend from college. Tom went to the Iraq War as a photojournalist, died his third week there: explosives in the toilets that went off with a flush. He left me all his camera gear in his will scrawled out in chicken hand for his mom.

Is it strange to say my destiny was determined by guilt?

“I’ve spent half my life looking for a pair of missing shoes,” Sharon tells me as we drive.

“Kind of like Cinderella?”

“I mean like boots covered in shit — my daddy’s shoes.”

Shi Chang Wang catalogued shit for a living. Literally. Waded through tons of it to measure chemical composition. He was a researcher in the concentration camps the Vietnamese set up for the Chinese during the little-known Third Vietnamese War.

Little known compared to the second Vietnamese War against the Americans and the first versus the French. The Chinese came, saw, conquered, then left as soon as they could.

From the content of the shit, he could determine how well-fed or malnourished prisoners were. He’d find remnants of human bones and animals that should never have been eaten, distinguish coloration as melena or giardiasis. Cruelty and kindness left traces in the feces, and he exposed the conquering armies by recording concentrations of E. coli, bacteroides, and blood.

Spent thirty years on his seminal work, Dialogue with Feces: A Serious Analysis of the Consequences of War From the Perspective of Twenty-Two Camp Latrines.

She tells me we don’t have to pick up Rob and Suzy for our trip. Rob’s her producer. He quit his former job because he hated being the guy whose job was attending meetings. Suzy is assistant to Sharon, resident blogger who declared war on spam mailers.

I’m not disappointed since it will just be the two of us until Sharon reminds me of our goal: capture proof of a guy who can fly and make it a story no one else has the guts to report.

The Amusement Park creeps up on us. The first thing we see is a dilapidated Ferris wheel with colors that have dissipated into rust and muted hues. There’s a roller coaster shaped like a starfish, an assortment of tents that resemble an abandoned bivouac, broken rides jutting like unwanted pimples and canker sores.

The stench is unbearable. Vomit mixed with excrement and decaying flesh. Its source is a river running through the park that’s become a dumping ground, thirty meters wide, algae and garbage sheath. Dumping ground for the hundred or so homeless who’ve made a home of the park.

There’s families, children with sooty faces. A line of women wear thick coats. Two twins chase each other with ancient toy swords. There’s a guy who has hair down to his feet and all we see is his Abraham Lincoln nose.

“The new American dream founded on the nightmare of achieving it,” Sharon says.

Li Tong’s partner meets us. She’s an obese Chinese woman with no brows and shriveled yellow teeth. Every response is a gruff grunt.

“Is Li Tong ready?” Grunt. “Where is he?” Grunt. “What is this place? Who are these people?” Grunt. Grunt.

I lug two lights, my equipment bag. We’re led through the park and there’s many more impoverished than we’d initially seen. They watch us like zoo animals. I look like a zebra with my black-white striped shirt, part Asian, part American, neither really, just an epilepsy-inducing potpourri that looks like a coolie with my oily hair and wiry body.

“Walt, c’mon!” Sharon calls me.

The guide drops us off at an emporium of cheap goods and signals us to wait. Sharon is excited at the exotic merchandise. A woman with a wispy beard greets us and says, “We haven’t had many new customers since the great balloon collapse.”

“What balloon collapse?”

“Captain Jake Descartes flew his hot air balloon into the ground and killed himself after his wife left him for a monkey.” She stares wistfully at a poster of an old balloon. “Fortunately, business has been picking up because so many people have been coming to live here after they’ve lost their jobs.”

Sharon’s hypnotized by a gigantic insect encased in honey. “That’s a rare species of moth found only in Peru,” the merchant says. “It latches onto your face and sucks the saliva from your tongue.”

“You mean it’s making out with you?” Sharon wonders.

I’d love to be a moth like that for a day. Lunge in on her face and blame my moth nature.

There’s daguerreotypes on sale from long ago, haunting faces that resemble wax models. “Most of these people are dead,” Sharon says. “These twenty-five cent cards are the only proof they were ever alive.”

“Do you need proof you were alive?”

“You don’t care if people remember you after you’re dead?”

I shrug. “My grandpa used to say, ‘If you live for the future, you’re a corpse to the present.’”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you mention anyone from your family,” she says.

I lift up one of the images. “This guy looks exactly like him.”

My grandpa peddled quaint stories about humans the size of ticks and empires crushed by legions of angry fish. He was an asshole to his kids, treated his workers like slaves. He passed away alone in some alley in Chinatown. His favorite story was about a king who died and reincarnated as a pigeon. The king had been cruel, imposing heavy taxes and starving his people so he could fund three private palaces. He was found by a ravenous hunter, boiled and eaten for dinner.

The closest I ever got to Sharon was on a drunken night about five months ago when I took her home and she talked about photons from the sun obliterating electricity.

“My mom left my daddy when I was eleven, took me with her,” she said. “When I was older, I asked her why she left.”

“And?” I asked.

“She couldn’t stand the fact that he always smelled like shit.”

The guide finally takes us to see Li Tong. He’s in a dark auditorium lit by a thousand candles. He looks like a human porcupine with thousands of needles lodged inside him.

I snap a couple quick shots. Li Tong chants in a language I don’t recognize. His body begins to levitate. A few inches, slowly ascending. I check the ceiling for strings. Don’t see any.

“He spent twenty-seven years meditating before he floated an inch,” the guide suddenly says in perfect English. “And now, behold!”

Li Tong flies up in a twirl. Swoops past us, more agile than a dove. Air is his swimming pool and he dances like a ballerina.

Sharon grips my wrist. “Are you getting this?”

“Yeah.”

A miracle squared.

“How is this possible?” Sharon whispers to me.

“Three years,” Li Tong speaks, “I didn’t think of right or wrong, benefit and harm. I cleared polarities from my head. Five years, I focused on good and evil, advantage versus disadvantage. Eight years later, my action had transcended consequence, and by my twenty-seventh year, my thoughts melded with nature and all my flesh and bones had evaporated.”

His expression is carefree. Even when he’s doing difficult aerial moves, his face is neutral.

The interview lasts about an hour. He describes his life like torn pages in a library, masquerading as a hunger artist, philandering with women of ill repute, gambling with psychics and losing to them at mahjong. “Walking on water is easy if you know where to step,” he says.

His wife was an Indian snake charmer and they loved each other dearly. “But we were like those two ill-fated lover gods who shouted at each other until they became so cold and obdurate, they turned into mountains.”

His epiphany was a hummingbird and a bat to his head (his wife was sent to prison for battery). He lost all sense of 3-D perception and the world became a flat plane.

“Everything had gradients. Everything was linear from the right angle.”

Sharon is giddy, more excited than I’ve ever seen her. As our session ends, she asks if we can have one last demonstration.

“Give me a short respite,” Li Tong asks.

Li Tong and the guide scuffle vociferously. I’m not sure what it’s about but it’s intense. The guide storms off.

We review the video and it’s hard to believe. It’s like cheap computer graphics. But there’s nothing artificial about it.

“This is going to change our lives,” she says.

I nod. “It’s pretty incredible.”

“This whole place,” she says, sweeping her hand. “It’s like a subculture frozen in the Arctic. There’ll be a thousand stories here. If the world hears about it…”

If they hear about it, they’ll marvel at it for a second and forget it the next. But I don’t want to dash her hopes, just agreeing with everything she says.

Li Tong prepares for another flight. The guide is nowhere in sight. Several of the inhabitants of the park are watching. He starts slowly, ascending in nodules. Blasts off, screeching through the air. He’s like a zygote or an imago streaming through a placenta. Sharon unconsciously grips my hand, her chest crunched up in expectation. Her eyes follow every motion, and the only thing keeping me from watching him is her.

“Why aren’t you recording?” she demands.

I get out my camera, zoom in. Li Tong’s face is taut and there’s sweat covering his face. He looks exhausted. I lower my camera. Li Tong crashes into a pole, flips, then crashes to the ground. Sharon shrieks. We run over to him. All the needles in his body have impaled him. A thousand rivulets of blood have veered out like roots.

“Li Tong,” Sharon calls. “Are you okay? Li Tong!”

But I can already tell he’s not breathing.

The gruff guide comes in, screaming at the top of her lungs. She’s hysterical and though I can’t understand her, it’s obvious her rage is directed at Sharon.

“We should get out of here,” I whisper.

“Why?”

“Let’s get out of here,” I repeat.

“But…”

A group of the park people surround us. I grab Sharon’s hand and bolt. We run past tents, past the buildings. A throng of them is in front of us. I take a quick left. There’s several alleys and they’re all filled with angry denizens who swarm us.

Ropes are tied around our hands and legs. We’re carried like mincemeat for swine. The guide is barking orders. I can hear some of the men saying, “She killed Li Tong,” and, “They tried to scam us.”

I don’t see where we’re going, but I smell it.

The river of shit.

Putrid, malodorous, acrid: pale adjectives for what hits us. I’m about to puke.

“Sharon!”

“What?”

“Hold your breath!”

A hurtle, flashes of mobs, and then I’m surrounded by crap and oil and chemicals I can’t imagine. I’ve physically blocked my nostrils and the smell is still hammering my skull. There’s raucous laughter and serious admonishments, “Don’t ever come back!!!”

It’s five minutes of hell and putrescence. The communal canal of piss and diapers is a viscous morass that stymies movement, globules of excrement bunching together like diarrhea quasars. I do my best to ignore the fact that my flesh feels like it’s melting, that my legs could drop off any second, wading as fast as I can.

When we emerge on the other side, Sharon looks surprisingly placid.

“You okay?” I ask.

“You lose your camera?” she asks back.

I nod.

“When my dad was studying feces, his shoes were ruined since he walked in crap the whole time. One of the prisoners gave him his own shoes. My father was so grateful, he dedicated the book to him. But my dad never found out what happened to the guy.”

“Are those the shoes you’re looking for?”

“When I was a little girl, I hated those shoes because they smelled so bad. So when he was sleeping, I threw them away. He cried for a whole week after that.”

She stares at the park with melancholy eyes.

“We have a long walk ahead of us,” I say.

“He blamed it on a robber, but after he died, I found his journal. The whole time, he knew it was me, but he never got mad at me. Never said a word.”

I put my arm around her. Our sheathes of shit mix. She grips my hand tightly. We walk in silence the whole way back.

The Political Misconception of Getting Fired

I.

My mom always talked about how her great-grandfather fought in the Opium Wars against the British Empire. Zhou Liao charged a battalion of musketeers with a sword when everyone else fled. Even though he was shot to pieces, he laughed all the way to his grave. Posthumously, he was commemorated as a hero who died with honor: if more soldiers had been like him, no way would the Chinese have lost the war.

Growing up, I heard this story about a million times and I never could get the thought, What the hell was he thinking? out of my head. I mean, I get symbolism in one’s actions, but wasn’t there a smarter way of going about it? And I thought the Chinese invented gunpowder. Why didn’t Zhou Liao combust the powder to take a few Brits with him?

Maybe because my mom was in love with illusions or the people who chased after them, she married my father. My father failed at every job he tried and the worse part was, he could never admit it. Disappointment sapped his vigor and his heart ended up giving out like a worn-out sieve. He died in the middle of the day working in a clerk’s office surrounded by kids a third his age.

I wish it didn’t make me so depressed thinking about him typing away on an old Commodore computer, the way the corporation engaged in the emblematic crushing of the soul. I worked for a large IT corporation called SolTech. But unlike my father, oblivious to everything around him, I was hyper-sensitive. I spent nights worrying about my position and gathered with co-workers to bitch about our jobs. Aggravated by wives who wanted E! — televised homes, we hid our apprehensions, worshipped table etiquette, and masqueraded as Michelin food snobs, the big annual salary with a bonus keeping us more effectively leashed than the chained mace of an Inquisitor’s religious wrath.

It was in my ninth year at SolTech when I got an email from an old friend who found me through Facebook: June Guan, love of how many lives, a moth ablaze in the congealing flames of a frozen fire, my unforgiven sin, my brittle, broken soul. I was in love with her in high school. Did she have a precursor? She did, but… what the hell am I talking about? I barely spoke to her. I was just your typical high school nerd lusting after girls and wanting sex without knowing what it really was. She didn’t even realize I existed. In the four years I was in high school, she only said my name, Byron Zhou, once, because she was asking for help with her homework. We chatted a few times about the future during AP Lit, but that was it. I’d spoken more with our production assistant at work than I had the love of my youth. And yet, I knew everything about her: who she dated, how many members were in her family. Funny how stalkerish high school attraction could be.

So I was surprised when she suggested we meet up. I agreed heartily, scouring her profile to see if she was still single.

I met June at a fusion café, a trendy place with its combination of Asians and neon. She was comely rather than striking, serene rather than dynamic, a mix of Chinese and Dutch ancestors. She was nowhere near as pretty as I’d remembered her, with a plump attractiveness and a gaudy flowery dress that made me embarrassed about my childhood infatuation.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi!” she said, waving her hand enthusiastically. “How are you?”

“I’m great. You?”

“I’m great too. I love this restaurant. I absolutely recommend their spaghetti sushi broccoli hamburger.”

“I was actually eyeing the pesto chow mein sashimi.”

“Ehhh,” she said, shaking her hand. “It’s all right.”

I ordered it nevertheless. She picked a sake martini.

“Do you remember in high school you read books all the time?” she asked. “You talked about aliens and black holes and the Loch Ness?”

“Vaguely.”

“Do you believe in UFOs?”

“You mean like unidentified flying objects?” I asked. She nodded. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Why?”

“I was recently abducted by one.”

I burst into laughter, especially since she had such a somber look on her face.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked.

“Are you being serious?”

She lifted the side of her neck to reveal a nasty scar.

“The aliens did this to me,” she answered.

“The aliens?”

“I woke up one night and I felt this really bright orange light. It was creepy how orange it was because it wasn’t orange like an orange, but this eerie radioactive orange that seemed like it was from a different world.”

“Okay.”

“It was actually healing me. I just found out I had cervical cancer, but after the light, it was completely healed,” she said. “The doctors couldn’t believe it.”

“Your cancer was gone?”

“Yep. When the aliens returned a couple months later, I wanted to thank them. But it got really weird.”

“What do you mean?”

“There were shadows in the windows and I couldn’t see any of them but they seemed huge and they were shining their lights everywhere. And then I was in their craft or something, because I couldn’t control where I went, but I was moving. My mind went blank and when I woke up, I was in an Alaskan forest.” She took out a used airplane ticket stub. “See, it says Alaska. That’s proof that it happened.” I checked and the ticket did read Alaska to LAX.

“Do you remember what happened when you were abducted?” I asked.

“No, but I had scars all along my stomach. I’ve been doing research and I read how they like to grow fetuses inside a womb and cut it out. I was gone five days and I don’t remember a thing. I know it’s crazy. No one believes me, but it really happened…”

When the food arrived, she picked the spaghetti up with her bare hands, dropped it because it was hot, swirled it into her mouth straight off the table.

“It’s okay to use your fork,” I said.

“I know, I know, but I had a friend from Mongolia who told me you lose your connection with food that way.” She picked up her broccoli, swallowed the whole piece, and chewed loudly. Her mouth was covered in sauce as she asked, “How come you’re not eating?”

“I had a late lunch,” I said, having lost my appetite.

“Do you mind if I have some of yours?”

She grabbed a huge chunk off my plate before I could respond and wolfed it down.

“I told you the chow mein isn’t that good,” she said, wagging her finger at me.

Underneath the table, I texted everyone I knew, Call me back ASAP.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look a little nervous.”

“I’m fine,” I replied. “I just ate too much.”

“You have room for dessert though, right?”

“I’m not really a dessert person.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like sweets that much.”

“Dessert is essential to any meal. They have the best zucchini chocolate soufflé here. It only takes one hour to make and they put this garlic salt all over it. It makes your breath stink for like five hours, but it’s soooo worth it.”

“I…”

“Excuse me,” she said calling the waiter. “Can we get the zucchini chocolate soufflé?”

We spent the next half-hour chatting about trivia: What is the soundtrack of your life? If the world ran out of water, what would be your drink of choice? What’s the weirdest word you’ve ever heard? And my favorite, if you were reincarnated as a plant, which would it be?

“Cactus,” she said, “because they can live in super heat, have spikes all over to protect themselves, and store water inside them.”

“What’s so good about that?” I asked.

“They’re self-sufficient. What plant would you be?”

“I think I’d be a dandelion.”

“Why?”

“So I could be free.”

“You don’t feel free?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’d be nice to float on wind, flutter all over the place. But it’s a stupid dream. None of us can really be free.”

“Also, if there’s no wind, dandelions can’t fly,” she said.

“What?”

“They depend on wind currents and if it takes them someplace they don’t want to go, they still gotta go.”

I stared at her. “I guess so.”

“Do you think there’s such a thing as free love?” she asked.

“Every love has a cost,” I replied.

“Isn’t love supposed to be unconditional?”

“I don’t know.”

“I just broke up with my boyfriend about a month ago,” she said. “I thought we were in love. He told me he was part of a royal family but his parents were murdered. I thought I could help him out so I let him live at my place, paid for his bills, took care of him financially and mentally. He’s a genius, you know, one of the most artistic people I knew. Everything should have been great.”

“It wasn’t?”

“I hired a PI and found out his parents were middle class retirees living in West Virginia. He’d conned a string of rich women into taking care of him. He ran up a debt of more than $120,000 on my cards, really screwed me over.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, and a distant acquaintance called me at that moment. “Sorry, I gotta take this.” Walked out to the lobby. “Thank God you called,” I said. “If you could text me in seven minutes — send a blank if you want — I’ll buy dinner anywhere you want.”

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I met up with someone who’s really weirding me out and your call just saved me.”

He laughed. “I’ll send you ten texts just to make it seem real serious.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

I returned to the table and told June, “I’m sorry, I gotta get going soon. Emergency at work.”

“This late?”

“Yeah, it’s crazy, huh?”

I took a seat, sipped on my wine.

“What did you want to become when you were a kid?” she asked.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“Do you feel you have a lot to do with your life?”

“I think so. I… well, I make good money now. I’m a manager for a software firm that specializes in security applications, and it’s all right.”

“Do you remember what you told me a long time ago?” she asked.

“No, what?”

“You said you didn’t care about money or fame. You just didn’t wanna be like your father.”

“Did I say that?”

“Yep, and you said you just wanted to be able to tell your stories through your computer programs and test videogames every day.”

I stared at her, stunned, not that she remembered, but that I hadn’t.

“How do you remember this?” I asked.

“You’re probably gonna laugh at me for what I’m about to tell you.”

“What?”

“I had the biggest crush on you,” she confessed.

“You’re kidding?”

“No. I always wanted to tell you but I… I never got the chance. In high school, you were so focused on your studies, I knew you’d never be interested in a girl like me… I used to…” She giggled. “I’m gonna sound so stupid now so I’ll stop.”

“No no, go ahead.”

She blushed. “The main reason I got in touch with you was, I just remembered how brave you were in high school. Everyone used to tease you, call you names behind your back.” They did? “But you didn’t care… After my UFO run-in, I started telling people, and they all turned against me, made fun of me. No one wanted to be my friend anymore and I’ve been so miserable… and lonely… I saw you online and I remembered how strong you were. I knew if I contacted you, you’d be different, you’d underst—”

My phone beeped, a text message. It kept on beeping even though I tried to turn it off.

“Looks like work needs you,” she said.

“They can wait.”

“No no no, go ahead, I don’t wanna keep you.”

“You’re not keeping me,” I said.

“You don’t need to be polite. Go ahead.”

“But—”

“Byron, go do your thing, I understand it’s an emergency. I appreciate you just coming out for dinner.”

I stared at her, genuinely penitent. “I’m sorry about this.”

“Don’t be,” she said.

I took out my wallet. “How much do I owe?””

“I got this.”

“What?”

“Seriously, I got it,” she said.

“Okay, then let me buy the next one. When can we meet again?”

“How about I give you a call?” she suggested.

“I… I’ll take you to the best Italian restaurant in LA. Next time, okay?”

“We’ll see.”

“Promise me. I wanna finish our conversation.”

She hesitated. “Let’s play it by ear.”

There was something plaintive in her eyes. It felt like the first time I’d really seen her and I was lost in her again. I wished I hadn’t been so hasty; I should have stayed and listened instead of being so impatient.

“It was really good seeing you,” I said.

“You probably just think I’m crazy, huh?”

“We’re all crazy deep down,” I replied. “See you later, June.”

II.

I headed home, unable to sleep, thrilled by the sudden revelation June Guan had liked me too. Four in the morning, still just the irritation of yawns. I’d been suffering insomnia for the last few days.

Around 7 a.m., I headed into the office, frustrated and sore. There was a curt email from Barry, my manager. Come see me as soon as you get in.

It was two hours before he got in.

Barry was a bitter engineer who lived in the glory days of a past that didn’t really exist. He let his jaw wander, and it hung loosely like a bulldog with a protruding mouth. He had a big belly he liked to pet, deploring his heavy stature and insisting that he had to watch his weight.

“Did you want to talk about something?” I asked him.

“No no, forget it, it’s nothing,” he muttered.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

I went back to my desk but sensed something was wrong and went to talk to a buddy of mine.

“Barry was pissed you left early last night,” he told me.

“Early? I left at 6,” I replied.

“Yeah, but he was pissed. I think he has a stick up his ass about you. He went on this big rant about how lazy you are and how you barely do any work.”

“He didn’t say anything this morning,” I said.

“I’d just forget it. You know Barry. Always making a big deal and never following through.”

Of course, as the day proceeded, several other people stopped by, mentioning Barry’s tirade against me.

I finally went to confront him. “Where do I stand at work?”

“I think you’re doing a great job,” he responded. Then stared emptily at me as though sincerely puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

For the following week, I stayed late even though I had no work.

My mind kept on wandering back to June. I called her several times, left messages. No reply. I checked my email ten times every minute. There was a company wide update on several promotions as well as a note on new execs that had joined.

“We’re excited, no — thrilled — that Ayumi joins us from MetDefenses. She brings four years of experience on the…”

According to a Google search, she was four years younger than me, with an expected signing bonus of a million.

Two weeks passed and June still hadn’t called.

I called her cell once again. A click, someone finally picking up.

“Can I speak to June?”

“Who is this?” a male voice asked.

“An old friend. Who’s this?”

“I’m her brother, Stan.”

“Oh, hi Stan. Is your sister around?”

“You haven’t heard the news?” he asked.

“What news?”

“She committed suicide earlier this week.”

I was stunned. “W-why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you know her well?”

“Not really well,” I answered. “I had dinner with her two weeks ago.”

“What did she talk about?”

I fumbled through general descriptions of what she’d said.

“You’re one of the few friends she had,” he said. “I’m so glad you called. She’d been having lots of problems lately.”

“Problems?”

“She used to cut herself all the time, but she stopped after college. I think she got back into it after breaking up with her ex… I don’t know if this is too much to impose, but would you mind speaking at the funeral?”

“I don’t know if I knew her that well.”

“It’s okay. I know it’ll mean a lot to her. She… she just…” And he broke into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay… I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

We hung up.

I stood motionless, my eyes losing their focus.

It was about midnight when I headed home. I microwaved a burrito, set out the proper appliances, gripped my knife, sliced at the right angle. Took a bite and spat it out: it tasted awful. When I lay back in bed, my stomach churned, so I turned over to the side. I saw a gigantic spider crawling up the wall, with its spindly limbs and its oval-shaped body. It bobbed ever so slightly, freezing as I got closer.

I grabbed a roll of toilet paper, went to try to crush it. It instinctively leaped under my bed. I peered under but couldn’t spot it anywhere. Grabbed a flashlight and shined it below. The odd play in the reflections made my beam a more vermilion hue of yellow. I swung the lights back and forth but couldn’t see anything. I got back into bed, thinking about spiders and their eight eyes and whether multiple vision caused them ambiguities we could never comprehend.

III.

The grassy knoll and the required valet parking at the cemetery did little to clear my head. The cemetery smelled rotten: fertilizer, decomposition. It was like a barracks for corpses, a phalanx of gravestones strategically placed on the hills.

When her brother had said she only had a few friends, I thought he might be referring to a handful. As it was, it was him, myself, and her mother.

“Should we wait for others to arrive?” I asked.

“This is it,” Stan answered. “Everyone else was too busy to come.”

Stan was dark, as though his skin had been broiled, with wiry arms and disheveled hair. Her mother was Chinese, short, and brisk. She had a staunch upper frame and continuously bit her lip, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.

The funeral workers helped with the labor of burying the casket. Stan and her mother didn’t have much to say, holding each other in mourning. A priest finally arrived, read a few verses, looked my way.

I cleared my throat, rubbed lint off my suit. “June was special; she was unique; she was… she was witty. I met her when she was fifteen and…” I rambled on, not sure what I was saying.

“Are you all right?” Stan asked. “You’re mumbling.”

“Sorry.”

I stared at the grave, mumbled on for a few minutes before concluding, “I think that’s about it.”

Her mother said, “Thank you.”

Afterwards, we headed for the parking lot.

“You wanna maybe grab lunch or something?” I asked Stan.

“I gotta get back to work. We’re in major crunch.”

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I’m a game tester for the eighth sequel to the Revolutionary War game. Let’s do lunch another time.”

He gave me his number, then trotted away with his mother while I went back to the grave.

I grimaced, staring at the dirt, the sundered blades of grass. Why’d you do it? I gazed up into the sky. Maybe you faked your death? Are you aboard some alien ship looking down on us? If there are higher beings, what are they like? I blinked several times, rubbing my hair. I know it’s late, but… but… I clenched my fists, wishing I hadn’t been such an ass at our dinner. You were trying to tell me something and I was just being stupid…

I was so exasperated with myself, I wanted to take a bat and swing it at my torso, rip out my intestines. Anything to get that gnawing hammer of remorse out of me.

I deserve it, I know.

I stared up at the sky again.

“C’mon UFOs, where are you? You guys have special powers, right? You need her for your experiments… Bring her back, please bring her back. If you — if you give her life again, you can use my body for all the experiments you want. Anything you wanna do, you can? Okay? Please, please. She doesn’t deserve this…”

“Who are you talking to?”

I turned and saw one of the workers.

I shook my head, said “Sorry,” and shuffled away quietly.

IV.

I didn’t feel like going into work so I headed home to get some sleep. To my irritation, I saw there were two spiders rather than one. Having seen enough death for a day, I decided to spare the pair. I got a paper towel, cupped one quickly in my palms.

“Don’t try to fight me,” I warned as I ran outside my apartment. I placed it far away among a set of trees. When I went back in, the second had vanished. I turned on the television and watched a news documentary about a massacre taking place in Africa. Went to bed to try to sleep, failed. Couldn’t get June out of my mind.

In the morning, I headed into work early. There was an email from Barry.

Come see me as soon as you get in.

Two hours later, he arrived.

“Did you want to talk about something?” I asked him.

“No no, forget it, it’s nothing,” he muttered.

I went back to my desk. Barry came by a few minutes later and asked, “Can we talk?”

“Sure, what’s up?” I asked.

“Um… I don’t know quite how to put this to you. But, where were you yesterday?”

“Remember I called and said I had to go to a funeral?”

“Oh yeah… Okay, sorry. Totally cool. Understood.”

I found a co-worker and asked if he’d heard anything.

“He was complaining that you’re always taking days off.”

“But I had to go to a funeral,” I protested.

“He didn’t know about it.”

I got a phone call from Helen, a manager over in the compatibility division. Despite the fact that she had three kids and was nearly double my age, she looked younger than me, energetic, sprightly, always wearing tight jeans as she heaved around old computers.

“I know how picky you are about food so I got us lunch reservations at Karmatica,” she said. “I’ve also invited Jerry and Tina.” Both VPs in the company.

I wondered what it was going to be about.

The restaurant was swank, a French Italian place with the lunch prix fixe menu set at $122.86. Cilantro-roasted shrimp, osetra caviar crowned with seared scallop and a lemongrass infusion, tartare or foie gras? It was a delectable heaven.

Helen said, “You know there’s been some organizational shifts happening. We were wondering how you’d feel about transferring over to compatibility. I’d love to have you on board and you’d be bringing your expertise to our team. I wanted Jerry and Tina to meet you too because they’re going to be overseeing the department.”

“Byron, we’re really excited about all the new developments we’re going to be introducing,” Tina said with her blazing red hair and her pristine Colgate smile. “SolTech is all about talent and creativity. We feel the company has been so bogged down in the amplification of existing technologies, it hasn’t really had the chance to get back to its roots: innovation. We want you to be part of this new team because we only want the best of the best.”

Four waiters brought four plates, simultaneously placing the dishes before us. Helen, Tina, and Jerry used their tiny knives to cut their scallops into tiny slivers and used their tiny forks to take tiny bites of caviar. I grabbed my own scallop with my fingers, shoved it into my mouth, and swallowed it whole. They stared at me, surprised. When the steak arrived, I ripped it apart with my bare hands, chewing savagely with my mouth wide open.

“Byron is such a food snob, he eats with his fingers,” Helen joked, trying to bring levity to the lunch.

Tina and Jerry simpered. “I guess that’s the new chic, eh?”

I nodded while dipping my finger in the sauce and licking the remains directly off the plate.

On Friday, I got called to Barry’s office. A representative from HR was with him, a young Asian girl ten years younger than me. “I’m glad you came. We wanted to talk with you,” she said.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“When a company of our size has a bad year, we have to make cutbacks. It’s inevitable and an unfortunate aspect of a…”

“Can you get to your point?” I asked, cutting her off.

“Even though we feel you’ve been a valuable member of our company and a very important asset, we have to let you go.”

“I thought I was being transferred to compatibility.”

“That didn’t work out, sorry,” she informed me.

“Meanwhile, you’re hiring all new executives and paying them millions?”

“Excuse me?”

I laughed angrily. “What kind of compensation package do you have?”

“Two months automatic, one week for every year you’ve been here, an additional two weeks if you agree to sign a contract promising not to bring legal action against us.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to go over our reasons?”

“Just give me my money.”

I stormed out without my belongings. Headed for my car. Hit the alarm, no response. My battery was dead. I gripped my key, flung it at the flower garden our environmental committee had recently planted. Pacing back and forth, I knew I should have been more thoughtful, not so stupid at that lunch. My key had fallen on top of a cactus, ‘self-sufficient’ despite its artificial inception. I hit the alarm again. With what little juice was left, it unlocked my car, and I sped away.

V.

I gave Stan a call.

“Yeah, we’re hiring,” he said. “You interested in testing games?”

“Absolutely. It was my childhood dream.”

He laughed. “It might sound like a dream job but it gets repetitive really fast.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve always wanted to do this.”

“I’ll do my best to make it happen.”

I went to June’s grave, sat down next to her tomb with some chocolate ice cream, ate it using a plastic spoon, and dumped some scoops on her piece of grass. A few hours later, I went home and lay down, wondering what it would be like testing games for a living.

Fatigue finally seized me and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I went to bed and was dozing off when I felt something crawling on my cheek. I slapped my face. Something crushed in my palm. I went to the bathroom, saw the leveled remains of my spider. Wiped it off, washed my face several times. Of all the millions of places it could have gone, why the hell did it have to crawl on my face? I was irked but relieved as well, now that it was gone. About to sleep, I thought of June, the last time I saw her.

I slept like a dead spider.

The Buddha of Many Parts

I.

Anonymity was my secret identity. I was lost in the sea of Beijing, a nonentity in the metaphor of a metropolis crammed with millions. I spent my days tumbling in the morass of Mandarin, trying to learn and extract the seeds of obscure characters. The library of unknown Chinese tomes seemed endless and questions of my identity withered, solitude keenly evolving into a familiar sense of irony. I relished my isolation, thrived in being unknown even if I was never alone in one of the most populated cities in the world. Enthusiastic vendors sold bronze mirrors that could capture a reflection of your future self while secret restaurants offered kung pao duck heart to help you understand ancient Eastern rites lost over the sieve of time. I saw so many familiar faces I didn’t know, extracts, shadows of ruins, smashed to pieces then reconstructed in the illusory nostalgia of longing. Hair came in all shapes and sizes, and the Chinese were like a lottery from the cauldron of humanity, every brushstroke of human calligraphy breathing in blood. I walked past the elderly, their skin marred by scars and the revolution of balding scalps. Young lovers whistled to the memory of gutter dogs while arguing over misplaced lipstick stains. A mother fed her baby milk directly from her pimply breast, careful to ward off germs from hordes of workers rushing home.

It was evening and I was heading for the subway through ‘Worm Street,’ a hutong that writhed and twisted like a worm from one end to the other. A grandmother with the spine of a boomerang was selling a love potion for 100RMB that’ll make someone fall completely in love with you. A bunch of men were gathered around a xiangqi—Chinese chess — table, analyzing every move, several juggling toughened peach cores inside their palms as they muttered assenting Ahhs and disapproving Ah-yahs. I reached the station, got on a train, grabbed an English translation of one of the four principal classics of Chinese literature from my backpack, Hong Lou Meng — The Dream of Red Mansions. The ride was jittery and tumultuous; the train, almost empty because it was late.

“I love Hong Lou Meng,” a woman said in Mandarin. “Is this your first time reading it?”

I turned and startled to see a tall blonde. She looked like a portrait I’d seen in a French museum, Venus, influenced by elements of Asia, the rapine of sensuality and the crimson parries of a master fencer. Her cheeks were a light rouge, a blend of aplomb and sublime coyness. She wore a turquoise jacket that clung tightly to her lean body, a black miniskirt dripping into a defiant pair of boots raucously laughing at everyone in her way.

“Sorry, I understand Chinese, but my speak not very good,” I said in broken Mandarin.

“You from America?” she asked in English that had no traces of a Chinese accent.

Again, I was surprised. “Yeah.”

“Should have figured,” looking at the English part of my translation.

“You speak perfect English.”

“Born and raised in the States,” she explained. “I mistook you for Chinese.”

“And I mistook you for American.”

She laughed. “Everyone does. I’m half-Irish, half-Chinese, but I look more Irish and my twin sister looks more Chinese. Of course, she likes living in America better. What are you doing in Beijing?” she asked.

“I translate English books into Mandarin.”

“You can’t speak it, but you can write and interpret it?”

“Something like that.”

She laughed.

“What about you? What do you do?” I asked.

“I’m killing time, or maybe myself. I like to rethink myself every morning. Doubt is the only reliable source of creativity. You play any musical instruments?”

“I used to play the French horn, but my teacher said my hands were too fat.”

Involuntarily, I looked down at her fingers. They were nimble, lengthy, fragmented branches undulating into discordant harmony.

“Let me see,” she said, and without waiting, grabbed my hands. “They’re a little stubby. You trying to be a Chinese scholar?”

She was referring to all my fingernails being long. I laughed, embarrassed. “I forgot to cut them.”

The train made a stop, a few stragglers exited. A pair of girls hopped on, holding bags of dumplings, chatting about boys they thought were cute.

“Any interesting translations you’ve done recently?” she asked.

“I just did a short story about a gambler who lost his fingers but played mahjong with his tongue. There was another one about a girl who could destroy the world with a single thought, but didn’t, because she liked moon cakes too much.”

She smiled. “Sounds fun.”

“Mandarin and English are both tricky languages. There’s nuances in both that are hard to capture in the other.”

“Nuance,” she said, marveling at the word. “Why are you really in Beijing?”

I looked at her. “I’m trying to heal,” I said.

“Beijing is your hospital, then? Or your brothel?”

“What?”

She laughed. “Westerners are always using Asia to get a hard-on. Don’t feel bad. I’m the same way. I’m addicted to Beijing, not in love with it. Every couple months, I get fed up, all the people, the constant noise, you know how it is. But when I leave, I get so lonely, I end up coming back.”

“I’ve never left,” I said.

“The faithful, boring lover no one ever appreciates,” she said, amused. “I want to show you something.”

“Show me something?” I responded.

“I compose piano melodies and I want to share my latest composition with you,” she said. I hesitated but she grabbed my hand, “Life’s like a big fart in your stomach — better if you just let go. C’mon, don’t be afraid.”

II.

I didn’t realize it was already 11 p.m. We were walking outside the apartments near East Sihui. The ground was uneven with loose gravel and bricks. The street lights were dim halos that hovered like frozen hummingbirds. A vendor was selling mushroom light bulbs, pink and purple neon sprouts gleaming in the night. Some of the homeless were sleeping on the sidewalks, bored security guards listened to their loud radios. There was a pickup truck that had sleeping bags in the back, exhausted workers snoring inside. A group of drunks engaged in a rabid game of Chinese poker, demanding more beer. The apartments were high-rises 15–20 stories high, a steppe of buildings compressed as closely together as possible. We entered her apartment building. She stomped the floor to trigger the light sensor. We went up to the 16^th floor, then entered her unit. It was surprisingly spacious. I thought there were thirty people standing inside, but she flickered on the light and I saw they were mannequins. They looked surreally real, their flesh oozing credulity. All around us, the walls were covered with photos of people. Not figures as a whole, but parts spliced into assemblies. There was a menagerie of eyes, a collection of noses, a gamut of mouths. No two lips were the same: thick, thin, cut-up, moles covering each layer. At the center of the apartment, a grand black piano, polished smooth so that both of us were reflected upside down. The keys were ermine, the set of chords looking like an intricate rib cage on a charred torso.

“Can I make a confession?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never been able to fall in love with someone. Only pieces of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll fall in love with someone for their brows, their voice, the way they dress, the way their belly feels against mine when we make love. But never the whole,” she said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But it’s always been that way. Truth is, I’ve fallen in love with a piece of you,” she said.

“Me?”

“Yep.”

“Which piece?”

“Your fingers,” she answered.

I stared at her to see if she was joking. “What’s that mean?” I asked.

“I want to take a photo of your fingers — or better yet, let me cast them in clay. In exchange, you can have anything you want.”

“Anything I want?”

She nodded. “Home-cooked meal, friendship for an evening, company to anywhere you want. And if you play your cards right,” she said, “who knows?”

I turned to the photos. There must have been thousands.

“What exactly are you doing with them?”

“I collect the pieces I love and assemble the perfect human,” she answered.

“Why?”

“You ever hear about the Sculptor Buddha?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

“He had to sculpt the statue of the perfect woman for the Celestial Palace, and he searched the whole world to find her. But every girl he found had some type of imperfection. So instead of using just one, he took the best elements from the women he admired and put them together. Afterward, he presented it to the emperor of the palace — who fell in love with the statue. But so did his three sons. A war broke out between them to control it.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“The head Buddha saw it was causing too much strife on Earth and ordered one of the blind Buddhas to take it away, bury it at the bottom of the sea. The waves who saw the statue tried to get her attention, and that was the start of hurricanes.”

“You trying to recreate this statue?”

“It’s just a story,” she replied, smiling. “But I do find inspiration in perfection — and imperfection. That’s what all great compositions do, right?”

“What?”

“Deify the ordinary.”

I considered it. “How often do you bring people?”

“Every night until I’ve completed one.”

“How many so far?”

“I have no idea,” she replied. “But you name the person, and they’re up there.” Pointing to one, “He’s an epileptic taxi driver with cerebral palsy. That’s an actor who only plays hermaphrodites. Delivery boy of divorce notices post-life, artist that paints through smell, a French pastry chef that makes odorless cuisines, a journalist who only writes obituaries for pigeons.”

“What happens if they refuse to come?”

“No one’s ever refused, though some come back more than once and I have to turn them away.”

Further along the wall, I saw women of different sized-breasts, varying splotches of pubic hair, soft cheeks, tough cheeks.

“Women too?” I asked.

“Feminine whimsy is usually more inspiring than masculine yearning.”

I felt dizzy, like a million eyes were watching me, lonely, vicious, avaricious, flowing into the ravine of essence, a disparate orchestra clashing within. It was like all of China was staring at me and suddenly I remembered the moment I decided to leave the States. Three years ago, I was running around a swimming pool. There was an especially wet area and I slipped, hitting my head on the concrete. The concussion knocked me out, and when I woke, I could no longer see through my right eye. Everything had become left-centric, a spherical partition sundering my vision in half. The world was incomplete, corruptibly contemptible. The job I’d fought so hard to get felt empty, and all my ambitions seemed juvenile — climbing the flaccid vines of opportunity while vying for attention from superiors who’d rather flirt with coordinators than listen to my concerns. And for what? Stress and a couple extra bucks that were like sucking popsicles in the Arctic. I realized the love of my life was a shell, a woman who wanted me to love her reflection and hated me when I saw through to the sutured seams of her bare body. I felt lost in a tundra of futility that found enthusiasm more daunting than climbing the thousand-story pavilions of Chinese myth. I knew my so-called ‘stability’ was a wooden igloo I’d been clinging to because I had no alternatives. My blindness had exposed my blindness and though my sight gradually returned, I couldn’t ignore all the things I saw. Vague, hazy splotches called to me, and one rancorously depressing morning, I found myself buying a one-way e-ticket for Beijing.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

I told her everything. Concluded by saying, “You love my fingers, but I hate your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because they found me when I wanted to be lost.”

I suddenly grabbed one of the mannequins and smashed it into the ground. Seized a broken limb and hammered the others, pounding them to pieces. My wrath effused through my arms and legs. I was no longer human; instead, rage personified, the primordial savagery of instinctual chaos funneled into my fists. When I was done, there were a trail of mannequin corpses, murdered without mercy.

Breathing hard, repletely depleted, she gripped me by the arm. I instinctively pushed her away and part of her shirt tore, revealing a nasty scar that ripped across her shoulder. It startled me. She quickly covered it. Then led me to a room to cast my hand in clay. We didn’t speak for thirty minutes. After the clay had solidified, she led me out to the front door.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I wanted something so badly, I tried to destroy it when I couldn’t have it.” She clutched her shoulder, a trace of pain whisking by her eyes.

“Will I see you again?” I wanted to know.

She slammed the door shut.

I stumbled outside in a daze. Couldn’t see anything. I bumped into a car, nearly crashed into several boxes. My ears died, my nose became clogged, my tongue paralyzed. I could feel the cartography of my bitterness etched into the mountain ranges of envy, see all my life clear as a film flash and how crudely incomplete it was. I was the Buddha of no parts. And the sea that hid me had vanished like my anonymity.

Passing Glance

It wasn’t the lanky cigarette or the weathered black heels on the stranger that reminded me of Sue Lian. It was the wispy puffs of hair curling down her ear, her fleshy lips fading into an insouciant sheath of pink. Millions passed through the Beijing subways every day and I only saw this woman for a glance between stops. But that was enough to remind me of Sue Lian’s torrid touch, her withering sarcasms, her caustic glower that sundered titanium into granules.

I was a granule when I met first met the love of my life, unconsolidated, uncommitted, unsophisticated. After her, I was a granule cut in half, tossed about by market vendors, boiling with sweet potatoes and rice cakes. Everyone in the subway had an intricate recipe for their complexion: a squat woman yelling prices for magazines from her column in the subway; a young dilettante reading four books in four different languages while wearing his purple hair like a hat; three poets chewing greedily on pastries and commiserating over the misery of joy and the bliss of sorrow. I put my bag through security check, the debris from my debilitated soul hidden from their scanners. The subway routes were labyrinthine and the Mandarin directions, difficult to decipher. If you weren’t going anywhere, it was impossible to get lost. But even though I had no destination, I felt tentacles clawing through my pupils, a spider web the size of Beijing spindled together by the arachnids of industry and imagination.

My imagination died the day Sue Lian was struck with motion blindness. The savage histrionics of winter wind in Beijing blew a loose piece of construction straight into her head, knocking her unconscious. When she woke up, anything that moved refused to register in her visual cortex. Friends and family became phantoms, and the love of her life was the invisible man viewed in disparate frames. She couldn’t see me in motion and our desires became frozen in the strata of memory, carbonic fossils stuck between the Triassic and Jurassic. Walking together was a march to confusion, dance was a gyration of madness, sex became an aberration of the senses. She just wanted to stand still, me by her side.

I couldn’t, even without direction. I stumbled sideways, sprinted backwards; I swam through polluted ether and imbibed bitter gasoline. Kinetics had sabotaged my serenity and my heels kept on flipping askew. Sue Lian dealt with it by closing her eyes and re-experiencing Beijing through smell: the pores of sweat, the unsanitary sanitation of public toilets and charcoaled skewers roasting mutton and pork fat. She sucked on the fumes of the ubiquitous cabs and ignored the fireworks of vermilion pillars piercing the air. Buildings blinked at their veins, silver skyscrapers raced with dull gray apartments blemished by a familiarity that led to apathy. I saw a hundred talk bubbles above the invisible comic panels for our graphic novel of love, her bartering aggressively with a twelve-year old girl for a fake Gucci bag, the insistence on imitating every animal noise she heard. She ate a million snacks between midnight and 3 a.m., and we attempted to exterminate moths resting still in our closet while laughing at the futility of utility in affection. I loved her dumbly and she loved me with a keen intelligence that could have taught a tortoise how to dance on top of a flea.

It was my obstinacy that led to the sight I hated above all, the weak crinkling and the struggle against expression in her plaintive eyes as she realized she was no longer loved by the man she loved. Her illness made her too strange, a chasm cauterized into the hutong between us. In the days that followed, I drifted through the city. I felt like I was back at Tiantan Park watching the specter of a woman: elegant, turquoise dress, dancing beautifully by herself, hovering from one prospective partner to another, trying to find someone to accompany her but finding herself alone. All of the comforts of Beijing seemed alien without Sue Lian.

One year after our separation, I was still adrift. I had to meet this stranger even if just to soak in the last vestiges of voluntary amnesia. I pushed past the families with their duffel bags holding everything they owned. I fought against a deluge of passengers swarming into the train. I waded through a billion strangers to find one, remembering the end, teleporting from one emotion to another. “You’re picking on peanuts in the kung pao chicken,” she’d said. “Ivory chopsticks just won’t do.” I knew she was trying to reach me, trying to mend our broken satellites. But I hardened my will, convinced myself she was petty, self-absorbed, projecting my frustrations onto her, fighting campaign after campaign for my tawdry pride. If I could go back and rebuild the tracks, send the subway along a different route, everything would unwind and disentangle. The destination would be clear.

But that was when I felt a sharp sting in my brain and winced. I raised my head, realized I’d caught motion blindness. I blinked and Sue Lian was gone. I blinked again and the stranger was gone. I blinked one last time and the entire world evaporated, Beijing an empty train station with decrepit tracks.

All I had left were moments.

Searching for Normalcy

I.

My obsession was listening to other people’s phone calls. I spent my mornings thinking about all the things that would never be, life being that series of conversations over coffee and Coke and phone booths. Past subway rails and empty picnic tables and torn school books. All the other stuff was filler, never the fulfillment of one’s ravenous lust that consumed like a Neanderthal run amok. I stood and listened to people screaming into their cell phones, lonely whispers outside phone booths, pressing my ear against a glass box or waiting in line for unwanted calls. I didn’t try to remember names, a Jake or a Jenny or a Jane. Heard a girlfriend asking a boyfriend why he no longer loved her and a boyfriend asking a girlfriend why she no longer loved him. I traveled from street to street, waiting next to obsolescent phone booths, collecting what people said, a connoisseur of eclectic conversations.

It all began on a day I woke up late because I’d received a phone call telling me an old friend had passed away. My wife of four years was sleeping in a separate room. In the morning, I slept through the alarm, eventually got up and showered. Even though my wife had been out of a job for a year, she was gone, her bed neatly set up. There was a phone call. I picked up expecting my boss. Someone asked for my wife.

“She’s not here. Who’s this?”

He remained silent. Then hung up.

Later, during dinner, I remembered a time as a teenager when I’d gone to a friend’s house. As her parents ate, they didn’t say a single word. The mother served the food; the father read the newspaper. It was an act that played out every night, same time, same place without variance. I swore I would never be like them. But here I was — my wife reading some obscure cookbook; me, mute. When we’d met, we were like two sailboats in a fleet of ocean liners, our sails torn asunder, anchored together by the stratifying mishaps of ritualized tedium. Routine was the breeze that drove us forward, cynicism tethering our hulls together. Even after thousands of conversations, I was struck by how little we actually knew each other. The poverty of dialogue and the inability of our words to sate either of our appetites for companionship left us famished and lonely. It was hard for me to filter through the present coldness to one that had once smiled, lit up at the sight of me.

The following day, I went on a business trip for three days. When I came home, there was a note that read Goodbye. I never spoke to her again.

I tried to lose myself in work. As a marketing guy, I dealt with people every day, selling them things they didn’t want or need. I’d tell them the exact same lines in the exact same way with the exact same pose and the exact same smile. People would lie to me and we both knew they were lying but it was okay. It was all within the rules, the boundaries of pleasant deception.

One day, while wandering through the city, a phone began ringing. I blinked, saw it was a pay phone. Not sure who it was for, I picked up.

“I’m gonna rape your fucking ass and cut off your legs and tie you up and bitch fuck you all day,” a coarse female voice said to me.

I stared blankly, shifting awkwardly. “Excuse me… Do you know this is a public payphone?”

“Of course I do, you fuck. You think I don’t know that?”

“But you don’t know me.”

“I’m watching you right now.”

I hung up and immediately left. For two days, I gave into all my conspiratorial paranoia and isolated myself, refusing to pick up the phone or step outside. Only when it was over did I realize something: I felt alive.

And it began. I noticed that in the moments when a person thought nobody else was around and they were completely alone on the phone — a few minutes, thirty seconds, an hour — I heard something in their voice. Honey, I’m going to be home a little later. No, don’t wait for me. The inflection, the subtle drop, the quivering in the throat, the unconscious hair sweep. Meaning under meaning, watching from afar, confirming something even if it was a vulgar reality, bare and viciously raw. It was pure in an adulterated way.

Sometimes, people would dial the wrong number and reach me at home. Instead of hanging up, I asked questions, encouraged them to talk. Obsessed with their own drama, some would tell me things about their lives, describing things minuscule as grand, their self-absorbed pain being the most traumatic. They never asked me any questions, almost like I wasn’t there, just a broken mirror hanging invisibly in front of them.

Watching people, trying to partake in their phone calls, I wanted to know if they knew what I did. I wanted to hear the truth in their voices. At work, I couldn’t focus anymore. I’d be given assignments to contact this person or that, and then I’d hear them talk in the same jovial bonhomie that meant nothing. What was the point of talking if everyone said the same thing but knew it meant nothing? So I stopped speaking. People would talk to me and I wouldn’t answer them. They’d be confused, upset. They’d ask if I was sick, ask me to respond, a desperation in their tone. Occasionally, I could hear a residue of truth, a trace that reminded me they were real. But most times, it was only frustration and false morality. It wasn’t long before I left my job. Left my home. Left my career. My family. I grew tired of not hearing them.

II.

I was on a long street with cars, some with headlights on even though it was day. Business suits and suitcases blended into the massive billboards selling trends and beliefs, acolytes and disciples of the corporate church that gave you something to live and die for.

Standing next to the phone booth, I was eating a piece of a bagel someone had thrown away. A man in a blue business suit furtively entered the booth. He had half a mustache, curled oily hair, a suave veneer about him that meandered between confidence and fear. He didn’t close the door, just took out a bunch of quarters and dialed random numbers. I could hear voices on the other side asking, Hello? Hello? HELLO???? He didn’t answer, just stood there, listening. He repeated this about forty times. Men, women, children. Some cursed. Others hung up, terrified by the silence. When he used up all his coins, he came out, ready to leave.

I approached.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“What were you just doing?” I demanded back.

“What is it to you?”

“I just saw what you did.”

“And?” he asked.

I stared at him without saying anything.

He laughed amusedly. “Walk with me through the park.”

III.

“It’s silence I want to hear,” he said. “That single instance where a person is bare and pure and doesn’t know how to feel. The silence that follows. That’s all.”

IV.

“What do you get out of this?” he wondered.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I can tell that wasn’t the first time you’ve listened in on a conversation.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I replied.

“Why not?”

“Words can cheapen an experience,” I said, “misrepresent a truth, especially when you try to describe it exactly.”

He laughed.

As we walked along, I asked him about himself, why he started doing what he did.

He answered, “I got tired of losing things because I wanted them so badly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve never lost anything?”

“What’d you lose?”

His eyes hardened. Then he said, “They say that people only have a few motivations for anything they do. You think people ever do anything without any reason?”

“Love, hate, jealousy… what real reason is there for any of it?”

“The disease is existence,” he said.

“What?”

He grinned. “I’ve never thought nature beautiful. I always thought people made up the word beautiful just so they can look at something forever. What if they discarded the words beautiful and ugly? Would any concept of physical judgment disappear?”

“No,” I answered.

“Then words don’t really mean anything.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re just symbols for what we really mean,” he said.

“Symbols are important because they give things meaning when they normally wouldn’t have sense of anything,” I said.

“Maybe…” he replied. “Let me tell you a story. I once met this woman by random chance. We were both looking for champagne in the supermarket. She’d just finished graduate school and wanted to celebrate. I asked her who she was celebrating with. She frowned and said no one. She was sad to be alone. I insisted I would do something for her if no one else would. She pretended to be shy, refused initially, but I broke through all the barriers. Back at her apartment, she told me how she’d been studying hard for the last few years. After a few drinks, we made love on her bed. I know most people like to sleep right after sex, but I can’t. I have a hard time with anyone next to me. She was happy because she thought I wanted to talk. This was her most intimate of moments. She told me about her ex-husband, how they’d been together for three years. One night, she came home and found him with another woman. He didn’t apologize even though she would have forgiven him. Instead, he cut off contact and refused to speak to her again.

“She’d lost something pure. And I don’t mean her virginity. A man can fall in love just as easily in the span of a second as he can in ten years. She continued talking about her ex, describing what a scumbag he was, how he went from girl to girl. All I could think about was her wasted love. She’d be suspicious, reluctant of me after a while. We’d probably have a scene a few weeks into the relationship. She’d ask for space and time, demand that I prove myself trustworthy. It was already written. I didn’t want to play my part. So when she fell asleep, I left and never looked back. Truth is, if she would have shut up, I would have loved her. But in this case, as in most cases, the truth wasn’t worth knowing.”

“But the truth is what makes her interesting.”

“What do you mean?”

“I love people for their scars,” I replied. “No scars and they’re a bore.”

“Self-induced scars are signs of stupidity.”

“Then I’d be the stupidest man alive.”

He laughed. “It’s curious how normalcy seems so abnormal when surrounded by abnormalities.”

“Then it’s normalcy you’re searching for?”

“Or the lack thereof,” he replied.

We conversed for a few more minutes. He excused himself to go use the restroom. An hour later, I realized he wasn’t returning and was filled with a pang of regret. I wished I could have at least said farewell.

V.

As a nine-year old boy infatuated with imagined histories and treasure coves of lost fortunes, there was no moment more exciting than when my mother brought home twelve boxes filled with old telephones. Her younger brother, my uncle, had died in a motorcycle accident and left them to her in his will. We set them up all over the apartment: oblong ones, coldly metallic ones. There were phones I thought carved from dead dinosaur bones, others from ancient Egyptian ceramics buried with resurrected pharaohs. There were cords made from the leather of old British armor sets and hides from sharks who’d struggled violently with fishermen for weeks. Many of the cases had been constructed from frozen plastic secretly harvested from the moon. It was a laboratory for the senses, all the phones hooked up so that one ring would result in a chaotic opera of discordant ringtones vying for domination. I’d run to pick up, curious who it was. I’d hope for a sword swallower, a piano virtuoso with cerebral palsy playing with her toes, an eco-terrorist who poured yogurt inside fuselages. Instead, it was almost always sales people wanting to talk about bills and special offers.

My adulthood would be different. I’d meet a million different people, holding conversation parties with the entire world. My ear would be a permeable vessel for the turbulence of their thoughts, a balloon brimming with the hydrogen of inspiration and the volatility of revolutionary musings. We’d chat about a metropolis where people only spoke in musical chords and plan a city made entirely of vegetables: Carrot Lake, the Celery Towers, Radish Hall. But to my disappointment, no one ever really wanted to talk about anything except their problems. That’s when they wanted to talk.

At the end of our relationship, I couldn’t get my wife to say anything, no matter how hard I tried. I called her from all over the world and all that ensued was a rote, automated conversation that could have lasted one minute as easily as three thousand. I wondered how many passionless I love yous had been carried across the transatlantic cables, how much lusterless joy and rueless savagery that blended apathy with hatred and bliss. Even my hatred felt obtuse over the phone.

Many had their destiny invisibly carved by phones, ones with the musty smell of disuse and dirt, or the lean fragrance of congealed honey and ketchup stains. I knew a man who killed himself because his girlfriend left him, not realizing she would call him eight minutes after his suicide, confessing her mistake and expressing her desire to return. One woman stopped to take a wrong phone call on her way to work. The delay caused her to run a yellow light as it turned red, resulting in the car on the other side ramming her from the left. I knew of an uncle who could never forgive himself for missing his wife’s phone call as she lay dying in a hospital because he’d turned the ringer off to take a nap.

I grew up surrounded by his phones.

VI.

I often strolled through the park alone. This particular morning, I noticed a young woman playing chess by herself. She had light blonde hair that undulated into a field of cherry freckles scattered across her dapper cheeks. She possessed an airy posture as though she were floating, continually swaying her body from side to side, gripping her seat so that she wouldn’t fly off. I sat across from her and asked if I could join her.

She nodded her head without expression.

I noticed she was several moves into her game, playing herself.

“Who’s winning?”

She didn’t answer, absorbed in making her moves.

I stared as she moved her pieces, retreating or defending appropriately. The rook took bishop. Pawn, the knight. After a few moves, the game was over. She set up and started again.

Some time passed before a man came by.

“Excuse me, what are you doing?” he asked.

“I was hoping to get a game of chess.”

“And?”

“She hasn’t really said anything to me. I’m sorry, is she your…” I hung on the your.

He dutifully completed it for me. “My patient. She’s deaf and mute… I think it’d be best if you leave now,” he said.

“Does she come here every day to play chess?”

“Sir.”

“Maybe she wants some competition.”

“She’s been doing this every day of her life for the last ten years. I don’t think she wants any company.”

I looked at her. Then got up. She was still absorbed in her chess game. As far as she was concerned, I was never even there.

VII.

But I couldn’t just walk away.

VIII.

She wasn’t there the next day, nor the one after. But she was there on the third day. No one was around and I sat across from her. She said nothing, kept on playing. I thought about the conversations I’d heard earlier that day. A couple of guys asked some friends out to play croquet on donkeys. A young lady dressed in expensive clothes called in sick as her male friend waited outside the booth. A teenager was telling someone about a problem.

“I’m obsessed. I can’t stop drinking shampoo and cologne. I get so caught up with the idea of violating and destroying all the disgusting smells inside me. It’s like taking my hand, sticking it down my throat and ripping out my larynx and splattering it all over the floor ‘cause my shoes and shirts stink so bad. It runs through my head a million times. You try to think about this lady’s nice Tiffany necklace and how much her husband spent getting it for her and there’s all the beautiful people in the world and all of them stink to hell when they die or take a shit or wake up in the morning. All I’m thinking is, When is work over so I can go home and chew on soap? I can’t stop myself. I know it’s going to screw me badly, but even then, I just think, one more time, one more time. I’m so tired of bad smells.

The chess player waved her hands at me. I startled, looking up. She was making a writing gesture with her fingers. I checked my pockets, found a pen. She ripped out a piece of paper from her notepad and wrote, am i here?

I stared at her. “Uhh. I…” But she shook her hand and gestured that I write it out for her.

Yes, I wrote.

how can you tell? She had very pretty writing.

Because you are sitting across from me

how do you know im not just part of imagination?

You’re playing chess

touch my face

She grabbed my hand, then directed it to her face. When my palm pressed against her cheek, she closed her eyes and held it.

Abruptly, she let go and wrote furiously on the paper. When she finished, she pushed the paper across to me.

It read, i am disappearing every day. no one wants to talk to me. my parents stopped coming long ago. eventually, i will be gone. i cant speak or hear anything. nothing exists for me, just like this chess game. i play and play every day but no one remembers, no one can tell you who died on the battlefield and who sacrificed their life for victory. i collected feathers to try to see, marbles and crayons from countries you’ve never heard of and colors that no longer exist. but none of them convinced me i was real. even you dont exist. i cant tell that you do. i feel your touch but i could be imagining it. sometimes, i pretend i can hear people but i know i cant. if you cant hear people and they cant hear you, you dont exist.

I don’t exist either, I wrote back. No one hears me and I don’t hear anyone else.

symbolic deafness and muteness dont count.

How do you know I’m not really mute or deaf? I wrote. You can’t hear me and you can never tell if I’ve heard anything you said. I wondered if that last line would provoke her but I decided to give it to her anyway.

She laughed soundlessly. thats true… why are you here?

I thought about it, thought about it for a good long time.

I’m here because I can no longer hear myself. I can’t hear anything. Everything’s so distant and alien… but I’m hoping I can remember my voice by listening to others.

any luck so far?

I sighed and shook my head. All I hear are echoes that faded a long time ago.

She held my hand again. at least you can hear the echoes, she wrote with her other hand.

I gripped her fingers. Then in a moment of inspiration, reached across and kissed her softly. Her lips felt like dead peaches. She was shocked; her eyes dilated wide. She broke out into an awkward smile, her fingers nervously tap-dancing across my face. A few minutes later, her guardian arrived.

Tomorrow? I wrote.

She nodded.

When I returned the next day, she wasn’t there. I searched several more days for her. But she was nowhere in sight.

Maybe, like she said, she’d finally vanished.

IX.

Unfortunately, my essence too was just a shard, a sublimation of everything I’d wanted.

It was evening and I found a hidden area in a park where I could sleep. I guess it was possible for me to find a home again, possible for me to try to get a job — to try and live a ‘worthy’ life. I remembered one night shortly after my wife left me, I was sitting in front of my computer surfing the web. There was a mosquito flying around, which I tried to crush with my hands. I walked to my bathroom, and on the way back, noticed a dead butterfly on the floor. I picked it up and realized it was actually just a leaf cut into pieces. For no explicable reason, I smashed the wall and threw my CDs and DVDs and flung plates at the glass table my ex-wife had purchased. Death was the normal end for everyone: there, and only there, would my search for normalcy end.

The Interview

I.

I didn’t realize you could get fired for mistaking a really masculine female manager for a man. I said, “Mr. Blah and blah, can I possibly blah and blah?”

She replied, “Excuse me, did you just say mister to me?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m a woman, that’s why.”

I swear it was a perfectly innocent mistake. But that’s not the way she decided to take it. Two hours later, HR called me in and told me my employment was being terminated. Twelve years of sleepless service, working around the clock to analyze esoteric graphs while kissing ass, and some college grad fresh out of school got me fired

My wife didn’t empathize. She was off sleeping with some guy she’d met at church. My daughter didn’t want to speak to me since she was going through the teenage phase where it wasn’t cool to talk with her parents. All my buddies were on leashes at home, no longer allowed out of the house without advance notice. I popped some popcorn and searched the Internet for job listings. Then thought about how tenuous and flimsy even the closest of relationships could be. One misspoken word, one misplaced gesture, a drunken outburst or a shy quiescence, then the closest bond shattering like a box of broken light bulbs.

I sent my resume to twenty companies. Got calls back from eleven of them.

All the interviews went well. The typical questions revolved around the extent of my experience, what my skills were, what I enjoyed doing, miscellaneous bits of info like whether I played softball. I’d been to a million of these since I’d lost my job and I felt more comfortable there than I did talking to my own wife. The nuances of a game subject to the inquiries of the slave master, a firm, a corporation, a meandering salesmen, trial by majority decision, conviction by a few proper friends, the morning stink of mints several notches too strong.

There was the morning arrival, a woman from HR called to the lobby. She would wear a pristine business suit, smiling with gestures practiced every morning in the mirror, firm handshake, nice to meet you, the smell of dry cleaned carpets pervading. Would you like coffee or an espresso? Do you like it with sugar? The ambassador coaxing through intimated sexuality and a professional servility that wreaked an awakening havoc on an otherwise unsuspecting body. A conference room and an oak table, monitors for teleconferencing on the wall. Streams of managers and directors and supervisors pouring through. Names remembered as quickly as they were forgotten. Assessing who really had authority and who was just a figurehead. A vigorous greeting, a bright expression, avoiding negativity in general while crafting a politically savvy answer to both humor and impress.

When I got a phone call from one of the most prestigious firms in the country, I was thrilled. A buddy of mine had a sister with a friend whose wife had a nephew that worked there. He was the one who’d turned in my resume.

“The job is so yours,” he said. “The guy who has the position is a total freak they’re gonna fire. My boss saw your resume and thought you’d be perfect. The interview is just a formality. Remember to ask for the number you wanted.”

I thanked him profusely.

The next morning, the interview went more smoothly than I could have imagined. The CEO of the company was the first to meet me.

“So what do we need to do to convince you to come?” he asked.

And from there, we talked about everything but work. Thirty minutes later, the lady from HR had to remind him that his allotted time was over. He left five minutes later, at which point another manager entered. The day went seamlessly. They weren’t asking questions about me. They were asking when I could start. After my last scheduled meeting ended at 4:30, the manager said, “I’ll go let Gena in HR know we’re done… I really hope you decide to join us.”

I was grinning. Not only was I getting a pretty big pay spike, but I felt I was going to finally get the respect I deserved. I was so excited, I was even tempted to call my wife. As I flirted with the thought, another manager came in the door.

“Hi,” I said, smiling, putting out my hand to shake his.

He took a seat, ignoring my hand, then said, “My entire family got into a car accident and died this morning. My wife, my two kids, and my brother are dead.”

I stared at him, startled. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“No you’re not,” he snapped, then tapped his pen on the desk while looking over my resume. “So I take it you’re the guy they’re hiring to replace me?”

“I hadn’t heard anything about that, but…”

“Spare me the fake sympathy. Two weeks ago, my grandpa got gored to death by a pack of bulls. A week before that, my older sister died of breast cancer. Let me ask you something — what is the meaning of life?”

“Excuse me?”

“What is the meaning of life?”

“I… I don’t know. I haven’t… I haven’t really considered it in a while.”

“Why’s that?”

“Uhh… the question just hasn’t come up.”

“You’re saying you haven’t even thought about the purpose of your existence?”

“Should I have?” I wasn’t sure what his tactic was. Was he trying to see how I handled pressure?

“You don’t think it’s important that you figure out why you’re living and why you do the things you do?”

“It is very important.”

“Are you married?” he asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“Are you happy in your marriage?”

“Wha — I think so,” I replied.

“You think so or you are?”

“I am.”

“Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Just answer the question.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “I might have, once or twice.”

“Why did you do that if you were happy?”

“I… look, I find this question very awkward.”

“Why?” he wanted to know.

“Why what?”

“Why do you find it awkward?”

“I don’t see how it bears on my position,” I responded.

“Okay, I’ll ask you another question then. Why do people have to die?”

I shook my head. “Umm… I don’t know…”

“How many people that you know have died?”

“Several of my friends passed away, my grandparents.”

“Have you ever wanted to kill anyone before?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Never?”

“I don’t remember if I did.”

“What did you want to be as a kid?”

“I… I wanted to be an archaeologist,” I answered.

“Why didn’t you become one?”

“It didn’t pay very well.”

“So you dictated the course of your life based on pay?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then why didn’t you become what you wanted?”

“It was more complicated than that.”

“Was it?”

“Look, where are you taking this?” I asked.

“Is this an interview? Are you the one asking questions or me?”

“You are. But I don’t get the point of the questions.”

“But you would get the point if I asked you questions like, What was your previous job like, how is your day, what’d you do last weekend?”

“Yeah.”

“But not if I ask you anything that’s important or worthwhile?”

“That’s not what I mean,” I replied.

“Then what do you mean?”

“Well how about you? If you’re so intent on finding things out about me, I want to know something important about you.”

“Okay. I didn’t love my wife. I married her only because I was afraid of being alone. But when she was gone, I realized that I actually liked her a lot. I probably loved her more than any other person I could have loved.” I was surprised by the tone of his voice — candid, sincere, hurt. He noticed my reaction, smiled, and asked, “Do you have any regrets?”

“About me and my wife?”

“Or anything.”

“Who doesn’t have regrets?”

“What are some of yours?”

“I–I…” I thought about it. “I like to live my life in a way so that I don’t have regrets. But of course I have a ton. I wish I’d left my old company earlier. I was there for 12 years and I don’t even know why. I think getting fired was the best thing that could have happened. Otherwise, I would have just sat there, waiting for my 401k to accumulate.”

“Do you want more in life?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you want more in life than what you already have? Why not less?”

“What would be the benefit of less?” I asked.

“What would be the benefit of more?”

“Happiness?”

“What is happiness?”

“It’s a state of being content,” I said.

“So if you had more, you’d be content?”

“Probably.”

“Do you think you’re a good person?”

“I–I think so… I try to be nice to people. I give to charity every once in a while.”

“I didn’t ask if you were nice or charitable. I asked if you really think you’re a good person.”

“How do you define good?”

He grinned. “Good question.”

I laughed. “What about you? Do you think you’re a good person?”

“No. I haven’t done a single thing for anyone in the world. What difference have I made? I’ve just wanted more money for myself and patted myself on the back by giving money here and there to various charities. When you were young, did you want to be great?”

“Of course I did.”

“Do you think you’re going to be great?”

“Unless something changes in the next thirty years, probably not,” I jested. Then realized how terribly depressing my admission was.

“Do you think you’ve made a difference for the good in the lives of the people around you?”

“I’d hope so.”

“Do you think the people around you have felt their lives were enriched by your existence?”

“I can’t think of anything, but you saw It’s a Wonderful Life. Maybe if I died, people would notice.”

“If you found out you were going to die tomorrow, would you change the way you live your life?” he inquired.

“Absolutely. There’s a million things I’d go do.”

“Do any of them involve your wife and kids?”

“…No.”

“What’s the most cowardly thing you’ve done?”

“…I’m going to opt not to answer.”

“What’s the most hateful thing you’ve done?”

“…I don’t want to answer that.”

“What is the most important thing in the world to you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Is truth important to you?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it since… since college. There was a time when all I cared about was truth. I didn’t even go to my classes, because I’d be reading books all day.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“…I’m married, aren’t I?”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“…Yes.”

“Does love always have to be painful?”

“…I think so.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think is the worst feeling in the world?”

“When… when you know something good is going to end.”

“Have you ever lied to someone because you were jealous of them?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever pretended to be drunk so you could fit in with a group?”

“…Yes.”

“Have you ever betrayed a friend to protect yourself?”

“…Yes.”

“Did you ever try to commit suicide?”

“…No.”

“Why not?”

“Because… because I was too afraid to try.”

“Did you ever want to die?”

“…Yeah.”

“When?”

“There wasn’t a specific time. I think it was just a general state. Sometimes, I just get tired of life.”

“When was the proudest moment of your life?”

“…I don’t know if I have one.”

“What’s you’re most prized possession?”

“…My car.” I felt empty as the words came out.

“Do you believe in God?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think there’s a Heaven or Hell?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Would you still believe in God if you knew for a fact there was no Heaven or Hell?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Why do you believe in God?”

“Because… I don’t know why,” I said.

“Why do you work every day?”

“So I can make money.”

“For your happiness?”

“No, to pay the bills.”

“Does paying the bills make you happy?”

“No,” I answered.

“If you could escape from this life, would you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Would that make you happy?”

“Yep.”

“Then why don’t you leave right now?”

“Because… because I can’t. I have family. I have obligations.”

“Then you’re being denied your happiness by your family?”

“It’s not just my family. It’s… it’s me… I don’t get it.”

“Do you really believe in anything?”

“…Probably not.”

He jumped up and started screaming and pounding the table. Then he climbed on top of it. “You’re just like me: it doesn’t matter whether we live or die; we just drift without any purpose except to make someone somewhere more money. You really want my job? You really want to be the arbiter of nothing?”

“…”

“I’m going to commit suicide tomorrow. I’m going to die. And do you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m not going to do anything different. I’m going to come into work. I’m going to surf the net and send out some emails. I’m gonna go home at six and grab myself some cheap sushi on the way home. I’m gonna watch television for a few hours. Then I’m going to go to sleep. In the morning, I’m going to get a shotgun and blow my head off. It was nice meeting you. Good luck with the job.”

He left the room.

Gena from HR arrived.

“Everyone loved you and they’re eager to get you in. Let’s talk a little about pay. How much are we looking at?”

It took me a minute before I realized she was asking me something.

“Can you repeat the question?”

Two weeks later, I received a call from Gena.

“I’m sorry, but our company is closing. We’re sending our office overseas to India. Cheaper labor, you know the deal.”

I nodded, then asked, “Did any of the managers lose his entire family last week?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

Later that night, as I was eating alone, my wife came in dressed in a leather skirt, reeking of perfume. She didn’t say anything as she got her orange juice. She was about to go to the bedroom when I called out her name.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“I have a question for you,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“What’s the meaning of life?”

Urban Dreamers

I.

As a photographer of urban legends, my job was to authenticate a fabricated reality. I’d always lived in a world of fantasy gone awry. Death was a semblance of life; truth, a façade for illusion. My projects revolved around the lies people believed in: the hitchhiker who vanished in the backseat of the car, the baby crocodile flushed down the young boy’s toilet, the ridiculously cheap car possessing the stench of a corpse. I was in love with horror and wanted to capture it through the lens. Joy seemed dull; bliss a masquerade for the inevitability of solitude. I’d been dating a girl named Jane who lived with someone I’d mistaken as her twin — except they weren’t related at all. They just looked alike, dressed alike, worked at the same company, and had rhyming names: Jane and Lane.

I suggested we do a photo-shoot together. The theme would be the twins who weren’t twins: identity mimicked, in a mimicry of distinction. She was intrigued. I rented out a studio and attired them in similar outfits, their colors melding together as a study on the origins of hatred and bitterness.

“How would you describe the mood you’re going for?” Jane asked.

“I… I don’t know how to explain. It’s like everything’s dissolving into something else.”

“What?”

I tried thinking of an analogy. “Think about murder. It’s a magnification of narcissism. Jealousy is an extension of desire. Love is lust amplified, and greed is self-loathing.”

“What are you talking about?” Jane asked.

I shook my head. “Let me try to think of a better example…”

“Do you want to see some skin?” Jane asked, giggling along with Lane.

“You know I don’t do nudes.”

“But you can make an exception for me, right?” she asked, unbuttoning her shirt.

“No nudes, Jane,” I said.

“Aww, c’mon. You’ve never wanted to make a porno?”

I’d never photographed anyone in the nude, seeing nothing artistic about it at all. Tits and ass were tits and ass. “I left one of my lights in the car. I’ll be back.”

Eight minutes later, I returned with a photoflood and startled to find Jane and Lane kissing.

The two burst into laughter, blushing. “Sorry, we were just practicing for the shoot.”

“That’s not the kind of thing I shoot,” I said.

They laughed even more.

I flipped to sepias and the loneliness of desaturation. We went through five hours of shooting, an angling modification and perusal of the visual madness one conveniently referred to as ‘art.’ I was studying Jane, every pore, every scar. How many times had I seen her, how many times had I photographed her? And yet, every click felt like the last.

They both had glasses of wine and were getting frolicsome. I thought back to how we first met, a stroll near the beach as we visited the arcade, laughing about religion and the ineptitudes of life. All my shared moments seemed like separate rolls of film, developed in my mind as I flushed out the colors, boosting contrast and cropping out parts I didn’t like. I’d never understood what the difference between love and an addiction to familiarity was. I loved Jane, didn’t I? I’d been with her for more than two years. But how come I didn’t feel anything special about our commercially branded destiny?

After I finished, I felt an unexpected dread. The prospect of scanning her pictures, touching them up in Photoshop, then adding post-effects to make her more beautiful seemed burdensome. Why was I always working so hard to make people more beautiful than they really were?

A few days passed. She asked to see some of the photos. When I asked for more time, she became insistent. “Why are you being so stubborn? Let me just see a few of the pics.”

“Not till they’re ready.”

A week and fifty-seven arguments later, she said it was ‘over.’

“Me and Lane are going to start seeing each other. I just have so much more fun with her and I’m tired of your depressing mood swings.”

Strangely, I didn’t feel a thing. I plunged myself into the tedium of headshots, proceeding to photos glorifying violence and crime, all the dark seedlings of society dramatized for people to look over in modern art museums and say, ‘Can you believe people actually do that to each other?’

My usual partner in crime, Rick, went to New York for a day to shoot Tupperware. I picked him up at LAX, noticed a massive line.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Lady Gaga skipping the line with the paparazzi after her.”

“You get any?”

“Aww man, you know I don’t do that bullshit.”

As we curved around to the 405, he said, “There’s a party tonight. It’s supposed to be a networking thing for this alternative agency. Interested?”

“What’s an alternative agency?” I asked.

“They do Goth stuff, vampires… you know, weird shit.”

I laughed. “I’m a little tired tonight.”

“Dude, you’ve been avoiding going out, but not this time. This is a professional responsibility.”

I nodded, forcing a grin. “All right.”

Rick was in the army when he picked up photography. He was fit with a staunch posture, and usually had a determined glint in his gaze. We met at a fashion show a few months back. The lead designer reserved a spot in a club that didn’t have a catwalk or lights. The doormen hadn’t heard about a fashion show and stared at us askance. “Is there really a show, or are you guys trying to get in for free?” We were scuttled into a back room to wait. Three hours later, the designer rushed in, not in the least apologetic. “The show will continue,” she assured us. But the models stumbled around because none of them had modeled before, there was scant lighting, and the clothes were barely functional, one model having her top pop off, exposing her tiny breasts for a jubilant throng. I met Rick because the other photographers were too snobby to talk to us. From the beginning, we were making fun of their bad attitudes, Rick saying to one girl, “Sorry, you don’t got the looks to be treating me the way you are.”

This particular day, he was telling me about his friend who’d fallen in love with a stripper. “He was a successful guy, had a lot of money saved away. Lost five years of his life chasing her. He quit his job since she’d been banging other guys when he was at work. He calls me two nights ago, crying that she went back to the clubs. I told him, look man, don’t be stupid. Let it go. But he couldn’t.”

When I dropped him off, he turned to me intently and asked, “What’s the moral of the story, man?”

“Don’t fall in love with strippers?”

“Don’t try changing people, because you can’t.” He gave me a grin. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Hey,” I called out.

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever feel — do you ever feel like everything we do is fake and we just lie to make up things visually?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Do you ever get tired of it?”

He laughed. “Dude, that’s our job as photographers.” He gave me a pat on the back. “I think you’re suffering from breakup depression. There’ll be some cute girls tonight. We’ll have fun.”

He hopped out, grabbed his bags, and strolled up to his apartment.

II.

It was evening when I met him. I got into his Jeep, a manual transmission with a stubborn, raucous engine.

“What’s been up with you?” he asked as we headed towards Burbank. Tara — a model I’d worked with, who was his friend — had told him I didn’t want to shoot nudes of her.

“I felt uncomfortable about it,” I said.

He burst into laughter. “You’re talented, but you gotta learn how to have fun once in a while.”

“I don’t want to shoot nudes.”

“There are perks with this job, you know? You’re the only photographer I know who doesn’t want to date models.”

“It’s not like I don’t want to date them. It’s more like I’m working with them and I feel self-conscious if I hit on them.”

“And they know that! That’s why they’re attracted to you. You gotta use that to your advantage man. Me, they know I’m a sleazebag. But it’s okay. I’ve had my share of good times.” He described some of his encounters with the models.

“They let you do that?” I asked.

He laughed. “You wouldn’t believe it. A lot of these girls are voyeurs deep down. It’s the only thing that gets them excited. If you make them look prettier than they are, they’ll love you for it. Think about it, man — we know more about the way they look than they do.”

We arrived in the neighborhood, spotted the house with a faded sign that read Agency. We entered, saw four stalwart men clad in leather and rings. “WELCOME!!!” they warmly greeted me.

The hostess, a woman with thick black hair that reached down to her knees, kissed Rick on the cheek.

“This is an associate,” he introduced me. “He’s one of the most talented photographers I know.”

“Not really,” I said.

She gave me a kiss on the cheek. “No need to be modest. Help yourselves to anything you want.”

I got orange juice, walked into the living room. It was filled with the most diverse set of women I’d seen. Each had distinctive marks — one with a tattoo across her chest, another with red hair and seven piercings in her face. There was a model that wore a cape with half her head shaved. She was saying, “They didn’t tell me they were gonna hang my body from the ceiling. They wrapped my arms and legs, pinched my nipples with these clippers that really stung, and it was cold as hell. I was hanging bare-ass naked, but they got into a big argument about the lighting. I was like, guys, can we hurry this up?” Everyone burst into laughter.

In another circle, they were talking about the travails of corsets and aluminum garters. “Did you hear how Jessica had two ribs removed?”

“How much did your boob job cost you?”

“I had the doctors drain twenty pounds from my stomach.”

“How you doing?” Rick asked.

“Fine.”

When a pair of models passed by, he called them and introduced me. They looked through my book of photography. “These are really beautiful and mysterious,” they said. “You really like the noir look, huh?”

I nodded.

“And what are the backgrounds?”

“I recreate urban legends,” I answered.

“Why those?”

“I think urban legends are an outlet for the psyche and it’s a representation of something real that people don’t like to deal with consciously. You guys have a portfolio?” I asked.

One of them handed it to me. All the pictures were Goth nudes displaying bondage, S&M, artistic pornography in which they looked like they were in pain. “These are great,” I said.

Rick took me out to the backyard for a breath of fresh air.

“Don’t be so tense,” he said. “You gotta get used to this kind of thing.”

“This isn’t my style,” I said.

He laughed. “Go and mingle. Remember, you don’t have a girlfriend anymore. You’re allowed to have fun.”

There were pockets of social activity, people sucking on their cigarettes and chatting about the quirks of particular models. It was cold, thick clouds making it gloomy, atypical weather conditions on a LA summer night. I headed for the tent they’d splayed out back, took a seat. Across from me were two girls. One had dirty blonde hair, looked like she was in high school with thick eye shadow and mascara surrounding her pupils. She was pale with a grungy shirt that slit above her belly, revealing a pierced navel. She waved exuberantly when I sat. Next to her was a very attractive girl with darker skin, a bit more rounded, though not plump. She was smoking a thin cigarette, but wasn’t looking in my direction.

I introduced myself.

The blonde was named Jenna and the other, Desdemona.

“You’re a photographer?” they asked.

“Yeah. You guys are models, right?”

“Yep.

“You guys have a portfolio?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Jenna said. “I’m looking to make contacts so I can make one.”

“I just came along to keep her company,” Desdemona added.

“What about you?” Jenna asked.

I handed her my book. She went through page by page.

“You idealize women,” Jenna said. “It’s funny how it’s always one way or the other.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the photographers here fall into two categories. Guys who despise women and debase them, and guys like you.”

“Photography is about extremes,” I said. “That’s what makes it interesting. Who wants to see pictures of ordinary women?”

“I do,” Jenna said, then laughed. “No, you’re right. This is beautiful work. I’m not knocking it.”

I grinned. “Thanks.” I took the book back from her. “How long you been modeling?”

“I just started. I’m actually from West Virginia and I’m thinking about moving out here to get my career going.”

“How’s your journey going?”

“Pretty good. I made some contacts at a convention and saw some celebrities.” She named four people from TV shows I’d never heard of. “I found out about this party through harakirigirls.com.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a really popular site. They do lots of the Goth, bondage kind of stuff. It’s really big and I wanted to be one of the models. She’s,” referring to Desdemona, “one of the models. She’s crazier than me though and can do it all. She was just in bugxxx.com.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where a model gets paid to be taken captive for a weekend.”

“Captive?”

Jenna laughed. “You want to explain?”

Desdemona seemed irritated but said, “Basically, the guys put you up in a really nice hotel for a day, capture you and take photos for two days. They’re really long and grueling but it looks a lot worse on camera. They’re actually really nice and they take good care of you.”

“What kind of stuff do they do?”

“Anything short of actual penetration.”

“Penetration?” I said, confused.

“Use your imagination,” she said.

“What about you?” Jenna asked. “How long you been doing photography?”

“A couple years now. I do a lot of fashion shows and production stills for movie sets. How do you like LA?”

“It’s great! Check this out.” She suddenly stood up, dropped her skirt, revealing a g-string and a bare rear. There was a tattoo of an elephant shaped like a human on the left cheek of her butt. “I got that in Venice.”

“Why an elephant?” I asked.

“It’s not just an elephant,” she said. “It’s Ganesha.” Seeing my confusion, “He’s a Hindu god.” She described a couple places out on Sunset she’d been to, getting drunk the night before at a gay bar, hunting down places for karaoke. “We only found one place but the line was way too long.”

“You gotta go to Koreatown,” I said. “They have the karaoke places with your own private room.”

“Do you know where they are?” Jenna asked excitedly.

“Of course. You want to go?”

“Yeah! Let’s go!”

I laughed. “All right. But only after the party dies down. We still gotta make contacts.”

“Sounds good.”

Rick came by and I introduced him to the two.

“How long you in town?” he asked Jenna.

“Two more days. I was hoping to meet some photographers so I could get some photos before I went back.”

“Well today’s your lucky day. The two of us will take your photos.”

“REALLY?!” she exclaimed.

Rick laughed. “Really.”

“Do you guys mind taking different kinds of photos?”

“What do you mean different?”

“I mean nudes,” she answered.

“Not at all,” Rick said.

Jenna peered over at me furtively.

We chatted more, poured additional drinks. Desdemona and Jenna went to take a quick bathroom break.

“That girl digs you,” Rick said to me.

“Who?”

“Jenna, who else?”

“She’s just being nice because I’m a contact.”

“She digs you, man. You guys have chemistry.”

I laughed and shrugged it off. But inside, I wondered, does she? She was attractive, funny, quirky. I was interested.

When the two returned, Rick said, “Why don’t you take a couple photos right now?”

“I don’t have my camera,” I said.

“You can use mine. It’s in the car. Here’s the keys.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jenna said with a bright smile.

We headed for his Jeep.

“I don’t know what it is, but lately, I feel like everything I do is a lie,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I don’t feel inspired anymore. I keep on wondering, is this it? I mean, yeah, you can make more money, but how do you get better? How do you push the art without just trying to be provocative to get attention?”

We got to Rick’s car and I jumped in to grab his camera. When I popped out, Jenna was standing right next to me. I could feel her breath on my skin. She tottered into me, tangled her arms with mine.

“Take out your camera,” she said. I took it out. She pressed her body against mine. “Why don’t you let me inspire you?”

She was about to take off her top when I stopped her. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I don’t… I don’t like doing this kind of photography. I don’t think it’s artistic or fresh. It’s just T&A.”

She stared at me disappointed.

“Sorry,” I said.

She shook her head. “I understand.”

We headed back without another word.

III.

I sat alone feeling miserable.

“What’s wrong, man?” Rick asked.

“Nothing.”

We were back in the tent when two photographers came our way. One was short, stocky, with a ‘50s-style suit and a fedora. He had an oblong face that seemed very smug and insecure at the same time, carrying a pair of binoculars attached to a box.

“3D photography,” he explained. Looking through the glasses, each slide had an image that popped out. It was pretty amazing as the flat plane of normal visual imagery seemed more vivid and raw: images of men tied up by women, ribald playfulness rampant.

His companion was an obese male who’d shaved his head. He had a thick beard and gruff voice, his posture imperious and overbearing. “So what’s your story?” he said to the girls. “’Cause you guys realize this is a ‘networking’ party, the key word being networking. Ever since I’ve gotten here, you guys isolated yourselves. Why’s that?”

“We didn’t isolate ourselves. We were just having a smoke.”

“For the past two hours?”

They introduced themselves: Jacob, the big one, Jefferson, the shorter one.

“I hate it when models think they can give feedback to us,” Jacob said. “We’re the artists. Just shut up and pose. That’s why we’re hiring you. But no, they always want to give input.”

“I don’t think input hurts,” Jefferson said. “I’ve gotten some of my best work done through suggestions.”

“I’m the total opposite. Whenever models give input, they don’t see the big picture. I try to explain things I see in my head, but they just don’t get it. I’m like, just trust me. I know what I’m doing. It always works that way. Suppose you take their input and it comes out like crap. You think they’ll take responsibility? No, but suppose I’m a total asshole and I force my vision on them. Even if they’re not happy, if it turns out awesome, they’ll forget everything and praise me afterwards. That’s the way it works. I don’t give a damn what they think.”

“I know your work,” Jenna said. “I’m a big fan.”

“That’s good,” Jacob replied. “I’m amused by you.”

“By me?”

“I want you to be in one of my projects.”

“Really?” she said with a surprised gesture, cheeks turning red.

They chatted while I went to grab a drink with Rick.

“That guy gets on my nerves,” Rick said.

“You know him?”

“Yeah, we’ve met.”

“Is he good?”

“He’s famous. He gets his stuff shown in galleries all the time.”

“Why don’t you like him?”

Rick kind of shrugged. “It’s his attitude, he thinks he knows it all. Guys like that just rub me the wrong way. I think no matter where you are in life, you gotta always stay humble. There’s a couple girls he dated. They told me he didn’t treat them well, verbally abusive. But they didn’t care because he was famous. He gets girls lined up all the time man. That could be you, you know.”

I laughed. “Does fame make it okay for you to treat people like crap?”

Rick laughed. “Course not. Then again, I’m not famous,” laughing more. “You want to get going?”

I thought about Jenna. “Yeah, I’m kinda tired.”

When we got back to the tent, Jacob was saying, “—this hardcore porn actor but he’d gotten so sick and tired of it, he gave up sex and became a monk. Said sex wasn’t fun anymore.”

They laughed hard.

“We’re gonna get going,” Rick said.

“What about karaoke?” Jenna asked.

“You still want to go?” I asked.

“Of course! Can we?”

“Yeah. Rick?”

“Naw man, I’m too tired. You go have fun.”

I nodded. “I’ll have to get my car but I can meet you guys there.”

“All right!” Jenna exclaimed. “You’re coming with us, right?” she asked Jacob.

“Uhh, I don’t know if that’s my thing.”

“Oh c’mooooooonnnnnn,” she said.

Jacob laughed. “I am curious to observe you in that setting.”

Desdemona, glum and feeling ignored, muttered, “We gotta wake up early tomorrow.”

“We’ll just be there for one hour.”

It was settled.

IV.

Koreatown has different rules from the rest of Los Angeles. People can smoke indoors and drink alcohol past the 2 a.m. cutoff. The parking lot was filled with ‘rice rockets,’ Hondas and BMWs upgraded to be racing cars. The karaoke station was on the second story in a big plaza. After we entered, we were escorted by a cute young Korean girl to a station in the back. We passed several rooms with tinted glass panels where we could hear accented voices blaring John Lennon and Phil Collins. “Can we get a soju and tambourines?” I asked the girl.

The room comfortably fit ten people. It had a big television with gigantic speakers. A strobe light illuminated the room in iridescence. After a toast, we took shots. The three were too nervous to grab the mike so I started by singing “Hotel California.” Jenna took a shot and sang “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Desdemona had her arms crossed with a stern look. “They don’t even have Justin Timberlake,” she said glumly. Flipped through a few pages, sitting in a foul mood.

“I’ll pick a song for you guys.” I selected a Spice Girls song, another by Cyndi Lauper. Desdemona got into it, suddenly setting up a queue. I was relieved, realized Jenna and Jacob were quiet. I turned and saw the two were making out in the corner. Something stabbed me inside. I tried to ignore it by singing. After three songs, I looked back and noticed she was watching me to make sure I was watching her. In some strange way, I realized she was paying me back for what she’d earlier perceived as a rejection.

“I can’t believe the selection is so small,” Desdemona complained again. “In San Francisco, they had so many more.” As she complained and hogged all the singing time, I saw Jenna and Jacob sneak away.

“We’re gonna use the restroom,” Jenna explained.

They returned thirty minutes later, Jenna’s hair a disheveled mess.

“Will you stop singing so goddamn loud?” I barked at Desdemona.

She glared at me. “Excuse me?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“What went and crawled up your ass?”

Jenna was giggling with Jacob.

I grabbed the side of my chair. I felt dizzy while Desdemona sang a Mandy Moore song about true love. I wished I could turn the camera on myself, take a shot, capture my jealousy and longing. But I knew it wasn’t possible and I felt bitter that my emotions couldn’t be documented, airbrushed, then categorized comfortably away.

It was 4 a.m. when we got out. Jenna left with Jacob. Desdemona drove off on her own. I got home an hour later, couldn’t sleep. Went to my computer, stared at the images of Jane and Lane. I felt pain coursing through my veins, unadulterated pain. It wasn’t Jenna; it wasn’t Jane. It was me. And I cried, I wept: I felt so alone. As the tears poured out, it occurred to me that this sensation of wanting to rip my innards out, this raw feeling of agony I wanted to eradicate, this was what I’d been hiding from. I wept, but I laughed. Without anywhere to hide, I felt like I’d been released from the grip of fabricating lies to make things prettier than they were. I selected all the images of Jane and Lane, dropped them in the trash bin, hit delete. Something shook inside me and it felt good not to have to worry about framing, to relish the moment, to be exposed and nude — to be real.

V.

In the following weeks, I prepared for another shoot. I wanted to cover a gamut of smaller urban legends: a woman bitten by a cobra at a supermarket, a cactus exploding with an army of tarantulas, an AIDS Mary who infected hapless men and sent them letters welcoming them to ‘the world of HIV.’ I hired eleven models, including Rick’s friend Tara. I had the usual crew at hand, took over ten thousand photos, and knew I was going to discard 9900 of them. As I clicked away, I wondered, if a person could discard 99 % of their life and experience only the best 1 %, would they think life a grand and beautiful thing?

On the fourth night of the shoot, I went to grab some Italian food with Tara. Tara was cute, lithe, tanned with a nimble figure. She was nineteen, with the face of a ten-year-old and the body of a blossoming twenty-year-old. She was Greek, though she wielded a British accent, and she’d spent half her life in Japan training as a kendo artist. I was apologizing about turning down her idea of photographing her performing martial arts in the nude.

She laughed it off. “Don’t worry about it.” We chatted about some other topics. “I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“What’s up?”

“Where do you get your ideas for your shoots?”

I thought about it. “I do research online and there’s a bunch of books I go through. I focus a lot on phobias and I pick ones I think work on film.” I thought of something from long ago and laughed to myself.

“What?”

“When I was eight, my piano teacher told me if you leave a chair out while you’re sleeping, a ghost’ll come and sit in it, watching while you sleep. Ever since then, I haven’t been able to sleep with a chair pulled out.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. I still have to put chairs in before I sleep.”

She put her hand on my shoulder and laughed. “You poor thing,” she said.

“You know what’s even weirder?”

“What?”

“A lot of things you’ll swear aren’t urban legends are actually urban legends. And sometimes, you hear about something so ridiculous, you know it can’t be real, it’s gotta be an urban legend — but it isn’t.”

“How do you tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not?”

I was struck by the question, so simple and yet hitting at the core of the issue that had plagued me so long. “Do you know when you’re having a dream, it feels real, like it’s really happening? And you fight and get pissed off and you’re like, why is this happening? Or if you’re having a good dream, you’re like, this is too good to be true.”

“Uh huh.”

“I think the only way for you to tell it was a dream is to wake up,” I said. Before I could explain further, the waiter came by. “We better order before it gets too late,” I suggested.

She nodded. “I’m really hungry.”

“So am I.”

Then thought to myself, I’m awake now. I am awake.

Cold Fusion

Frank Guo, engineer for SolTech Industries, figured out the solution to cold fusion while visiting the aquarium with his wife, Amanda. The grail of endless supplies of energy produced in a tiny box with water electrolyzed on top of palladium had been deemed ‘pseudo-science’ in many corners. He realized the problem hadn’t been with the particles. Not even the math. It was relationships.

It triggered when Amanda told him about an experiment where small sharks and fish were placed in a tank together. A transparent glass partition separated the two. Whenever the sharks instinctively moved to devour the fish, they banged their heads against the wall. A month of this and scientists removed the partition. The sharks had it so ingrained that the fish couldn’t be eaten, they’d leave them alone, even if they were floating right next to them.

Fish became atoms, and Frank realized electrons weren’t all that different from humans. Negative, positive energy, fission, anomalous heat production, mysterious reactions. Quarks were feisty sons of bitches and the Heisenberg uncertainty was just another name for someone who was moody.

Normally, the discovery would have been a moment of joy. But Amanda also had an announcement. “I’m leaving for China next week.”

“For how long?” he asked.

“Permanently.”

“Why?”

She sighed. “Things haven’t been the same since…”

And he knew she meant the moment she’d been diagnosed with diabetes. “I hate that I can’t have sugar whenever I want,” she said. “What’s the point of the American dream if I can’t have sweets?”

Or the freedom to be fat. He barely recognized himself in the mirror anymore because the two gorged on desserts so much. His belly was more like a mountain and hers was no different. Pang fuqi, she joked. The fat couple.

Frank worked in a huge lab with a fusion generator that looked like it was from Star Trek. Unfortunately, his job was clerical. Administrative. Boring. Even if it involved explosions that could rip the planet in two.

How to convince her to stay? he wondered. Tell her he discovered a way to provide interminable supplies of energy to the world? Tell her he’d make the sun obsolete by understanding that electrons were as whimsical as fireflies? Then again, it wasn’t like he would tell anyone his solution. SolTech Industries had the nasty habit of canning people who made important discoveries. Liabilities, the lawyers said. Basically, they didn’t want anyone to receive credit or financial compensation. Better to draw them out, take baby steps so he’d keep his job, mislead them just enough.

Part of his cynicism came from the fact that all his bosses cared about was promoting themselves to more grandiose titles, executive of this and president of that. They lived off the achievements of past years, eliciting grants like vultures, their hypocrisies more manifold than wavelengths of sound. Not that Amanda cared. She just wanted her chocolate tapioca dipped in caramel and red bean.

He remembered that on their eighteenth date together, he explained how superstrings were reverberations in other dimensions that caused the physical manifestations in our universe. Marriage gurus said it was reverberations in our desires that caused attraction. Amanda had a confused look. Why was it so hard for him to simply say I love you?

Maybe because his nerves were fused together, like hydrogen particles that combined until they exploded and caused a catastrophic detonation. He wanted to hold Amanda that much.

“I’ve already bought the ticket,” she said.

“I’ve discovered the solution to cold fusion,” Frank sputtered out.

She looked at him and said, “That’s nice…” She lowered her head. “Maybe next time, you can just find out how to say, Don’t go.”

After Amanda left, Frank watched manta rays chase hammerhead sharks, and tropical fish slither through corals. His fingers were interlaced. He bought a slice of cheesecake and took a bite. It tasted bitter.

Colony

For three minutes, the whole world is green, a throbbing pulse of underwater grass. Then my depth perception dissolves into a flat canvas, and my co-workers look like 2D animation drawn by minimum-wage artists in Korea. I can smell scientific theories the way I smell my memories: relativity is sugar mixed with a dissolving chocolate soufflé, and all the lovers I’ve disappointed remind me of overcooked salmon simmering in burnt coffee and impossible expectations. I experience four cyclical deaths every day: lavatory, office politics, televised Internet, and dreamless sleep. I can’t even drive myself; it’s my wife who has to explain that cars aren’t computerized seeds of death holding together the infrastructure of a faulty CPU. Partitions are real; social divides are inseparable; no one in the world sees what I do. And what do I see? The doctors told me that brain imaging had revealed a colony of tapeworms in my brain. Seventy of them, a whole family, feeding on the folds of tissues that weave the tapestry of my CPU. They must have been starving before they used some unknown enzyme to break through my blood-brain barrier. I’ve been advised to have them killed. There are drugs to decimate them. But I feel guilty. They have a right to live, even if it’s at my expense. My wife insists parasites don’t have souls. But I have to believe they do, because if they didn’t, what would it mean for me? I suck bliss and inject sorrow into the earthy hues of my deaf wife who insists she loves me with her lips. They’re dry with strips of flesh peeling off and she licks them intermittently. I can sometimes hear the worms describe her as a cosmic irregularity that disappears with the swells of gravity. They want to eat my cochlea to re-establish balance. Since their arrival, I’ve experienced emotions as sound: depression is cathartically cacophonous; love is ominously quiescent. Regret drums lightly until the ululations become frustrating and drown everything else out. I sometimes spot old friends who tell me about their unlived lives, and we play chess with our unfulfilled ambitions until my wife asks who I’m talking to. Everyone, I tell her, as though air molecules had ears. I wish I could converse with electrons so they’d act as translators to the tapeworms. I’d experience their fear at the impending apocalypse, Armageddon being my eventual death, a neurological explosion that translates to darkness and inactivity. There’s no way to save them. They have no future hope. Yet they cling. So I cling. And the universe is a flat and green frying pan where I cook the omelet of my life at an old café that serves brunch sunny side up.

Unreflected

An autopsy of time would expose midnight at this LA rave as a buildup of greedy seconds poisoned by impatience. I’ve often wondered what it’d be like to split my brain open, unraveling my memories like noodles that’d squirm because I’d boiled them too long. Melancholy weaves her way around my noodle and I split into a million different versions of myself.

I’m attending the event because an old colleague is catering and I’m assisting. The theme is Locust, or hunger, a charitable masquerade pretending to empathize with the impoverished and destitute. There’s thousands who’ve starved the whole week to gather at this factory on the outskirts of town and smoke exotic herbs to alter their perceptions. Many of the women resemble spirits with all the smoke around us, rippling into thin, meandering mirages. What would a lifetime with any of them be like? I spot a Chinese girl who’s statuesque enough to fit into Roman porn if she had chipped breasts and an ivory ass. She notices my glance, approaches and introduces herself as, “Ella. I combined the Spanish words for the feminine and masculine the.”

“I’m Will,” I reply.

She shakes my hand. “Tell me a secret.”

“Why don’t you go first?” I suggest.

She simpers. “I’ve lost my reflection.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me show you.”

She pulls me into the girls’ bathroom and points at the mirror. I see my ugly self and twenty girls behind, but no Ella.

“I thought I was dead at first,” she says. “But I still had to eat and shit, so I figured I was alive.” I stare to make sure she’s real. She is, and I’m hypnotized by her skimpy dress and lean legs. For a second, I wonder what it’d be like to bite them — frail, fragile, like a gaunt strip of quail. She asks me, “Do you think I’m beautiful?”

“How long’s it been since you’ve seen yourself?”

“A year?” she shrugs. “I don’t remember how I look anymore.” Her skin is pale and the veins in her neck are vulnerably bulbous, throbbing with platelets and plasma. The excess plasma makes her ponder, “Do you have parts of yourself you hate seeing? I remember when I was a kid, a swarm of bees stung my arm till it was a bloody strip of bumps.”

“I kill bees whenever I can,” I reply.

“Why?”

“Because the taste of honey makes me sick.”

She asks me eight more questions, but she doesn’t really care for answers, more in love with the questions themselves than her token boy of the moment. We spit through vodka shots; she wants to dance, tells me she picked me as her date for the night. “Impress me,” she says. “Or make me weep.”

The confused expression on my face makes her laugh and she confesses she used to be a runway model traveling the globe, shuffling through French, Turkish, and Japanese lovers. “I dated a guy with the biggest knife collection in the world.” She twirls her wrist in a slashing motion. “I made sure he was miserable while I was with him.”

“Why?”

“I do it to every guy I love. It’s their punishment since I know it can’t last. What’s your passion?”

“I used to be a chef,” I answer.

“But?”

“But I quit after I lost my sense of taste and smell.”

“You don’t smell anything?”

I shake my head. “It was the dumbest mistake of my life. I had to try every exotic food, ate something in India that nearly killed me.”

“There’s no such thing as a mistake. Only discontent after the fact,” she says.

“I was too greedy,” I reply, feeling dizzy.

She slaps me in the face, takes me to the bathroom. The mirror rises up like a barricade. Neither of us is reflected. I turn to her, shocked. She laughs and says, “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done if you can’t see your reflection.”

“But I want to see.”

“Then shatter the glass with your fist.”

When I hesitate, she smiles. “You never told me a secret.”

Before I can answer, she turns around. A second later, she’s vanished. I can’t see her anywhere.

The Death Artist

I’d come across the troupe after I lost all my money investing in a Beijing-based company that sold weather. They promised thunderstorms and sunshine. Climatology, they were called, like some rock-star inspired cult with pagan deities. People were queuing to be proselytized, and I was one of the first to be chosen, then sacrificed — my hundred thousand dollars became a granule inside a frigate of waste and, after they went bankrupt, I wandered China in a daze. I met a circus act of expats who’d also lost their way. They were performing in a pedestrian underpass. It was Iris with her self-immolation, her ‘Christmas tree of conflagration’ stunt, that made me beg them to recruit me. “Barry here can freeze his whole body. Tammy has pubic hair longer than her legs. What the fuck can you do?”

“I can die,” I replied.

They laughed and were about to dismiss me. But Iris stared and asked, “How long?”

Long enough to live. I wondered those seconds before death — does she feel my desire? Does she know I stare at the way fire meanders across her wrist, the way the oily crevasses reflect in her mastoids and the sharp accents of her clavicles? She reminds me of a charcoal painting with her chaff knuckles and her veins resembling broken pipeworks mired in corpuscles — a symbiotic car crash of mitochondria and guts.

She talks like an airport intercom messenger. “Paging Milton. Go drown yourself.”

Iris locks the glass cage. A makeshift audience has gathered. I’m vying for their attention, competing against their cell phones. Water mixed with green tea leaves explodes out like a fusillade. I drown and die; the cage releases the water.

Resurrected by CPR, I drink 60 % proof er gou tou and stumble around camp. I enter Iris’s tent and ask, “When was the last time you made love?”

She replies, “I need fire to get aroused.”

“Burn us,” I tell her.

Her eyes gleam. “A lot of people think they can handle the heat.”

“Burn us,” I say.

She sets her arms on fire, her lips curling. Sweat beads on her forehead and it crinkles in delight. She puts a match to my pants. I smell embers like they’re dead hope and I can see the blurry mistakes of my past.

“You want me to stop?” she asks.

I shake my head and the fire consumes us, greedy rivets stumbling over one another to get higher. I press my fingers against her bony back, her spine feels like bolts. She shivers and she’s crying from pain. Her tears whet the fire. “You’re insane,” she says.

The pain is becoming unbearable, the heat a scorching machete ripping my calves open. “Best way to quench passion is to kill it.”

“Who killed yours?” she asks.

“My bosses, friends, my ex… you?”

She sucks in the smoke. “Me.”

“Let’s kill you then.”

“How?”

I grab her hand and run towards the water tank.

“I’m not like you, I might not come back,” she says.

“It’s easy. Just swim towards the light.”

“What light?”

“The one you see when you blink and your breath stops. Ignore all the voices calling out to you pretending they’re the people you loved.”

“Who are they?”

“Death herself,” I answer. We jump in and lock the cage. Water bursts out, quelling the fire. I kiss her and swallow her burnt breast. There’s desperation in our fingers; every sense is acute in our race against the end. She closes her eyes, exhales, bubbles run up her face; I draw the last air from deep in my stomach. The water is cold, but it’s a fiery death.

58 Random Deaths and Unrequited Love

I.

Larry Chao was a failure. He’d made fifty-four films and not a single one had been distributed or accepted at the various film festivals. He’d had famous actors star in his movies; his stories were compelling and dramatic. The lighting was impeccable; the sound, epic. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his films except that none of them had been displayed in a public venue. There were a multitude of reasons, all ill fortune rather than any lack of talent on his part. In the two decades that he’d been making films, he’d collected over ten thousand rejections. Which wasn’t too surprising considering that his films tended to alienate rather than invite the audiences, the subjects varying across the board, including but not limited to: the epileptic janitor who fell in love with the spurned lover whose head was shot off by her ex-boyfriend; the dormitory of men that woke up one day and discovered they’d all become women; the millionaire who thought he was going to die and spent all his wealth in a day only to find that he’d been misdiagnosed.

His last film was about a failed suicide artist who fell in love with a failed food artist. Their disappointment connected them together, binding them in a crucifix of contempt and contemplation. His friends had assured him that this was the film that would gain him recognition. Surely the judges couldn’t ignore the brilliance of the piece. But eight months later, the rejections pouring in, he lost hope and instead sang the paean of the middle-aged depression artist who had never savored the dulcet nausea of adulation and acceptance. This time around, his cinematographer refused to return his calls. His actress slapped him in public after he complimented her on her dress. The girl he was dating told him, “I need to date someone with a real job.”

By some quaint disposition formulated through the combination of erratic genes and environmental anomalies inexplicable in any other setting, it never occurred to him that he might not be that great of a filmmaker. Instead, he felt convinced that his next film would be his magnum opus. His subjects would be 1) 58 random deaths that had no meaning, and 2) unrequited love. The film would be vehement, cruel, and horrifying, while blending in elements of comedy and vaudeville.

His executive producer asked, “Can’t we just make a normal film for once?”

“Like what?”

“Like someone cheating on their husband or someone addicted to drugs or a superhero-type figure who kills thousands of bad guys… or even better yet, a mid-life crisis kind of story where a guy goes on a road trip and finds happiness in banging some younger girl. People are tired of watching movies about losers. They want to see winners, not people like themselves. If you’ll recall, that’s why they go to the movies. To escape.”

“My movies are about real people. They don’t get the happy ending because I’ve never gotten a happy ending.”

“But even your romances end in disaster.”

“In real life, the guy doesn’t get the girl.”

“You mean in your life,” he corrected Larry. And it was a fact of some irritation to the producer because Larry wasn’t a very attractive man — short, balding, and chubby. As a result, he hired similarly proportioned actors for his protagonists: never compelling, never dynamic; instead, plain, dull, and normal, making his movies even harder to sell.

Still, production commenced. There were questions like what type of camera to use, which locations to secure permits and which locations to guerilla-style it. These were the unique travails of indie film productions rife with the exhilaration of dealing with unpredictable caprice that tore apart even the best of planning. It was a twenty-day shoot through rain and sunshine and early mornings and sleepless nights and groggy food marches. The range of deaths was diverse: severed heads, sundered intestines, rent rectums, and spliced spinal cords, the corsage of a conundrum with the punch line of emptiness. It was the dismal conviction of a life that had been unkind to a dreamer.

On the day of the wrap party, Larry got stuck in traffic. At the exact same time, a fourteen-year-old teenager was assigned the task of shooting a random person as initiation for the gang he wanted to join. He shot Larry five times in the head while humming a catchy pop song. Larry, who’d been humming Billy Joel, didn’t see what was coming and died on the spot.

The news spread like a wildfire, the conflagration of curiosity razing the public. Larry Chao had shown in his own film the method by which he would die days before he actually did, a ghastly prognostication on the stem of his being. Many viewed it as a condemnation of a society that beautified whimsical violence and sought purpose in perdition. All of a sudden, everyone wanted to see his movie. Motivated by the ardorous obsession of the zealot and the grisly curiosity of the scientist dissecting a live human and noting his death throes as observational bullet points, they waited in interminable lines and slept in front of theaters overnight to catch the matinee. The notoriety of a dog death had garnered him something that had eluded him throughout his breathing life. Interest. 58 Random Deaths and Unrequited Love was deemed a masterpiece by the critics. It won most of the major awards at the important film festivals and he was heralded as an auteur unparalleled in scope and vision. When it was revealed that he had archives of unseen films, they were immediately sought out and distributed. All of a sudden, the only name that seemed relevant in film was Larry Chao. Which seemed especially poignant when one considered that the title of the movie that seemed to connote every emotion Chao must have felt being six feet underground as a rotting corpse was his first: Posthumous Fame: What’s the Point of Being Recognized after Death?

Resistance

I’m inside an abandoned shopping mall and a hooker’s chasing me with a kitchen knife. It’s 6 a.m. Goddamn Martin for getting me into this shit.

Would you believe me if I told you he was a nervous wreck around girls? Perpetual stutter, tics skirting across his face, legs shaking like rattles on a rattlesnake. He was the really nice, quiet guy at work, not the guy who was going to start a sex cult and get me killed.

There was that one late night when he said, “Is any of this shit worth a damn?”

“Course it is.”

“We’re testing computerized Playmates so they can lay off card dealers in Vegas,” he said.

“I don’t mind staring at Playmates all day.”

He sighed. “We’ve made it too easy to ignore our conscience.”

Martin’s parents were poor farmers in rural China. They passed away when he was young, so an uncle heading to America agreed to raise him. I met him twenty-three years later at the LA branch of SolTech Industries where we both did quality assurance for whatever new machines they were developing to replace jobs in America.

He had brown eyes, a pale face, a fastidious bowl cut. We were buddies five years and must have had eighteen different bosses during that time. Every one of them was a schmuck. Some were nicer than others, with nicer meaning better bullshitter.

Martin and I bitched about girls who rejected us and the cheap pizzas they brought in at work to excuse making us work free overtime. I felt guilty about testing software meant to replace school teachers, and Martin hated the whole ‘digitized friend’ trend that had gripped the States. The concept was simple. Most of our friendships are already digitized: digital calls, emails, links. Just take that to the next level and actualize the digitalization so that lonely manic depressives can pay money for pseudo-friendships.

It bothered Martin that this corporation preyed on the mentally ill, forming alliances and sponsorships with various psychological associations. “No one gives a shit,” he said, then quit. Though they found his replacement literally five minutes later, everyone at work was stunned. My supervisor summed it up best: “Who quits a job over moral compunctions?”

I took him out for drinks. As usual, rejections were manifold. Most of these tall, lithe women with short skirts and gazelle legs wouldn’t even look my way. Martin laughed at my ass. “You need to work on your pick up lines.”

“I think it has more to do with my looks than my delivery… your turn. Go talk to that Chinese girl over there.”

“Right now?”

“Dude!”

Martin approached her, orbiting, hovering. I saw him make a few attempts at conversation but she didn’t hear him over the loud music. Eventually when she did notice, she gave an indifferent glance and walked away with her friends.

I laughed.

“Thanks,” he muttered dryly.

I put my arm around his shoulder and toasted him. “To losers.”

“Losers.”

“Where you going to find work?” I asked. “It’s hard as hell to get QA jobs right now.”

He shrugged. “I don’t have to work. I never told you I got a quarterly stipend?”

“For what?”

“Donating my blood.”

“You need more than twenty bucks a month to survive.”

“What about fifteen thousand every four months?”

I nearly spat out my beer. “Fifteen thousand bucks to donate your blood?”

He grinned. “I have a special type.”

“What kind?”

“It’s HIV-resistant.”

If I hadn’t been so drunk, I’d probably remember his explanation better. Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV for short, could destroy your immune system, breaking down all the barriers that kept you safe, increasing apoptosis rates or executing the cells outright. Call it the Genghis Khan of cellular biology: it was fucking ruthless. Martin’s resistance had something to do with cytotoxic T-lymphocytes and immunoglobulin A, a rarity that made him a valuable specimen for biotech companies trying to discover the vaccine for HIV.

Next morning, I didn’t hear from him. A week passed, a month. He’d vanished. Cell phone disconnected. Apartment abandoned. Email box overloaded.

The next six months were brutal at work: two rounds of layoffs, me acting like a fucking mendicant, lucky to keep my job, my boss lording it over us like he was a duke. My life was a penitentiary, a prison cell of wanting useless shit and having to please my unpleasable supervisors, who smugly pretended they were on our side. ‘How do you think these layoffs make me feel?’ they loved to ask.

One night, I got a late phone call. “You been trying to reach me, Walt?”

“Martin?”

“Come and visit me.”

“Where are you?”

I’d heard about the shanty towns forming outside of major cities throughout America. I headed towards one about two hours east of Los Angeles. The building I was supposed to go to had been a shopping mall until the housing crisis hit and the real estate in the area plummeted 1700 %. A booming slice of suburbia became a derelict ghost town, complete with tumbleweed and dusty roads. A musty, putrid smell oozed out of melted concrete and dank wool that had dried. The mall was enormous, faded logos and outlet signs that were falling apart. The parking lot resembled a landfill and my car, being the jalopy it was, blended right in.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Martin who greeted me, but a young Chinese woman who was a couple of months pregnant. She appeared as though she’d once been beautiful under her layers of withered mascara and cheap rouge. Hard to say though, especially with the gaudy leather boots and skimpy crimson skirt.

“He’s waiting for you,” she said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Amber,“ she replied. “A friend.”

She led me into the mall, which was filled with people who looked like they’d belong in a Starbucks, lined up for cappuccinos and non-fat blueberry muffins. They had their belongings in anthills next to them, families carting behind.

“Are these people homeless?” I asked Amber.

“This is their home,” she replied.

Martin was lounging in a furniture store full of discarded goods. His skin was tan, and there were bruises along his face and a scar on his cheek. He looked gnarled, like he’d been inside a microwave too long. His hair was a disheveled mess. Surrounding him on velvet couches and broken mattresses were about twenty girls — twenty pregnant girls — of varying ethnicities, all generally attractive.

Martin embraced me. “Thanks for coming.”

“What’s going on?”

“A lot.”

“Who are the girls?”

“I…”

There was a scream, a blonde with a big belly sprinting our way. “Martin! He’s here.”

Martin sighed. “Amber, can you take Walt for a walk? I’ll explain everything later.”

The mall was a catacomb for ambition: empty stores occupied by hordes of tenants; a dead roller coaster; different regional zones marked by shattered signs that read Venice, Thailand, and Zimbabwe like gravestones. Old ladies dried their clothes on defunct escalators and the floors were littered with trash, resembling a multi-fabric rug. The fountains I saw were reeking silos of shit. Though the sun provided light, there were bonfires and candles in darker corners. “I wanna show you my favorite artist,” Amber said.

A swarthy, emaciated male with a beret had a glass display case with what appeared to be a few dozen swirling colors in constant flux. The motion was nauseating and hypnotic at the same time. It took me a second to realize they were a swarm of roaches painted in a schizophrenia of color.

“I hate roaches,” Amber started. “But that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

The artist tipped his beret at us.

“I went to art school a long time ago,” she said. “But I don’t think I ever really understood art until I lost everything.”

“What’s there to understand?”

“It gives color to our monochrome world.”

Only a few places could afford generators. One was the mini-market. Eight security guards with machine guns and bulletproof vests patrolled the entrance. They looked ominous enough, but under their black vests, they wore pink t-shirts with smiley faces. I tried to peek inside. Amber stopped me. “Mr. Lee is a big shot around here. He has the only working phone and doesn’t appreciate people who look without buying.”

“I’ll buy something, then,” I said, grabbing for my wallet.

Her eyes tensed and she grabbed my wrist. “You brought cash here?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You can’t let anyone know. I mean it,” she emphasized. “People’d slash your throat for a quarter.”

“You serious?”

“We should start heading back.”

We crossed an old bowling alley.

“How’d you meet Martin?” I asked.

“Through Celeste.”

“Who’s Celeste?”

“A co-worker.”

“You worked with Martin?”

“I worked with Celeste,” she answered.

“Which company?”

She stopped, looked at me. “We all worked for an escort company.”

“You mean…”

She nodded. “You didn’t know?”

I glanced down at her womb. “Is Martin…”

“Why do you look so shocked?”

“I… I don’t know. He’s — well, he’s so shy.”

She laughed. “Maybe that’s why we trusted him with our future.”

Martin was talking with three of the women when I saw him again. He got up, greeted me. “You wanna talk?”

He led me to the back of the store, up a ladder. We climbed several floors to the roof. It was night.

“Interesting situation, no?” he said.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m having a lot of kids,” he replied with a snicker.

“Amber told me all the girls are hookers.”

“Yeah…”

“Look, it’s not my place to question…”

“Then don’t,” he cut me off. “Did she also tell you they have HIV?”

“No,” I said, surprised.

He walked along the roof.

“Why?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Why not?” he asked. “It was their only chance at something.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hookers with HIV? Life expectancy is almost nothing, and there’s no way they can get a job. Soon as anyone sees the check on the application…”

“It’s like a scarlet letter.”

Martin shook his head. “You can take off a letter.”

“My mom was a prostitute in Hong Kong,” he said.

“What?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know, and then one day, my sister got mad and told me everything. Told me I was the bastard son of a whore, and I was lucky her dad saved me.”

“Shit, man,” I said.

“I don’t define myself by the past so it doesn’t matter.”

“But your sister…”

“She’s not my sister. You should have seen her eyes. She wasn’t human. I hate people who are cruel to the weak.”

“American dream,” he said.

“What about it?”

“It’s a question.”

“What question?” I asked.

“Why do we work? Why do we wake up every morning? Everyone has the right to answer it the way they want.”

“How’s that the American dream?”

“You have your aspirations: you want your promotion; you want that fancy car. But what about hookers? Guys working shit jobs as dishwashers and janitors? Why are they living?”

I lowered my head.

“They don’t get to ask why,” he said.

I started seeing what he had in mind. “Your resistance to HIV — you think the babies will inherit it?” I asked.

He looked up at the stars. “That’s the hope.”

Despite the undercurrent of bitterness, there was a serenity in his gaze. “I’ve accepted my fate. I get the whole sacrifice thing now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everyone criticized me, turned against me. Asked how could I do this immoral thing… Caterpillars shed their skin when it’s time for a metamorphosis,” he said.

“So do snakes,” I replied.

He laughed. “I’m surrounded by snakes.”

“What do you mean?”

“These pimps weren’t happy when they found out their girls were pregnant.”

“The pimps know they have HIV?”

He shrugged. “I need your help.”

“With what?”

“I have a lot of money saved away, but I can’t leave without someone tracking me. If you can take my ATM card and grab the money, I can pay off the…”

“Martin!” someone screamed.

It was the blonde I saw earlier.

“Garnaut is back,” she said, eyes round and taut, a shiver in her voice.

He followed her.

“Martin!” I called.

“Don’t let him see you!” he barked.

I lingered for a few minutes before Amber popped her head up. “Come with me,” she said.

I followed her into some vents, crawled behind her. She looked like a bobbing apple. Spider webs and clumps of dust covered the corners. We heard voices, peeked down through some grates. Martin was surrounded by guys in suits.

“…think this is funny?” an obese guy was asking.

“Not at all.”

“I don’t think you appreciate the situation. Each of these girls was an investment and you’ve cost me a shitload of money.”

Martin looked down, moved his feet back and forth.

“This motherfucker just doesn’t get it.”

The fat guy lifted a gun and pulled the trigger. The gunshot boomed louder than a firecracker and the blast was a hydraulic piston hammering Martin in the belly. It was both abrupt and drawn out, raucous and barely audible.

I gasped. Amber stiffened. Sweat froze along my chest. I thought of swapping stupid jokes with Martin, the time we nearly convinced two girls to sleep with us because we lied and said we were porn producers. I remembered him throwing up on strangers after getting wasted, the time I crashed his car on a snowy mountain and the way he laughed it off.

Amber shook me. I stared at her, helpless. She gestured for me to follow.

On the roof again, I took out my cell to try to dial 911. No reception.

Amber bit her lips. “Can you ever leave the past behind? Pimps, family — they think they own you. My mom and her boyfriend used to abuse me — they’d beat me till I was a bloody mess. I ran away when I turned 17. I didn’t hate her. I just wanted to forget her. But she kept on trying to find me. Have you ever been so disgusted by a memory, you just wanted it to disappear?”

I saw small fires across the city, dim lights blazing like pine cones.

“I changed my name, my job, my whole life so I could forget,” she said.

“It didn’t work?”

“No ones gives a shit about anyone but themselves.”

“My baby, he’ll have a different life from me,” she said. “And since he won’t have my sickness, I won’t let any harm come to him…”

But her resolve weakened. Her eyes were trembling. “If something did happen to me…” She hesitated. “Martin said I could trust you.”

I grimaced, nodding. “You can count on me.”

I felt a pang, shook my head, saw a flash of Martin’s body flailing backwards like a rubber doll. The ringing in my ears amplified like an avalanche.

“We have to get out of here and call the cops,” I said.

“Police never come out here,” she replied. “It’d take them days just to respond and Garnaut’ll bury his body by then.”

“I can’t just leave like this.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“I have to try.”

When we went back down, Martin was a lone archipelago mired in a pool of blood. His face was wan and there were bluish-green patches along his neck.

“I gotta get him out of here,” I said to Amber. “Can you help?”

She lifted his other shoulder and we stumbled towards the parking lot, Martin dripping blood. People watched confusedly, trying to figure out what had happened, not sure if they should get involved. No one did. Families went back to their scraps; kids made toy wars out of garbage; some of the elderly made condemnatory remarks along the lines of, “That’s what you get for living an immoral lifestyle.”

By the time we put Martin in the backseat, he was nearly colorless. He rambled unconsciously and we did our best to calm him. He jumped up, eyes beady.

“We’re gonna get you to a hospital soon,” I said.

“My wallet, did you bring my wallet?” he demanded.

“Where’s your wallet?”

“With my stuff. I need my wallet.”

“I’ll get it later,” I told him.

“I need it now. I have to buy their freedom! Where are the girls?”

“They weren’t there when…”

“No! Shit no! I have to get them! I have to!”

“Where’s your wallet?” I asked.

“It’s under the counter, there’s a lock.” He told me the code.

“I’ll get it.”

I was about to sprint away when Amber stopped me.

“What?” I asked.

“There’s nothing in the wallet,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“Someone stole his cards when he got here.”

“Does he know?”

“I don’t know… Just don’t go back in there.”

“I can help. I have savings. I…”

But she put her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t get more involved than you are. There’s no way out after you step in.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said, turned away and ran back in.

All families had their bizarre manifestations. I was no different and my principal hope was for the panacea of amnesia: never recollecting, never remembering. There was that fox in Chinese lore who spent his entire life committing acts of kindness. When he reached heaven, he was granted any wish he wanted. He asked to become rain, existing in a million drops before splattering away into oblivion.

When I got to the locker, it was just as Amber said: an empty, tattered wallet. I picked it up, laughed at the stupid irony of it. Which was when one of the hookers saw me and yelled, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Martin asked me to…”

But she had a knife in her hand…

Which brings us to the present: it’s 6 a.m., I’m inside an abandoned shopping mall, and a hooker’s chasing me with a kitchen knife.

I would love to tell you how I outran her or pulled some slick maneuver to ditch her in one of the stores. I would love to tell you my happy resolution, my reunion with Martin and how we rescued all the girls. Unfortunately, the hooker had some friends who tripped me up. I stumbled on the ground, scraped my elbows and knees. She grabbed Martin’s wallet, saw my own, tried to snatch it. There was a screaming sound, I turned and saw a knife coming towards me. I lifted my arms, wondering Is this the end? The blade plunged into my forearm and jammed on the bone. I cried out in pain, blood draining out. My first instinct was to close my eyes and curl up, but then Martin and his hookers flashed across my mind. I had to resist the pain, had to survive.

I forced myself to my feet, remembering something Amber said. My only hope was to sprint towards the mini-market. I ignored the knife in my arm, ignored the globules of blood spilling out. The meters seemed like miles and I suppressed wanting to know where the thieves were. Instead, I begged my ankles for egress, forced every muscle to contract until the soles of my feet felt like deadweights. I finally spotted bodyguards and raced straight for the market door, crashing through.

An old Asian man I took to be Mr. Lee demanded, “What do you think you’re doing?”

I collapsed to the floor. “Can I make a phone call?”

“Do you have money?”

I lifted up my wallet and waved some cash. Mr. Lee gestured affirmation towards the guards who pointed their guns outwards.

I was safe.

I bartered away everything I had for that phone call. It took the authorities two hours, but after imploring the operator, the medics arrived. They couldn’t save Martin. But they patched up my arm. “You’re lucky,” an EMT said. “Any longer, and we’d have had to amputate your arm.”

I looked at Martin’s corpse. I didn’t feel that lucky. But then I saw Amber and her womb.

“I’m going to name him Martin,” she said.

“What if it’s a girl?”

She seemed surprised, as though she hadn’t considered it. “Any suggestions?”

I shook my head, comforted by the thought that she had a choice. Then gave into my fatigue and watched the world fade to black.

An Empty Page

BANGKOK, THAILAND — I was a bacterium spliced into a billion-celled organism called Habit. Habit died and reincarnated as Huo Yu. Huo Yu — A.K.A., me — was taking a vacation from Beijing in Thailand for the Chinese National Holiday. I’d just visited some ancient Thai temples built in traditional architecture filled from one end to the other with Buddhist sculptures. All the doorways had blocks at the base, designed so they’d trip up evil spirits who could only slide straight without being able to step over impediments. With every step I took, taxi drivers were trying to lure me in, promising ‘lifetime opportunities to cash in on precious gems,’ and amazing tourist packages to watch sex shows that would ‘revolutionize’ my life. I ignored them, wishing for blocks of my own to ward off all the distractions.

The streets were lined with vendors, a variety of fruits on exhibit like the biggest watermelon in the world, squash and basil that granted virility, chilis that made your tongue burst — the smaller, the spicier. Lemon grass and kaffir limes contributed to the international canal of curry flowing through the intestines of everyone passing through the city. Hidden in the nooks of the thanons were the fraternity of merchants who sold rambutans that could make you look a decade younger and boiled durian that made your hair grow back. H1N1, hepatitis, and pneumonia fought a perpetual war for dominance of my life while tuk tuks got into racing matches with their noisy engines. I took the Skytrain to get back to my hotel because it was the quietest way to go — relatively speaking, that is.

I hopped aboard, sat down on one of the seats. Rush hour had passed and it was almost empty. I watched the trains, each one a moving billboard selling commercialized happiness. On the seat next to mine, there was a worn-down book with a cheap ebony cover, blisters over the corners, withered edges yellowed by soda and time. The train came to a stop, several students in dark blue and white uniforms sauntering in. I picked the book up, curious about its contents, and flipped through the first few pages.

There were random writings from random people, every page different. One was a love letter to a butterfly. Another had instructions on how to cut up a chicken using sugar crystals to make chicken wings sweet. There was a disturbing page with only one sentence: I caught HIV from a hooker. Another had a ripped image of a male covered in pink lipstick. There were advertisements for porn, night clubs, restaurants, and Internet services. Religious creeds and declarations from different sects were interspersed throughout, written in a variety of different languages. I flipped through a hundred pages, read directions to treasures of the senses and secret confessions from tortured expatriates who felt there was no such thing as home. Lovers wondered about the horoscopes of their companions; the blind complained about songs that described color; a woman wondered if dreams could be exploited to make money.

At the end, I came across this on a small slip of paper:

BANGKOK, THAILAND — I was going to kill myself when I realized I hadn’t figured out the meaning of life. I thought I might as well give it a go, see if I could find something to keep me going. So here’s me asking you, what’s the meaning of life? One page to share whatever you want. Fill it out, pass it on to someone else, or leave it behind. I’ll find it when it’s all done.

An empty page lay beneath it.

I stared, wondering, is this for real? And if so, what to write? I thought of my life back in the States, a march to the invisible wavelengths of ritual. I’d escaped to China because I couldn’t stand the ineptitude of my passions. I lived for the boss who had a boss who had another boss who had yet another boss no one knew, and who was really just a metaphor for power, or money, whichever was the ultimate goal.

It was like the allegory of the fly that jumped off a skyscraper and only used his wings at the last second, every shard reflected in a billion reckless lenses. I wanted to die so I could live and live so I could die. I drifted on a soulless pilgrimage through the countries of Asia, exchanging new beliefs for my armory of old ones. I remembered hearing an old uncle describe how he lost everything during the Cultural Revolution and another distant relative bless it as the time he became affluent, bowing to the harlot of circumstance.

I thought about the depressing emptiness of stale success and the meanderings of fulfilled longing that had no real pattern and left me wondering, What next? Do I just continue on the same road, repeating again x 1,000? I hated that prospect. Buddha was 29, the same age as me, when he gave up everything to meditate under a tree. If I tried to meditate under a tree, I’d be arrested for loitering (or trespassing) and locked up in a prison with murderers and rapists. Bangkok was so confusing to me. A poor city with so many religious citizens who tried to constantly cheat you to chase after illusions; the taxi drivers with their dark tans and shifty eyes. I thought of the emaciated child who shared his coconut with a dog, the young woman holding a baby while carrying the groceries for an old woman. I thought about the twenty workers I saw squeezing into a pickup to try to feed their family on pennies. I wanted to reorganize my mitochondria and dendrite connections in a viral community that wanted to ravage it, everyone around me coughing mucus and spitting skewers from the charred grills on the street. Nothing made sense. Not the city, not its people, not even myself.

I took out a pen, started scrawling my thoughts down: BANGKOK, THAILAND — I was a bacterium spliced into a…