It was a raining evening “Someone wrote a letter to you from Africa,” Mother was flapping a puce envelope in front of you, “Gold Coast? Who on earth should mail you from such a place?” Pulling back your glasses in place, you recognized its handwriting It was from her, not from any Mum-Terrifying-Black-Continent But from a bourgeois beachfront next to Brisbane, Australia, “A Holy Land of Surfing and Spring Break Party,” That’s what you learned from her in a phone When you told her Brisbane would be the capital of the future Earth According to Yoshiki Tanaka’s Sci-fi novel She scorned you, from another Hemisphere, “What a nerd you are!” And you protested, in a proper geeky way, and you both laughed It was when cell-phone was still a Sci-fi like luxury That evening, at a phone booth, you squatted side by side Not with her, but with a Filipino housemaid Pacifying her left-behind son over an unstable phone cable: “Patawad mga anak Sa pasya kong kayo ay iwanan Upang ako’y magtrabaho dito sa Taiwan. Labag man sa loob, subalit kailangan, Na ako’y mapalayo at sa inyo ay mawalay. Kinabukasan ninyo sa akin nakasalalay. Kaya’t dasal ko, sana’y makamit ang tagumpay, At nang sa inyo maibigay, pangarap na ginhawa sa buhay.” (Forgive me, child Making the decision to leave you and come to Taiwan was against my will. Even though it is necessary, I am away and separated from you. The future depends on me So I prayed, hope that I will be Successful, And you can, at that time, dream A comfortable life) --Quoted from: Lorna M. Ruanto, “Patawad Mga Anak,” Lorna Kung, ed., Taipei, Listen to Me!, Taipei: Taipei Bureau of Labor Affairs, 2002, pp.63-67.) It’s hard to explain, you started to tell her your family saga: “My mother’s mother was an accoucheuse You know, a fancy name for midwife that she prefered She graduated from Taipei Medical Special School in the colonial period In late 1930s, she went to Manchuria and worked in a clinic And you know what, my father’s mother was born in Manchuria” “How funny the term midwife is,” she said, “It’s like Someone’s wife in the middle of sometime, in between somewhere” “If both of us are still be single at 35, let’s elope and get married!” Who jumped to that conclusion? You already forgot But in the following years, it became you two’s catching phrase Never thought you had crossed the boundary that leads to Abuse of friendship and mutual ostracism At that rainy night, you read her letter Like some fingered words on a foggy window Her message was vaguely reminiscent A perfect fragment, ruined to such an exquisite degree All the lines of thoughts were Amputated, beheaded, and sawed at the waist Like a knightless equestrian, a finless bust of a mermaid Or a worm’s eye view of huge shins and toes Left by a torsoless, limbless colossal… A buoyant lavender scent from the stationary captured your sensation Yes, you remembered, it was her birthday, a December 8th Tears made everything a curvy pulchritude You got lost in her kaleidoscope-- “Many years ago, we walked side by side In the campus of the Taiwan University Talking about how I thought of popular literature The Italian food we ate that afternoon was still leavening Warmly in our stomach, we talked and talked till the sky went dark And we took bus home unwillingly! I missed those days! Like the night of that Dragon Boat Festival, we talked about Our daily life trivia in an international phone call Wasn’t that exactly the spirit of popular literature? Sharing common daily feelings in common colloquial language Sharing one’s loneliness, helplessness with a person Thousands miles away and you barely know him! Once you said, if there are ten people like your poems, Then, at least, you will have ten readers in your life Ten anonymous best friends. What a wonderful thing!” “Maybe we make friends with each other now and Will probably all forget tomorrow: You are good to me, exceeding the necessary percentage The wind is rubbing, patting as herbs I nevertheless will like then again Recognize you, but on this moment I shall believe this small terrace Is the World, even the fringe of the World.” --E. Du Perron (1899-1940), “Somewhere” -- http://blog.roodo.com/kamadevas --

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