Cites
and the Adventurer
Imagine this, on the way to your home,
one day, as regular as the day with white clouds, the blue sky, a long road, and
a black handbag turns to grey because you have been carrying it for too long, an
old face, and the dim streetlights that always walk home by you. Trundling the handrail of the bridge on the
way home, you start to look back on your daily life. The first day you were hired,
you thought your life would be steady. It was steady but it keeps repeating. You
start to wonder about your future, your past, your memory, your goals, your
reason to exist, your passion, the end of your days, being loved and being hated,
and your path. When the night comes, there is a stranger sitting on your couch,
and waiting for your arrival. He wears a top hat and a scarlet collar and tie.
With a sham smile, he says, “You have been waiting for me. This is the day.
Welcome back!” He gives you a golden key and asks you to open the volute doorknob,
the door that you have noticed before in your room but have never tried to open.
You feel anxious and dizzy and you wait. After he leaves, you over the door and
you see a long, narrow, dark road that extends from your room. You walk in and
start the first day of spring.
In the city, there is no formula to
follow, but there is always a decision that waits to be explored.
Cites
and the Linguist
The building is
located at a sharp pinnacle next to the ocean. You wake up every morning and
you are on a cable car passing the ocean with two open windows. The wind caress
your skin above the sky. You put the mask on to concentrate on the job
you go to later. Every day you talk to your book, listen to your voice, touch
your fingers that you have flipped through thousands of pages, write down notes, reconsider
the layout, compile a vocabulary.
You
say goodbye with a sleepless smile, you have been chosen to join the group.
It's a full time job that will keep you alive in the island. You have always
been sensitive to sounds, the expressions, the strikes, the patterns, and the traditions.
Living history, others always call you. Waves come to modernism, so the
farewell is a must.
When you have free time, you have a
seminar with others. Everyone is the same kind but belong to different
catalogues. Comfort your voice before you make a sound.
In
the city, the most essential element is to preserve the path that we have been
walking on.
Cites and the
Cheater
A regular
relationship needs sparkle. One is necessary and several are a bonus. The day
you drop your tears by feeling nothing, that day you are a member. Walking on
the street, you notice a familiar face that passes by you deliberately. She or
he looks at you as if you have never met. All the memory flashes back in a
second. You sit on the bench and pick up those days. The days you were dizzy,
ecstatic, overly friendly, and prissy because of the odor in your stomach and
the person in your mind. You know this is the second to say, hey think about
me. After you make decisions, close the door and taste the regret. Circulation
can wake you up to feel excitement.
In the city, you
always walk on a sloping street, either bumping into the one you cannot recall
or the one you recall at mid-night.
Chia-Lun Chang is the author of One Day We Become Whites (No, Dear/Small Anchor Press, 2016), recent work appears in Pen America, Hyperallergic, Literary Hub,
MuseMedusa, Evergreen and The Tiny.
She has received support from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Center for
Book Arts and Poets House. Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, she lives in New
York City.
