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You are born to the sunset of the last day of summer, a titian crown of autumn leaves already in place upon your head. There is a thickness in the air and it drapes itself over your newborn skin; pale flesh mottled by both the luminescence of the orange sky, and the shadows of darkness' steady manifestation. Your head is too heavy to watch the moon rise gently into the heavens — yellow and swollen, the mother of night's vast wonders — but, perhaps by the touch of her light on your eyelids, you know that she is there. Likewise, some inborn inkling tells you that the stars, late in their nightly awakening, are still shrouded in a heavy dusk blanket. You too are still drowsy, and can empathise with their reluctance to rise.
In this vale the birdsong is thick with sleep, trees stand still, slick with wood resin, and there are no beetles amongst the moss to set the undergrowth humming. Even the river has slowed its effervescent churning, calming to an indolent stream. The world has hushed to the quiet chorus of nature's contented lullaby to you.
-
The paper sky lanterns flickered against the night like a collection of stellar golden constellations, languorously twinkling alongside the brilliance of Chang'e's moon — wisps of cloud surrounded it like the silver hem of a dress, drifting through the air — and illuminating the carefully laid tables of tribute mooncakes beneath. The characters etched atop each one rippled as light slipped into the symbols spelling out harmony and longevity. It was a warm sort of darkness for an autumn evening, and the courtyard heaved in a lively crimson sea of dancing guests. The streamers and lantern light blended smoothly against the red and gold of their festival clothes. Hesitating only to duck a swirling leaf, Shouren joined the celebrations and plucked a cake from amongst the nearest row.
"Take some more, Xiăo Hŭzĭ!" crooned a voice behind him. His grandmother was a slight woman with as many wrinkles as wisps of flyaway grey hair. It fell around her face like a cloud of mist, intensifying the steel in her eyes. The hue was most befitting of the character that her frail frame betrayed — while kindly, the forever busy Lin had needed to be firm in order to raise her headstrong, dauntless grandson. "Take some to the girls!" She motioned to a group twirling hand-in-hand in a large circle, silk dresses and long, dark hair flying. The youngest was only a toddler with a grin that outshone the moon, stumbling to keep up on plump legs and frequently being lifted, rosy and giggling, into the air as a result.
As Shouren and his grandmother watched, the girls finished their dance with a flurry of loud laughter. Some people, such as his school biology teacher — with a jade dragon writhing through the sleek strands of her hair — and tiny, birdlike Quilian — the girl who lived next door and used to push him into the mud and scream to get her own way — Shouren knew from his childhood, once his grandparents had taken him in. However, as for the majority of their Moon Festival's guests, he knew only a few others by name, and a handful more by their features. Family and friends would often bring their own acquaintances to these celebrations.
"They can get their own, Lao Lao," he said, grinning at Lin's exasperated sigh. The collar of her long red dress travelled high up her neck and seemed to seep even further, lending its colour to the flush of her cheeks. It was a tone that spoke for years of Lin's frustrations with her grandson. Plucking a second cake from the nearest table in order to semi-appease her, Shouren turned towards the toothy smile of his grandfather.
-
You are a child now, and learning — always learning, always growing. The summer air is as thick and sweet upon your tongue as dripping honey and, as a flood of impulse roars through your veins, you leap into the cool water. It lifts your hair and rushes over your ears, muffling the world as you sink into the depths and grasp smooth river pebbles with your toes. Any fish you may have encountered have fled along the sparkling currents, away from the disturbance caused by your lively entrance into their realm. It's a pity, for the owl is asleep and you wanted someone to talk with. The old bird always says that you could easily argue a rock even deeper into the ground, and you know that fish are exceptional listeners with little opinion — especially the carp.
Rising to the surface, you float, and the lazy warmth steals droplets from your chest. This, what you were born with, is all you have ever known; but the breeze carries a sorrow upon its breath that you cannot yet understand.
-
"I am too old for dancing!" intoned Nianzu, who was obstinately refusing to leave his rocking chair on the courtyard's eastern verandah in order to stretch his skinny legs. "I am older than I look, Xiăo Hŭzĭ."
Rolling his eyes, Shouren chuckled. "I don't know about that, Lao Ye!" His grandfather was as pale as the moonlight that pooled by Shouren's feet and whilst seated away from the lanterns, his only colour came from the deep amber wool of the blanket that was draped across his knees. Despite the peculiarly toothy grin, his withered body and stark white hair made the man appear far older than he was. Cocking his head to one side, Nianzu peered at his grandson.
"... Oh, here, have a mooncake," Shouren added feebly. The wheeze of Nianzu's laughter was barely audible over the Moon Festival's din. He caressed the longevity imprint with a long finger before placing the crumbling morsel on the table beside him. For a long while they watched Lin flit to each guest and meticulously rearrange each long line of cakes in between conversations. She had recruited Shouren to help her cook them for the Festival, but soon grew too weary of his fumbling hands and called little Quilian over to help instead. When the girl was younger and had just moved into the next house, Lin had often looked after her through the day whilst her father went to work, and the two had grown close.
"I really am too old, Shouren," he murmured. "I feel it, can always feel it. Āi, what I would give to be young again! To be strong once more and travel with your grandmother, even if only to walk the Vale..." Nianzu trailed off wistfully, his words a collection of wilting flower petals. "But that is not the way of the world, Xiăo Hŭzĭ," he continued after a long pause, "and I have done so much already..." Shouren studied the grooves on his grandfather's face, searching for something to say – but nothing he considered seemed very eloquent, nor comforting, so he remained silent. Looking at him, Shouren suddenly felt that he knew very little about who his grandfather had once been. As if sensing this, Nianzu chuckled.
"Do not worry yourself, child... An old man's tales rarely equal those yet to happen... No, I do not think I shall tell you, Xiăo Hŭzĭ. One day you will learn for yourself..." Nianzu's voice was as soft as vocalised eiderdown. "Become who you are supposed to be, Shouren. It is your time now."
Just as the first lantern light flickered out of existence, Nianzu leaned back in his rocking chair and closed his eyes.
-
... And the great white tiger was nothing, yet everything — the breeze, the dust, the brightness of amber dug from the earth, soil spilling over each piece like blood from a dripping heart...
-
Seasons passed, and passed again; still the absence of the wheezing laughter and toothy grin felt as unnatural as the thought of summer snow melting down fingertips in tiny iced waterfalls. Lin had become far slower of late, and she would spend much of her time perched in her husband's old rocking chair, a grey effigy staring blankly at the courtyard ghosts who had stolen her away into their shadow world. Grief-stricken, Quilian would murmur sadly. She was now present more often than Shouren, who disappeared to camp in the wilderness for weeks on end.
Something had begun to stir within him after that autumn Moon Festival, domething long subdued and forgotten that seemed only to be quenched by the Vale, a place he hadn't visited for what seemed like lifetimes — his own, perhaps, or someone else's. In a place like this, Shouren thought, it was quite reasonable to think that a stranger's memories of the land were seeping into the depths of your own mind and fusing with the familiarity of what you already knew — or thought you did. Despite the oddity it was a comfortable, familiar sensation, like slipping into sleep in the fireplace warmth of a white winter's night.
When they rustled together the leaves sounded like Nianzu's rasping laugh had. Once there was a tawny owl that watched Shouren with its wide, unblinking gaze as he sat, feet sunken into the river, observing the reflections of sunrise waver with the current and carry the colours over his pale skin. Sometimes he imagined that the shivering lines of orange were inked into him, a part of his body. Shouren liked the colour, and its season. Autumn's breath may have been frail and sickly; but it carried such wonderful certainty upon its longing for springtime, and this he admired.
-
"Lin is ill, Shouren, and she misses you. You must make an effort. For her." It was a humid day, and Quilian's short hair reached her angular chin in a small black cloud of frizz that did more to display her ire than her strangely level voice did. Her arms jutted like bird wings from her shoulders to where each hand clasped a bony hip. She was a surly sort of calm, and it was only then that Shouren understood the severity of his neglect — in no way was the girl known for keeping her temper. Head hanging in shame and bare feet soft against the floor, he padded past her through the bowels of the house and into the courtyard.
He didn't expect for his grandmother to be twirling through the heavy heat with eyes closed and arms outstretched, smoke-cloud hair trailing behind her. Shouren couldn't remember a time in which he had seen it released from its pins and, as a breeze twisted strands of it around her in a light embrace, he smiled. Though unfamiliar, Lin's freeness was comforting.
"Xiăo Hŭzĭ," came the croon. "You forget me, āi?" Her eyes were still closed.
Shouren stepped down into the courtyard. "Of course not, Lao Lao... I could never." Lin creaked to a stop in front of him, her skirt swirling against his legs as she blinked and looked him up and down.
"You look wild, boy. I hope you didn't walk those feet through my house."
-
The Longjing tea burned the roof of Shouren's mouth as he sipped it. "Quilian says that you have been unwell, Lao Lao..." he began, steam drifting over his features and swathing his vision before resting atop the tousles of his freshly shower-damp hair for just a moment before fading away. "I believe her, but you don't seem ill now."
"Your grandfather came back to me."
Shouren started in surprise at his grandmother's words, miniature teacup waves breaking upon his shirt front and the fabric upon his thighs. Wincing, he bit back a curse at the sudden heat; Lin continued rather unperturbed.
"He did. On the air and in the sunlight, he returned. Āi, he would tell me such brilliant stories, Xiăo Hŭzĭ, but I never truly believed them possible. I thought him a fool, really, but I loved him and so it did not matter to me!"
Eyeing his grandmother with veiled apprehension, Shouren set his cup on the table and prepared to call for Quilian. "It's impossible, Lao Lao — I'm sorry," he added gently. "You should rest inside, out of the heat, for a while."
Lin scowled at him, alive with a fierce determination that Shouren hadn't seen take hold of her for a long while. "Nianzu came to me, for the last time, upon the roar of the wind. It... It was in his blood, he said, as it had been and would always be, even if nobody knew how or even why. He told me once that he had inherited memories with the shape; the shape of courage and of strength. We would walk the Vale together, and often he would go alone. He said it was the only place he could truly be... as if it were the only place where the pieces all came together."
As much as her words seemed like those of a heat-addled grandmother, they seemed to hold the inkling of truths that Shouren could not ignore.
"I have begun to see in you what I could once see in Nianzu, Xiăo Hŭzĭ, Little Tiger. It is only now that I understand and I think that you must, too.
-
Autumn leaves swirl, dappled with the first vestiges of sunset, as you slip off your skin.
In this vale the birdsong is thick with sleep, trees stand still, slick with wood resin, and there are no beetles amongst the moss to set the undergrowth humming. Even the river has slowed its effervescent churning, calming to an indolent stream. The world has hushed to the quiet chorus of nature's contented lullaby to you.
-
The paper sky lanterns flickered against the night like a collection of stellar golden constellations, languorously twinkling alongside the brilliance of Chang'e's moon — wisps of cloud surrounded it like the silver hem of a dress, drifting through the air — and illuminating the carefully laid tables of tribute mooncakes beneath. The characters etched atop each one rippled as light slipped into the symbols spelling out harmony and longevity. It was a warm sort of darkness for an autumn evening, and the courtyard heaved in a lively crimson sea of dancing guests. The streamers and lantern light blended smoothly against the red and gold of their festival clothes. Hesitating only to duck a swirling leaf, Shouren joined the celebrations and plucked a cake from amongst the nearest row.
"Take some more, Xiăo Hŭzĭ!" crooned a voice behind him. His grandmother was a slight woman with as many wrinkles as wisps of flyaway grey hair. It fell around her face like a cloud of mist, intensifying the steel in her eyes. The hue was most befitting of the character that her frail frame betrayed — while kindly, the forever busy Lin had needed to be firm in order to raise her headstrong, dauntless grandson. "Take some to the girls!" She motioned to a group twirling hand-in-hand in a large circle, silk dresses and long, dark hair flying. The youngest was only a toddler with a grin that outshone the moon, stumbling to keep up on plump legs and frequently being lifted, rosy and giggling, into the air as a result.
As Shouren and his grandmother watched, the girls finished their dance with a flurry of loud laughter. Some people, such as his school biology teacher — with a jade dragon writhing through the sleek strands of her hair — and tiny, birdlike Quilian — the girl who lived next door and used to push him into the mud and scream to get her own way — Shouren knew from his childhood, once his grandparents had taken him in. However, as for the majority of their Moon Festival's guests, he knew only a few others by name, and a handful more by their features. Family and friends would often bring their own acquaintances to these celebrations.
"They can get their own, Lao Lao," he said, grinning at Lin's exasperated sigh. The collar of her long red dress travelled high up her neck and seemed to seep even further, lending its colour to the flush of her cheeks. It was a tone that spoke for years of Lin's frustrations with her grandson. Plucking a second cake from the nearest table in order to semi-appease her, Shouren turned towards the toothy smile of his grandfather.
-
You are a child now, and learning — always learning, always growing. The summer air is as thick and sweet upon your tongue as dripping honey and, as a flood of impulse roars through your veins, you leap into the cool water. It lifts your hair and rushes over your ears, muffling the world as you sink into the depths and grasp smooth river pebbles with your toes. Any fish you may have encountered have fled along the sparkling currents, away from the disturbance caused by your lively entrance into their realm. It's a pity, for the owl is asleep and you wanted someone to talk with. The old bird always says that you could easily argue a rock even deeper into the ground, and you know that fish are exceptional listeners with little opinion — especially the carp.
Rising to the surface, you float, and the lazy warmth steals droplets from your chest. This, what you were born with, is all you have ever known; but the breeze carries a sorrow upon its breath that you cannot yet understand.
-
"I am too old for dancing!" intoned Nianzu, who was obstinately refusing to leave his rocking chair on the courtyard's eastern verandah in order to stretch his skinny legs. "I am older than I look, Xiăo Hŭzĭ."
Rolling his eyes, Shouren chuckled. "I don't know about that, Lao Ye!" His grandfather was as pale as the moonlight that pooled by Shouren's feet and whilst seated away from the lanterns, his only colour came from the deep amber wool of the blanket that was draped across his knees. Despite the peculiarly toothy grin, his withered body and stark white hair made the man appear far older than he was. Cocking his head to one side, Nianzu peered at his grandson.
"... Oh, here, have a mooncake," Shouren added feebly. The wheeze of Nianzu's laughter was barely audible over the Moon Festival's din. He caressed the longevity imprint with a long finger before placing the crumbling morsel on the table beside him. For a long while they watched Lin flit to each guest and meticulously rearrange each long line of cakes in between conversations. She had recruited Shouren to help her cook them for the Festival, but soon grew too weary of his fumbling hands and called little Quilian over to help instead. When the girl was younger and had just moved into the next house, Lin had often looked after her through the day whilst her father went to work, and the two had grown close.
"I really am too old, Shouren," he murmured. "I feel it, can always feel it. Āi, what I would give to be young again! To be strong once more and travel with your grandmother, even if only to walk the Vale..." Nianzu trailed off wistfully, his words a collection of wilting flower petals. "But that is not the way of the world, Xiăo Hŭzĭ," he continued after a long pause, "and I have done so much already..." Shouren studied the grooves on his grandfather's face, searching for something to say – but nothing he considered seemed very eloquent, nor comforting, so he remained silent. Looking at him, Shouren suddenly felt that he knew very little about who his grandfather had once been. As if sensing this, Nianzu chuckled.
"Do not worry yourself, child... An old man's tales rarely equal those yet to happen... No, I do not think I shall tell you, Xiăo Hŭzĭ. One day you will learn for yourself..." Nianzu's voice was as soft as vocalised eiderdown. "Become who you are supposed to be, Shouren. It is your time now."
Just as the first lantern light flickered out of existence, Nianzu leaned back in his rocking chair and closed his eyes.
-
... And the great white tiger was nothing, yet everything — the breeze, the dust, the brightness of amber dug from the earth, soil spilling over each piece like blood from a dripping heart...
-
Seasons passed, and passed again; still the absence of the wheezing laughter and toothy grin felt as unnatural as the thought of summer snow melting down fingertips in tiny iced waterfalls. Lin had become far slower of late, and she would spend much of her time perched in her husband's old rocking chair, a grey effigy staring blankly at the courtyard ghosts who had stolen her away into their shadow world. Grief-stricken, Quilian would murmur sadly. She was now present more often than Shouren, who disappeared to camp in the wilderness for weeks on end.
Something had begun to stir within him after that autumn Moon Festival, domething long subdued and forgotten that seemed only to be quenched by the Vale, a place he hadn't visited for what seemed like lifetimes — his own, perhaps, or someone else's. In a place like this, Shouren thought, it was quite reasonable to think that a stranger's memories of the land were seeping into the depths of your own mind and fusing with the familiarity of what you already knew — or thought you did. Despite the oddity it was a comfortable, familiar sensation, like slipping into sleep in the fireplace warmth of a white winter's night.
When they rustled together the leaves sounded like Nianzu's rasping laugh had. Once there was a tawny owl that watched Shouren with its wide, unblinking gaze as he sat, feet sunken into the river, observing the reflections of sunrise waver with the current and carry the colours over his pale skin. Sometimes he imagined that the shivering lines of orange were inked into him, a part of his body. Shouren liked the colour, and its season. Autumn's breath may have been frail and sickly; but it carried such wonderful certainty upon its longing for springtime, and this he admired.
-
"Lin is ill, Shouren, and she misses you. You must make an effort. For her." It was a humid day, and Quilian's short hair reached her angular chin in a small black cloud of frizz that did more to display her ire than her strangely level voice did. Her arms jutted like bird wings from her shoulders to where each hand clasped a bony hip. She was a surly sort of calm, and it was only then that Shouren understood the severity of his neglect — in no way was the girl known for keeping her temper. Head hanging in shame and bare feet soft against the floor, he padded past her through the bowels of the house and into the courtyard.
He didn't expect for his grandmother to be twirling through the heavy heat with eyes closed and arms outstretched, smoke-cloud hair trailing behind her. Shouren couldn't remember a time in which he had seen it released from its pins and, as a breeze twisted strands of it around her in a light embrace, he smiled. Though unfamiliar, Lin's freeness was comforting.
"Xiăo Hŭzĭ," came the croon. "You forget me, āi?" Her eyes were still closed.
Shouren stepped down into the courtyard. "Of course not, Lao Lao... I could never." Lin creaked to a stop in front of him, her skirt swirling against his legs as she blinked and looked him up and down.
"You look wild, boy. I hope you didn't walk those feet through my house."
-
The Longjing tea burned the roof of Shouren's mouth as he sipped it. "Quilian says that you have been unwell, Lao Lao..." he began, steam drifting over his features and swathing his vision before resting atop the tousles of his freshly shower-damp hair for just a moment before fading away. "I believe her, but you don't seem ill now."
"Your grandfather came back to me."
Shouren started in surprise at his grandmother's words, miniature teacup waves breaking upon his shirt front and the fabric upon his thighs. Wincing, he bit back a curse at the sudden heat; Lin continued rather unperturbed.
"He did. On the air and in the sunlight, he returned. Āi, he would tell me such brilliant stories, Xiăo Hŭzĭ, but I never truly believed them possible. I thought him a fool, really, but I loved him and so it did not matter to me!"
Eyeing his grandmother with veiled apprehension, Shouren set his cup on the table and prepared to call for Quilian. "It's impossible, Lao Lao — I'm sorry," he added gently. "You should rest inside, out of the heat, for a while."
Lin scowled at him, alive with a fierce determination that Shouren hadn't seen take hold of her for a long while. "Nianzu came to me, for the last time, upon the roar of the wind. It... It was in his blood, he said, as it had been and would always be, even if nobody knew how or even why. He told me once that he had inherited memories with the shape; the shape of courage and of strength. We would walk the Vale together, and often he would go alone. He said it was the only place he could truly be... as if it were the only place where the pieces all came together."
As much as her words seemed like those of a heat-addled grandmother, they seemed to hold the inkling of truths that Shouren could not ignore.
"I have begun to see in you what I could once see in Nianzu, Xiăo Hŭzĭ, Little Tiger. It is only now that I understand and I think that you must, too.
-
Autumn leaves swirl, dappled with the first vestiges of sunset, as you slip off your skin.
Literature
.
as i open my
mouth, a flock of excuses
perch upon your tongue.
Literature
drinkdrinkdrunk
anabolic alcoholic, summer
had dreams
of watching you soar through
hammock seams and i had
almost found your reluctance
sweet
but then liquor dripped
dropped
and ran rather deep -
mounds of molehills
you drained with coke
and found
merciless
vodka leaked jaws and i
told you the dreams;
the heights summer had
but you
liked disappoint-
-ment etched in your
left cleft joints
so swallowing, wallowing
in catabolic ache
liquid froze at the
nape of your
neck and this white-red-pink wine
you love somehow
stole summer's dreams
and winds and thaw.
Literature
periphrasis
when he asked me how i wanted him to build the house,
i answered him truthfully.
i said i wanted the pillars to be made
of pages from every book ever written,
curled in on themselves until
they could hold a roman arch.
pour words, strong and weak, into
the earth instead of cement-
let it be flexible to adapt
to pressure.
build the walls from the ground up
through prose supporting the bricks
layered by memories forged
along the path we took
to arrive at eden.
tilt poems into pyramids above
our heads, ceilings just high enough
to be within earshot of every
laugh we'll ever make.
empty emotions into a template
of a window and slide it i
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Overall Vision Originality Technique ImpactStarting off with the rare second-person point of view for a narrative voice, Concora's Xiao Huzi is an unusual and captivating, piece of work that possesses an imagery that paints a picture for us, clear as day.
There are interludes between the story that bring us such imagery, which is especially helpful for us when we try to imagine the place where this story goes on. Small details draw us in, the "jade dragon" in the strands of hair, the voice like "vocalised eiderdown."
Beautifully worded, Xiao Huzi is an enchanting piece that weaves the magic of imagery to create a tapestry of unforgettable colors. Absolutely brilliant.