The wrong girl
It was a Thursday afternoon when they caned Yurie
There was a softball game going on outside and
The Koreans were about halfway through their ice cream.
She was led into the office by an older girl
Was presented as a thief and told to sit on the concrete
She didn't protest and
The Koreans were about halfway through their ice cream.
The clock was showing 2 after 1pm
As her homeroom teacher fetched a stick
The fattest in the pile
And used it to usher her into the counselling room.
The door slammed
A raised voice muffled by door and carpet
The dull report of twelve stripes of the stick and
The Koreans were about halfway through their ice cream.
An innocent girl unable to walk
Red-streaked and tear-stained and
The Koreans were about halfway through their ice cream.
Memory
The Principal's sun-bleached calendar stays at June
Snow glare makes it seem ever paler.
To a starlet
People think you're beautiful because you're famous -
You're not famous because people think you're beautiful.
The sun never shows itself here
And the shadows never thin
A Chinese girl with almond eyes
Cleaning her ears with cotton buds
Family
The sisters stood by the pot in silence. The taller one stirred in slow, even movements, watching the puddle-grey soup with eyes that seemed too old for her face. Her sister was watching too, but her eyes had a barely discernible glimmer of life. Perhaps it was her future, or a hope that there was something else, but she knew without knowing that it would soon fade. The sisters hadn't spoken for weeks now. It was not through anger or displeasure, simply that there was nothing to say.
The taller one snagged a bone, and it bobbed to the surface, yellowed and smooth, poking through the greasy surface film. Every week they made their soup with daddy's bones, and every week there seemed to be a little less of him.
A philosophy
The small boy was on the verge of his slumber, between sleep and dream, body feeling weightless. Facts and un-facts filled his young mind, and although he didn't know it, he was having his first taste of philosophy.
In the first moments of darkness, the lava lamp still works.He would never recall this statement, nor would he recognise it were it shown or spoken to him, but it would remain with him for the rest of his life, somewhere in the intricate neuron pathways of his brain.
Two men
A wandering man came upon another, who was crying into his folded arms.
"Are you alright?" the first asked.
"No," came the shuddered reply.
"May I ask why not?" the first asked softly.
"I will never have what I want," said the second, and resumed his sobbing.
The first wandering man sat down on the ground beside his new companion and said nothing. After a few minutes the sobbing man looked up and wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeves. He told the first man that the only thing he wants in this world is to see tomorrow, but because tomorrow automatically becomes today, he will never be able to.
The first man thought about this for some time, and then he spoke.
"I can see your predicament," he began, "but please listen to mine before you consign yourself to a life of tears. When I was younger, it was my wish to relive yesterday. As I drifted off to sleep at the end of a particularly enjoyable day, I knew with a sinking feeling that it would soon be consigned to yesterday, and would be unobtainable for ever more."
The second man considered this and looked at the folds in his sleeves.
"But you have memories. I have nothing," he said after what seemed a very long time.
"Memories fade and alter with every recall," the first wandering man said easily, "and I was fully aware that even the most vivid and memorable events would become so altered by my thought processes that if you were to watch them again side by side, they would be almost completely unrecognisable."
The two wandering men leaned back on their elbows and watched the sun as it started its descent behind the mountains to the west. Just as the corona of light was swallowed by the sky, the second man spoke.
"You say that your wish
was to see yesterday. So you somehow cured yourself of your problem. May I ask how you did it?"
"It's very simple," the first man said softly. "The fact that we shall never see tomorrow or be able to see yesterday again pales in comparison when we consider that we shall always be irretrieveably shackled to the eternal today."
The second man leaned back and thought about this for a long time. Thinking of something, he sat up to share it with his new found friend, but he had already gone.
