What are the odds of getting one double-yolk egg,
let alone a whole box? One in a thousand, I read,
and yet the latter happened to me just the other day.
You have to admit, I must be one lucky bastard
or an unlucky one, depending on the superstitions
we follow. Speaking of which, I have always wondered
why blue is considered better than red and white imposes
its supposed supremacy over black, brown, and yellow.
After all, in the game of colours, nothing lasts but the dire
shades of pale.
I hate smoking; I really do. For example, even the most beautiful woman, who normally would attract me immensely, the moment she reaches for a cigarette, I’m done with her. I will see her as a monster. And yet there was one time in my life when I was infatuated with such a woman, and her smoking, the way she did it, was something that added to her sex appeal. She was a friend of a friend, a bit of a tomboy, with her close-cropped blonde hair, tight jeans, an oversized men’s sweater with rolled-up sleeves, and a tough-guy attitude. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. We had both just turned eighteen and met in a pub, and I knew straight away she was not interested in me, not one iota. She was just being polite, and after that evening, I never met her again. Now, I don’t even remember her name.
Perhaps if I had met her under different circumstances later in life; or maybe my perception was distorted, like in the case of my friend, who one day admitted that she had been madly in love with me for a very long time—I just didn’t see it while chasing big-breasted bimbos. I never understood why she told me so many years later, when she was about to marry someone else. It was like a goodbye kiss, except without a real kiss. How stupid I was in my youth. Now I know that this was the first time I missed a chance at happiness because of my obsession with large breasts. I guess one never learns. At least I didn’t, and now it doesn’t matter anymore.
If the soul were made of Jingdezhen porcelain, would life taste like a sip of yùjiāng when we sang wildly, waiting for the moon, and no longer cared when the tune was done? But you never answered; only your eyes asked: How could I ever forget the narrows of the river?
It’s been three years since I’ve been alone—longer if you consider the period in which my marriage fell apart—and I think I’ve got used to being on my own; I don’t need anybody in my solitary life anymore. At least that’s the mantra I kept telling myself every morning after waking up and every evening before going to bed. But today I met a woman who proved that I’ve been wrong all this time. Well, met is perhaps an overstatement, as she passed me in the grocery aisle as if I were nothing but a mere shadow on the floor, which isn’t much of a surprise considering she looked about half my age and was stunningly beautiful. I must have looked absolutely ridiculous, stopping at the sight of her as if I had turned into a pillar of salt, assuming, of course, that she even noticed me. Even more amazing was that she spoke my native language to the couples she met further down the aisle.
I have no idea who she was, and I’m sure I’ll never see her again. And even if so, what could I offer her? I’m a nobody—a bitter middle-aged man, ridiculously shy and awkward in social situations—who used to write poetry and now just pretends to have something to say in his journal until he gives it up, like everything else in his life. No wonder I’m not afraid of death—I’m already a ghost.
It is truly baffling how easily we forgive a young, beautiful woman pretty much anything.
No matter how you look at it, it is unfair to her less appealing sisters that she can get away
even with a ridiculous hat that looks like a lampshade as long as she asks with an innocent
smile, So how do I look? And you can never be sure what, in her opinion, constitutes cute
or gross, for that matter, until you realise that in all her splendour she has also got nothing
but a crooked mirror.
hidden pilcrow 