Cinco sueños

Tomado de Doblepensar.

1.
En bus en San Francisco. Desde la ventana observo lujosos edificios de apartamentos. Se alcanza a ver que tienen lámparas de araña, cortinas blancas y cielorrasos altos. Pienso que jamás podré tener un apartamento grande en una ciudad hermosa.

2.
Paseo a San Francisco. Trato de ir a los mismos lugares que visitara con Minori en 2003, pero resulto en un hospital gigantesco donde los pacientes, ancianos en su mayoría, rezan sin parar, como resignados a esperar su muerte. Incendio en el hospital. Los pacientes calcinados parecen momias y aparecen por doquier. Abro una puerta, me abro paso por entre dos momias y de repente soy un niño de diez años jugando a la vera de un río.

3.
Vivo en un lugar laberíntico, en un barrio lleno de papelerías. Al parecer el sitio donde vivo queda en un piso alto de uno de muchos edificios cuyos primeros niveles están dedicados a estos negocios; los callejones se parecen a los que viera en Shinjuku en 2006. Inclusive los dependientes son japoneses. Sé que pronto tendré que mudarme, lo cual me aflige ya que adoro las papelerías y los intrincados corredores de este lugar están cubiertos de estanterías repletas de libros. Recorro el lugar sin rumbo fijo. Me encuentro con Gianrico en un espacio amplio, entapetado, y sostenemos una conversación. Noto que usa botas vaqueras color fucsia.

4.
He sido forzada a trabajar de hostess para un señor igualito al viejo sádico de L'Histoire d'O, quien a su vez se parece a Julio Del Mar. Mis amigas del colegio están ahí también y comentan que ninguno de los bikinis disponibles para que nos pongamos me quedan. "Necesitas un bikini muuuuy grande", me dicen. No estoy dispuesta a venderme y estoy angustiada. El viejo sádico me regaña por quejarme, y yo le digo que cuando me examinaron "me tocaron como a una mesa". Pido permiso para ir a una droguería y conseguir Veet para depilarme las piernas. Mi cliente, estudiante setentero de Yale, canta "Hablemos del amor" de Raphael y pregunta por mi veredicto. Le digo que Raphael canta mejor. Me alivia enterarme de que mi cliente sólo quiere que cante bolero para él y sus amigos. Aún así, estoy obligada a ponerme el dichoso bikini, pero el viejo sádico y el cliente setentero me interrumpen repetidas veces, ya sea para regañarme o para contarme anécdotas.

5.
Nado en una piscina natural dentro de una gruta a la que le llega la luz del sol desde arriba. Me sorprendo de mi propia habilidad en el agua. De pronto alguien me hace notar que la piscina está llena de ratas muertas. Con más asco que terror procuro evadir sus peludos y grises cadáveres mientras salgo de ahí.

Anoche soñé que me encontraba a la espera de ser ejecutada. La próxima semana moriría a manos de la justicia por causas desconocidas. Aparentando calma jugueteaba en mi mente con la posibilidad del suicidio para evadir el pelotón, o lo que fuera que acabaría con mi vida. Para Himura el asunto no representaba mayores angustias: la condena estaba ahí y había que enfrentarla. Me encontraba con una niña del curso (de todas las niñas del curso, justo una con quien no hablé mucho: la que se casó y se fue a Suiza) y le escribía un mensaje sobre un objeto de madera mientras le hablaba de lo afortunada que era al contar con el lujo de poder hacer planes a largo plazo. La idea del dolor y de la nada que le sucedería me aterrorizaba, pero yo aún sonreía. El dolor, ¡el dolor! Un dolor por encima de todo dolor jamás experimentado, y luego... ¿y luego qué?

Entonces tuve otro sueño. Entraba en un baño público de piso de piedra arenosa, pero la cabina que tomaba tenía un defecto: aunque cerrara la puerta, cualquiera podría verme de todos modos, pues el sanitario estaba localizado frente a una pared faltante al lado de la puerta inútil. De repente me encontraba con el hermano de Himura y le decía que estaba encantada de verlo pero que por favor me esperara un momento puesto que estaba recién bañada y envuelta en una toalla y debía vestirme. Lo extraño es que en ambas situaciones yo no experimentaba vergüenza.

Alchera #40: Electric Reindeer

Write a nonfiction story of a Christmas when things weren’t as they always had been. Perhaps it was the first Christmas since a loved one passed, the first Christmas since the divorce of your parents, or maybe it was the first time you celebrated Christmas. Take the above option, and apply it to your real life.

Stupid reindeer. They're all over the place, breeding on the yards like glowing hamsters, gazing at us with the faces they lack. We're driving around Dubuque with a bag of grapes in our frozen hands, looking for something to do tonight, December 24th. I remember sunny afternoons back in Colombia in my paternal grandparents' house, cold nights at my maternal grandparents'. Relatives all around, playing the guitar, eating buñuelos and natilla. Christmas is the paradigm of family reunion. But this year that's happening somewhere else on the surface of the planet, and now it's just us, the car, the grapes, Dubuque.

Minori drives around the streets while I gaze through the window. Beyond the reindeer, inside the houses, hundreds of families have gathered to enjoy their feast.

I've never fully adapted to this place. I came here feeling a total stranger, and I'm sure I will leave as such. The frozen river seems like a lulling comfort for a stranded heart, even though the sad gray it's washed in is the same gray in the sky, on the street, under the trees. Everyone must be aware that the world has withered, for a new species has emerged to make up for the lost life. Red, yellow, green lights take the shape of slender furry animals and dominate the hills like ridiculously fierce captains. The car keeps going, we're tourists in a silent safari, and the excitement of danger has become a silly idea in a land where movement has been relegated to a lonely vehicle.

Our fingers are numb, and the grapes we're holding don't resemble Christmas dinner, not even remotely. It's difficult for Minori to understand why tears stream down my face: he comes from a country where December 24th is little more than a night to eat cake and fried chicken. Nobody is going to rescue me from solitude. But sinking inside it, wrapped in layers of silence, won't help either.

"They're all together, and I'm stuck here with a bunch of grapes. Stupid reindeer... They protect them from us, they protect happiness from leaking into us."
"I know nothing about that. If you want to be happy tonight, you will. We'll celebrate at my place."
"Even with nothing more than a bunch of grapes?"

Electric reindeer, gazing at us through a thousand burning eyes, melt into flashes passing by as a car rushes down a highway, by the river, right into the promise of pure bliss. Cake, fried chicken, natilla, grapes, it doesn't matter. Being together with the people you care for, that's all it takes to enjoy an unforgettable Christmas.

Alchera #39: Peto

My mother rescued an old container from oblivion. I saw it on the living room floor while she organized things from the kitchen. It's beige, with a Coca-Cola sign on one side and a Burger King sign on the other. Burger King no longer exists in Colombia; I used to go there with my mother when I was a little child. The container was used to carry peto (a typical Colombian sweet soup) which we bought in Anolaima, the town where our farm is.

When I was a little kid I'd climb into my paternal grandfather's Nissan Patrol and fool around with my uncles while travelling to Anolaima. We went there often. I remember Anolaima as a cloudy town with loads of fog, but many years later the weather changed, and it was quite sunny. You could look at two more towns from our farm. There were oranges and guavas and raspberries growing over there; I loved raspberries.

The peto from Anolaima was exquisite! There were two things we'd never miss on our trips there: pan de maíz (corn bread) in Zipacón and peto in the Anolaima market. You could get lost in the market... so many stands with vegetables and cheap things... But we never bought anything other than peto and fritanga (a compound of fried food; not a pleasant view yet tasty).

I haven't been in Anolaima for a long time. My grandfather sold the Nissan Patrol and got a Mitsubishi. I grew a nose and outgrew my clothes. The raspberry tree was eaten away by weeds. Oranges fall off from the trees, waiting to be eaten by the worms. Childhood is gone and long forgotten in a sea of stupid adult fantasies until it suddenly comes back in a Burger King/Coca-Cola container.

Alchera #38: So Much Beauty Within

Beautiful words

• Beautiful (English)
• Tanuki (Japanese)
• Appropinquate (Latin)
• Willow (English)
• Widow (English)
• Isolée (French)
• Noyée (French)
• Fragola (Italian)
• Sakura (Japanese)
• Wo (Chinese)
• Cheio (Portuguese)
• Discombobulate (English)

Beautiful body parts

• Female breasts
• Male backs
• Hands
• Japanese eyes
• Eyebrows
• Shoulders
• Many faces

Beautiful flowers

• Azalea
• Tulip
• Magnolia
• Dahlia
• Orchid

Beautiful views

• Madison, Wisconsin, USA, as seen between its two lakes
• Dubuque, Iowa, USA, as seen from Fenelon Terrace
• Downtown Bogotá, Colombia, as seen from 30th Ave. & 19th St.
• Mountains behind Guarinocito, Caldas, Colombia
• Magdalena River, as seen crossing the bridge to Honda, Tolima, Colombia
• Napa Valley, California, USA
• Houses on cliffs in Bodega Bay, California, USA
• Downtown Chicago, Illinois, USA, as seen at night on a plane
• Sunset in Puerto Boyacá, Boyacá, Colombia, as seen from my grandfather's farm
• Mountains surrounding Usme, Cundinamarca, Colombia

Alchera #37: Immaculate

Free-write on this: The perfect man/woman.

You came into my life like any other human being. There is nothing peculiar about our first encounter, there is nothing written on the way you looked that day, how you spoke or didn't speak, what I first thought of you. You were supposed to be one more ghost in a sea of blurred faces.

But you stayed, and slowly, you became solid. Something struck me when we talked, and every time fate reunited us there was more I wanted to keep in my head, more from you... You, ghost, you, drop in the ocean, how did you make me realize you were a new world I wanted to get lost in!

How beautiful it is to picture you.

I think of your blunders, the way you pronounce certain words, your scars, the faces you make at certain occcasions... All these things which are to be totally ignored or be bothered with, they make you perfect. Memories of trouble and subtle happiness together, your voice, your accent, your handwriting, your likes and dislikes, they flow into my brain like loud raindrops and make me long for you. There is nothing fancy about the things that bind us.

It's the details which make you human. It's the details which stain the white napkin of your unexplored eyes. And those stains merge into the brightest of colors, into an unbelievable purity. I yearn for your imperfection, my perfect man, for no matter how much I point at your moles with my finger, all I will be able to see is the smoothness of your immaculate self.

Alchera #36: Un Monde Parfait

If I could change the world to a perfect world...

I think we've done something similar to this in the past--what you would change about the world today to make it a better place, blah blah blah. Instead of going that route, I'm going to ask you to be a little selfish. If you could change the world just for you, what would it be like? Don't think about anyone other than yourself. What would you want the world to be like for you?

• This world would be entirely peaceful, of course.
• People could travel anywhere they wanted (no visa required)
• Good food wouldn't make you fat (or at least it would be cooked in a healthier way which wouldn't alter its flavor)
  
• There wouldn't be poverty at all
  
• There wouldn't be any stupid people
• There would be no need to look like someone else to be pretty (anyone could be a model, no need to be a waif to be considered pretty)
• There would be no racism nor xenophobia
• Africa wouldn't be regarded just as such, but each country would be recognized as an individual state
• African countries would be developed, with no hunger problems
  
• Charly Garcia (Argentinian singer) wouldn't be regarded as a music god
• History would not be centered in Europe, but World History would really be World History
• John Lennon and George Harrison wouldn't be dead, and the Beatles would still be playing
• All sorts of fruits would be available anywhere in the world
• Sushi would be cheap even out of Japan
• There would be no environmental problems

The list may grow, I suppose.

Alchera #35: Cosas que hacer

Somewhere out there in cyberspace is a guy with a lot of ideas. Using him as an example, make a list of things you'd like to accomplish in your lifetime. These can be very simple and very complex. For example, if you hope to go a year without getting a common cold, why not put that on your list? And if you would like to invent a money tree, throw that on there, too. Try for 50 or more, but that's merely a suggestion, not a requirement.

So here they are, things I wish I could do before I die, some of which I know will never ever happen.

1. Visit Japan
2. Live in Japan (not necessarily for the rest of my life)
   
3. Go back to Dubuque, just to visit
4. Learn Chinese, Russian, Arabic and Modern Greek
   
5. Become fluent in Japanese, French, and Portuguese
   
6. Drive a New Beetle
7. Drive a car again
   
8. Eat Peruvian food
9. Visit Peru
10. Read lots of Chinese literature
11. Lend my voice to one of those audio files which come in the Encarta Encyclopedia (preferrably the one reading Sonnet XLIII by Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
12. Sing in a choir again
13. Become a famous singer
14. ... or a famous writer
15. Become a language and/or literature teacher
16. Travel around the world and try all sorts of food
17. Visit Saipan Island (whatever led me to it, I don't know, but now I dream of its image of a lost paradise with charred remains of hell)
    
18. See Minori again
19. See Kotaro again
20. See Katherine Thornton again
    
21. Meet Takami Ei (aka Noppo San)
22. Learn to ride a bicycle
23. Learn to skate
24. Re-read many of the books I've read
25. Learn to play piano
26. Make a ragdoll
27. Make my own dresses
28. Visit San Francisco again
29. Live in San Francisco for a while
    
30. Roadtrip around the States (if I could get to see every State in the Union, that would be incredible)
    
31. Visit Chile
32. Sing Billy Joel's Honesty in front of a big audience, or in a karaoke bar, who cares
33. Go to a Billy Joel concert
34. Write new songs
35. Write more stories
36. ... and get them published
37. Make my own marmalade
    
38. Become a tidy person
39. Stop procrastinating
40. Visit Himura's bakery
41. Go to more weddings and dance like hell
    
42. Learn to dance good old fashioned rock 'n roll
43. Keep a healthy weight
44. Go to a night club (go ahead, call me pathetic)
    
45. Keep in touch with all my friends from here and abroad
46. Learn to knit
47. Get married (it's okay if I don't, but I really believe marriage is a beautiful yet tough thing)
48. Wear my hair in a very sixties coiffure, like Barbara Eden in I Dream of Jeannie
49. Get a much more flexible body (gotta work hard for that, but oh well)
    
50. Teach many languages to my children
51. Visit Saskatchewan and Ushuaia
52. Meet Bill Murray
53. Visit Strawberry Field, Penny Lane, and other Beatles related sites (so far I've only been to Haight Ashbury)
    
54. Visit Liverpool
55. Learn to play the sitar
    

The list may grow.

Alchera #34: Picture Perfect

We're lying on beautiful seashells, sound asleep in a sweet hug. We're framed like a perfect picture, like a poster or a Valentines Day greeting card. Our feet are constantly washed in saltwater, tickling our skin while a gentle breeze turns sunshine into a golden dance on our cheeks. This is a lover's lifetime dream, and it seems to have been granted to us only. It's not the first time something like this happens. Many say I'm lucky.

If only anyone could see that my mind is making faces behind my mask of frozen beauty...—

Are you really sleeping? I've kept my eyes shut for too long, and I see amber sparks everywhere when I turn my blind eyeballs around. You could say I'm dreaming —if you saw me, of course —, but all I can think of are these stupid seashells. They're stabbing my back, disposable daggers from a hidden sea god. I hear you sighing. Is it happiness, or do you feel all that innocent-looking calcium reaching into your flesh too?

I can't breathe too well. I haven't been able to breathe for as long as I've been with you, anyway. Life with you is full of fixed smiles, those which make one's muscles ache while countless cameras are being prepared. My heart feels like it's been smiling all this time, and every beat aches in desperation. Can't anything be imperfect? Can't a day be boring? Can't I spill my coffee— my words—?

Stop holding me. Stop striving to be this picture-perfect boyfriend, full of picture-perfect moments. Stop making every second an everlasting moment. I'll shake the sand off my clothes and walk into reality, where edges are blurred and people stumble when they walk, where oblivion rises along with the sun every morning.

Alchera #33: White Waters

I’d like you to write a poem this month that consists of at least five stanzas. The first line of the first stanza, as well as the first line of the last stanza, should be written using alliteration.

Where we walk, white waters whisper.
Our feet move at unsteady paces
As our breath tries to silence
The obvious words
From the omniscient stream.

Your hand tries to grasp mine—
A living fork delving into rice,
And the air freezes as you scratch
Frantically
To catch my fluttering bird.

And our hearts beat ever so quietly:
They listen to this fate we step on,
To the sound of their own breaking;
They listen to the hollow noise
Of our silent desperation.

Not another gaze into our eyes,
Not another drop into this well
Which slowly overflows
Onto our pale cheeks, sinking
In the abyss of a bitter smile.

Where we walk, white waters whisper
The words we refuse to mumble,
And our hearts are beating quietly
To let us lip-sync to the river:
Goodbye...

Alchera #32: Alphabetized in Pairs

Things You Love… Alphabetized. I went back in the archives an entire year to see what list projects we've done and, oddly enough, none of them deal specifically with things you love. But making a list of things you love it just too easy, and the point of Alchera is to challenge the creative mind. So, not only are you to make a list of things you love, but you are to do it with the alphabet. That's still too easy in my opinion, so you've also got to come up with at least two things for each letter. 'X' is really going to be tricky. (Example: Aenima & And All That Could Have Been, Blueberry muffins & … this is a lot harder than I though… Bourbon?) This kind of project takes time.

• American Eagle clothes | Ariza Sensei's classes
  
• Blackberry milkshake | Books, the smell of them when they're new
  
• Chicago | Chicken biryani
  
• Dubuque, IA in spring | Dawn, slowly evolving while travelling in a car
  
• Essays, correcting them for Japanese Culture class | Eclipses, both solar and lunar
  
• Falling leaves in front of Rohlman Hall | French, speaking it for short periods
  
• Grape juice after dinner | Greek mythology
  
• Himura's voice and quiet eyes | Hands, when they are long, soft, and well-groomed
  
• Ice cream | Io, the way it looks like a bizarre marble
  
• Japan | Juan Valdez coffeeshop
  
• Kotaro's eyeglasses | Kisses, when I get them
  
• Languages, the feeling one gets when one begins to understand | Laughing hard
  
• Madison, WI | Minori, the sight of his broad back when he was about to swim
  
• Night skies | Napa Valley, CA
  
• Office supplies | Observing people on the streets
  
• Pony Malta | Planetariums
  
• Questions, both asking and answering them | Queen
  
• Road trips | Rain, the sound of it in the night from a cozy bedroom
  
• Star Wars | San Francisco
  
• Tea, green, preferably hot and shared with the Japanese people I miss | Travelling, especially for the landscapes
  
• Umeshu | Updating my blog
  
• Vintage clothes, music, TV shows... everything | Visibility, when the southern mountains finally reveal themselves for the whole city
  
• Words like 'willow' or 'widow' | Wind, touching my cheek through a window in a car
  
• Xylophones at André Rieu's concerts for old couples | X, San... San-X!
  
• Yoghurt | Yarn, its softness when folded, meshed, or knitted
  
• Zucchini, when it's soft and sweet | Zippers, playing with them, zipping and unzipping
  

Alchera #31: Cobalt Boy

When the day breaks

With the first touch of yellow

The cobalt boy

Will look up

And float

And melt into the sky

As a myriad colors rain

In violent drops of dawn

But nobody will miss him

For everybody is taking

The quiet monochrome night

Unnoticed

Alchera #30: Vaarwel

"Write a scene from the point of view of a character being left by another character. If possible, avoid all clichés of soap operas and televisions and bad books and movies. Unfortunately, that doesn't give you much room to work. It seems everything on this topic has been said to death. You'll need to reach down into your characters to find something fresh, something particular to them. If you want, keep dialogue to a minimum. Work with action and gesture." --The Writer's Idea Book, Jack Heffron

Follow the above guidelines, using the scene in a piece of fiction.

Don’t say it.

Your head became a maypole for a split second; your hair, a million ribbons.

Don’t say it.

Your calves, which had been familiar only to my skin, suddenly became visible, a new landmark never to be discovered... and your gauze skirt flew...

The puddles in your grass-colored eyes were no longer to be seen —look at me once again, just don't say it! —, your body was a distant pillar, a panther on the run, and four ivory fingers stood still on the edge of the door — hesitating? — for a moment which proved to be too short. I stared, trying to grasp an image of you like I should have grasped your arm and bid you to stay. But those four fingers soon vanished too, like a mouse's tail turning around a corner.

"Don't say it," I muttered, over and over again, breathing the young frozen void. "Please, don't say it."

And you didn't. You simply left.

Alchera #29: Snowflakes

This general option is very, very general. It has a theme and that's all there is to it, but I will offer examples to offer some sort of clarity and direction to those who operate that way. Theme: Snowflake(s). Examples: you could write a poem about catching snowflakes on your tongue; a series of character sketches of snowflakes (no two are alike); write a story about snowflakes or an essay about them. Pretty much anything about snowflakes.

A girl with long brown hair rises every morning to follow the arrow traced by a row of evergreen mountains. Blue skies fade into gray to bring water, nothing more than water. Change is an illusion, for the rain and the sun and the wind leave everything the way it was before they happened. The arrow is ever present, defined by the millennial rock monsters which seem to have told everyone in the city never to leave. Maybe the mountains don't draw an arrow but a cradle in which people dream their green dreams. As the girl gazes into the mountains, she believes she will be rocked too, right there, forever, against her will.

But nobody knows what the future is about to bring, just as she ignores what colors should and will tinge her life.

Soon she will cross the skies to discover gray and ochre on an infinite irregular chess board, and a single minuscule snowflake will fall on her coated hand as she waits for her tour bus to show her a lake as big as the sea, only smaller —it's easy to be fooled. And even then she will have no idea... for years later she will shiver as an old black car slowly lets some warmth into her body and takes her exactly to that very lake which she thought she'd never see again. As her eyes cross the beloved landscape, snowflakes will gracefully frame the window like temporary lace. Their hexagonal uniqueness will remind her of that single watery disk which melted on her green glove, green as the mountains which she thought would confine her for the rest of her life.

And even then, she will know nothing. Only when the last snowflake makes its path through the last air there is to breathe, or when the soft breeze from the greenest mountain caresses her cheek... only then she will know where her cradle was, where she was supposed to be rocked until the blackness of the soil which is hidden by all greens and whites and grays and ochres, that very universal black on which all snowflakes vanish, rocks her in her eternal sleep.

Alchera #28: Hope

a white hand is longing
for its eyes to be mirrored
as a candle burns away
in gray swirls of red cinnamon

longing to be mirrored
on eyes which are not yours

but you still think
there is hope

Alchera #27: Niente

"They had nothing to say to each other." That sentence alone is the making of soap opera gold. But you're not going to write a soap opera (unless you really want to). Instead, write a short story using this as the first line.

They had nothing to say to each other.

Her eyes were dry and opaque, her cheeks cracked with wrinkles. She had promised to wait for him forever, just as he had promised to return sooner or later.

The last time they had seen each other seemed like yesterday. He was looking for adventures, for a better life to give her; she knew her only possible future was next to him. However, they weren't mature enough to start their life together: surely there would be more stories to share when they became old and tired if they spent some time away from each other— surely they could build a real friendship that way.

But nothing had happened.

Time slipped away from their aging hands, walking, sitting, eating, breathing— and nothing touched them. Their bodies wandered around, but their spirits remained static, melting away under the acid rain.

And so they came back to their usual corner, empty-handed, empty-headed, and greeted each other with a slight, twisted smile. His eyes were sinking in his face, as if his skin and muscles were quicksand swallowing a pair of putrid olives.

They recognized each other immediately, and they gazed at each other for a long, long time.

And then, feeling the weight of their sorry lives all of a sudden, like the weight of a heavy armor which was never to be used, they nodded slowly, painfully.

They had nothing to say to each other.

Alchera #26: The Sixth Summer

Put yourself in an unfavorable situation--perhaps you're in the middle of a break-up with someone you love, your job is in jeopardy, or maybe you're even saying your final words at a loved one's funeral. Write a poem with interchanging lines of speech and thought. Your first line should be what you're saying out loud and the second line should be what you're thinking (this line should either be in a different color or, preferably, in italics). The situation in which you find yourself is up to you, but remember it should generally be an adverse one.

To this very place I shall run back
(Atalanta on winged feet),
And find you through warm, salty air
(Moist from my own burning tears)
On the sixth
(Sixth?)
Summer.

From other arms I'll be wrenched
(Yours in my dreams, thin air),
After two thousand one hundred ninety
(Billion)
Days
(Of madness).

You said distance would be poison
(I've drunk it all!),
You said days would drip like acid
(It's rained on me!),
You said—
(I am nothing but ruins).

Thus, I shall turn around
(Three hundred sixty degrees),
To live my life, and you, yours
(Or to crumble and fester);
Until
(Never)
The sixth
(Never, ever)
Summer
(Yes, never).

Alchera #25: Things

Make three or four lists (5-15 items per list). Try to choose some of the list
titles Sei Shonagon uses.

Things About Which One is Liable to be Negligent

1. Homework
2. Cleaning one's room when nobody will see it
3. Writing long letters
4. Writing the lyrics for a new melody
5. Losing weight

Things That Especially Attract One's Attention on Some Occasions

1. A man squeezing oranges, facing the street
2. A peculiar ringtone in a cell phone
3. A stranger's house through the window, from the street
4. Curtains
5. Food as it's being eaten
6. Other people's conversations

Things That Give a Clean Feeling

1. A new book
2. An organized bed
3. Wet paper, or paper which has been become wrinkled from firm writing
4. My grandfather's hands
5. A silken dress
6. Very thin gold/silver chains
7. New bills and coins

Things That Look Commonplace but That Become Impressive When Written in Chinese Characters

1. Phones
2. Subways
3. People
4. Names
5. Grapes
6. Machines
7. Water

Alchera #24: The Blind Seamstress

Take a sad or happy moment from your life, one that really stands out to you, and turn it into a fairytale (an old classic or one you make up on your own). Don't focus on a happy ending, as fairytales rarely had them. And because I (Laurie) want to make this a bit more difficult, the fairytale must be written in second person (you, your, yours).

You must remember the days, little seamstress, when you thought you lived the best of lives in the best of worlds, and the idea of becoming a queen never crossed your mind. You walked around blindfolded, and the blindfold had been imposed by none other than yourself. Oh, seamstress, you were so embedded in your simple life that you did not think it possible to find something better beyond the mountains which surrounded you.

Poor girl, you were so blind that you screamed in despair when you were commanded to leave the kingdom for a year. A year! Everything you had built around you was about to crumble down as you left it behind for a new village where you knew nobody, where you were nobody. Didn’t you feel this was death for you, child? Didn’t you long for time to speed up in order for you to go back home, to be the same little seamstress in the same little village amid the mountains?

It must have been hard for you, so lonely, so worthless. People surrounded you, but they were only footsteps for you. There was a calm river to walk by, but it was only a point of indistinct noise for your exceptionally sad ears and idle eyes. However, right in the middle of your dim solitude, just a while away from the point of desperation, a long-haired prince came galloping from afar. His silken robes glimmered under the sun, and his outlandish deep eyes resembled almond shells which contained the whole night sky. He approached you slowly, timidly, amused by the blindfold which seemed so easy to remove and yet remained on your dazzled head. You were convinced in your blindness that the sound of hoofs meant nothing. It must have been a passerby, one of the many who simply stared at your face and walked away. Even when you heard his striking accent speaking to you, you tried not to listen and held on tight to your dear piece of coarse cloth.

You kept holding on to it, even when he lifted you and took you away on his black horse, trying to show you the world you insisted missing. He took you over tiny creeks and majestic rivers, he took you over golden wheat fields and jade forests, and still he couldn’t get you to see. However, one amber afternoon, he caught you off guard, delighted with cold wind on your cheeks and warm sunshine on the palm of your hands. He didn’t have to ask you: this was the right time to wake you up. It didn’t matter if you hated him for what he did; he snatched the blindfold from your head!

Did you gasp?

Did your formerly idle eyes fill with tears as the horizon suddenly stretched to infinity?

What did you feel then, eh, little girl?

And please tell, sweet mistress, what did you feel when you stare at the prince’s abysmal eyes? And when he asked you to close yours for no other reason than to feel a kiss softer than the wind on your cheeks, warmer than the sun on your hands?

You wouldn’t go back home then, would you?

You must remember, Your Majesty, the days when you thought you lived the best of lives in the best of worlds, and the idea of remaining a seamstress was always in your mind. Now that you have opened your eyes, now that you see, your heart will never be able to go back home, for now you do believe in the existence of better days beyond all unsurpassable mountains.

Kokoro

"The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double."
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

She left her grayish green city once; she left for a town on the riverfront. When she returned she had so much luggage that she had to leave her heart behind. In order to make sure it wouldn't get lost or accidentally dumped into the river, she entrusted it to a boy who had saved her life once, when she was about to choke in her own monotonous breath. Despite the girl's constant clumsiness, the boy insisted in saving her over and over and over again. Too bad the boy had to take off too, to his own town of rice paddies and hot springs.

Home again, her suitcase turned into drawers, the girl placed her hand against her chest. She felt nothing. Her face turned pale for a brief moment, but rather than despairing, she immediately dashed to her front door, to wait. Her heart's custody couldn't have just run away and let her die... or could it? Who'd want a heart in these days?

Months passed, and her face had lost all possible color and her limbs began to shake. However, something was lying by her feet. The first package had arrived. Then a second, and then a third made their appearance. The girl was receiving envelopes with hundreds of thousands of heartbeats to go on, plus a lifelong promise. When the promise arrived in a big box, she began to feel a trace of another heartbeat mingled with hers. She didn't need an explanation to understand.

"It will be impossible to get it back the way I knew it," she pondered every night in her bed. "If he comes to me someday, to my grayish green city, he will bring me a bigger heart, but we'll have to share it. I don't mind, though."

She smiled then, placing her hand over her chest to feel its silence, picturing life when she would turn left in her horizontal slumbers to find the slow ticking of a piece of soul she had lost so long ago.