the cloud the sea

The man had long, matted hair, an equal mix of black and gray; his beard was long and unkempt. His jacket was soiled, a faded navy, and I think his pants were gray. I was piqued when I saw that the book he held was a Polish-English dictionary, and he crumpled the payment for it in his hand; the telling pink of One-Hundred Maos, plus the blues and greens of bills of lesser Maos. In his jacket pocket a wallet rested, and it looked a healthy size; under his arm there was a newspaper, fully in Chinese. He smelled as he looked, unkempt, homeless, and he was purchasing this dictionary with substantial cash –

here before me was a mystery!

Could he know Wisdom?

Was he her child?

Was he mad?

Unable to contain my curiosity, I broke one of the cardinal rules – disturbing a stranger – and I poked his arm and asked feebly, ‘Are you learning Polish?’ or something similarly inane. He grunted, must have mistaken me saying he could move to the counter and pay – he edged closer there as the customers before us concluded – and i knew not what to do. Cardinal rules must not be broken twice, in quick succession, so I could not address him again. He paid quickly, grunted again to the attendant to indicate that he did not want the paper wrapping-band, and he made his way out the store, dictionary under his arm, enigma-ing me. I paid as quickly as I could – delayed because I foolishly fished around for coins to pay exactly – and by the time I exited into the clear-sky day (so rare in moody Shanghai), he was gone. Indecisive, I hurried west; stymied by my own impatience, I turned around and, unconfident, headed east. Hope diminished rapidly; the streets were empty of the man I sought; now he was an angel, apart from the ways of man. Purposeless, I went to the stationery store nearby, because I needed to write this. There is another bookstore nearby, and perhaps I can find him. (Now, the mystery is ignited; every next clue is a spark, every month is suspense).

On the way , I ran into the blue-dress woman. She was distressed, as I’d imagined her before.

“I’ve lost something precious,” she thought to me. “Have you seen it?”

“No ,” I whispered to her, though she knew the answer before asking me. “I will keep my eyes open and try to stay awake; if I find this treasure, I will meet you here in one-week’s time, and we will see each other then.”

I took my chance to ask her – “I’ve lost something. It is a man. Have you seen him , or do you know where he went?”

“Yours is less precious,” she returned. “I knew the preciousness of my Lost. Yours is make-believe. It is your invention. Leave the man be – that is what he grunted to you. Break not his peace!”

I was not satisfied with her answer. With nods we parted. I walk toward the bookstore in haste. I feel God whisper, “Not so fast! Not so fast! We’ve more to do before you arrive.” I nod and say, Thank you.

—

What are you looking for, son?

Peter Pan, ma’am.

I don’t speak English. she says.

I nod to her respectfully.

It is my mistake. I don’t know Peter’s name in Chinese.

We smile. We share something, a secret most mutually unintelligible humans have in common.

The policeman outside asks, “What are you looking for?”

“I had hoped to exchange my money for either a product, a service, or an experience, and thus ensure that today I live,” I respond.

He nods. “First, an experience is something of a combination between the first two you mentioned. You need not list it, if you wish to save time. Second, why do you, like I, equate living with exchanging these coins and papers?” He asks this honestly.

“It is what we were taught once ,” I say. I would rather we were like the birds, of course.

—
—

As I walk away, God says – ‘Why are you so dramatic?’ As he asks, he smiles and makes a face like mine. ‘Like THIS!’

That is what I’m like. Hah!

He made the Earth, and flowers are her thoughts; they contain His smiles.

—
—

It has now been many years since I left the bookstore an hour ago. The man who became an angel has disappeared, and I imagine he is being wise to someone either in Polish, or in Poland. I also imagine him at all sides of me, approaching me in the shuffling footstep of every stranger – NO – many do not shuffle – some walk clearly, like thoughts in winter, as is proper.

And nowhere, nowhere, the silent navy wings. I ought to have looked overhead. Of course.

—

Hello! she says again, puzzled – now, she asks – How do you know this? Do you know this girl?

No! I say. Hah! Knowledge. No, I do not know her yet. But I do not need to, to be in love. It is like being able to touch fire, if I wanted.

00

How alive are you today, friend? I am asked by the billboard-ad across the street. His companion opposite is a woman, who is either helping to sell, or incidentally clothed in, lingerie. I hesitate to respond to him because I am distracted by her cleavage – segments of warm, smooth mountain, made of flesh with magnets. In the next few moments, I realize I am ashamed. My averted eyes find and linger upon a pack of ruined, waterlogged cigarettes. They look pitiful, abandoned. One in particular, because he is broken in half, but still connected just-so.

“I’m sorry,” I say to her. She does not realize I have defaced her. To the billboard who addressed me (he is dressed in a garish, though-stopped pink), I say:

“WELL. I have lived:

So that is 116¥. Now, I am hungry – that insolent, insatiable beast of a stomach I have – and I will need to exchange more to get more.”

You are doing pretty well, the billboard says, disinterested. The woman she nods and I am distracted again –

—
—

“Have you found the precious treasure, which was lost?” I ask the blue-dress woman. I’m pretty sure it has been a week’s time.

“I have many bits of anger at you,” she says. “It has been many years – months of weeks – and you do not come. You forget, like Peter Pan, to return. How were your adventures? What does it matter to you if my Lost is found? I’ve returned here, after every week’s time, hoping you had a shred to give me, or crumbs.”

I feel ashamed. No.. I try to – I imagine it with great effort – I fail. I try and fail to feel this. Instead, I say, “I’m sorry.”

She nods. “There is much to be set right, and you are the least of my concerns. I hope I can call you a friend someday.”

“Have you seen that man I mentioned to you, who had wings like a bird, the tattered navy wings?” I ask her this after a silence.

Ah! But she has gone.

——

The next to speak to me is a woman who begs.

Hello! She says. Her hand is open, for coins, or for life-paper.

“Hello!” I say. “Have you ever been in love?” I ask! I do not need her to reply – just continue: “It is amazing! It is a maze of fantastic-ities, of wonders, of treasure! You know, because of her, I see purple flowers everywhere. My eyes are opened to previous invisible beauties! And OH! How she laughs! It is like water collected from stars, like the quiet, awe-full sound of rain which falls from the stars who fall here. “Hello!” She says again – she is puzzled – now she asks: “How do you now this? Do you know the girl?”

“Ho!” I say. “Hah!” I say next. “Know her! NO, not yet! But OH! being in love is great. It is like breathing, but then it is somehow better, like I can touch fire now, If I wanted.”

——

“God?” I ask.
“Right here,” I feel him whisper.
“Thanks,” I say.

——

“Have you seen the man who is like a bird? I ask her. I don’t know who she is, or what she does, and, curiously enough, she has no face. This is a dream, and so I am not distressed, but I feel the capacity to be so, under different, less-asleep circumstances.

Her head tilts – this is how she says, “Explain further, that I may assist.”

“Well, he was a man like a bird” – I indicate wings, to explain birds – “and he invited me to come with him, to fly somewhere to meet Wisdom, who is very close to Jesus. Well, I said no, because I am timid, and he broke my rule, one of the cardinal ones, about not disturbing strangers, in order to prevent one from being the destruction of their harmony. So, I said No, longing all the while not only to say Yes, but to be the kind of person who says Yes, longing to be someone more like God. Then the bird man was gone, to have his wings tailor-made into those of an angel, and I was a book in a bookstore, a book awaiting my next owner – an orphan I was, really, but I wanted my reader to be my sister, or my brother, more than to find parents – perhaps I wanted accompaniment, and love-regard. Anyway, there he walked in – I’m talking about myself, you do realize – there he walked in, but he carried another in a strange moon above his head, with a little pink string to his heart – the woman – he thought of her, wanted a gift for her, and I shouted and shouted and

I awoke on a park bench, my jacket tattered, the colour of day turning night, my pants the colour of a thought from God, lonely, lovely.

=

Where are you going? A man asks.

I don’t know, but there is a crowd. Some walk this way, but many do not. I do not want to disturb them, but somehow I feel they need not be asleep.

Do you want hashish? Marijuana? he asks.

No, I’m alright, I respond, my voice in a dream.

Hah! I think. He was so hopeful in the face when he saw me, this foreigner-man with long hair.

—

“Are you her, then? You look much younger! Er – I mean to say – “

“I know,” she says, and smiles, and I have a lightning strike. “I know. You saw me more true, before, and I was older, and tired.”

“You had the same eyes,” I offer. “You made me feel welcome, as if you’d like to talk to me awhile, and share a joke.”

“Yes.” She grins, that flash of light, like treasure on the seabed – or is it just the sun, glinting off the rippling sand? – and says “I get to wear this for awhile.” She gestures to a classy navy dress she wears, tight on the sides, but what she really means is Youth. She is the humble, weary woman I met, but she is not that for much, much time from now, just as I am not the Chinese bird-man for much, much time from now.

“I want to hold your hand, and have you scold me, because I am the only one who can exasperate you just-so,” I say. “And I am glad you have this on” – I gesture to her Youth – “because my eyes are poor, and ill, for I wear Youth as well, and true beauty is often-times hid from me. But God makes my eyes new, and I will find beauties for you.”

“You are too cheesy,” she says, but she holds my hand, and the sunlight glints.

—

I wake with a start – “What has happened! –

“Am I back?”

“Yes,” the owl says.

[*EDITOR?: Is he an owl?
[EDITOR: At least for now.
[*EDITOR?: Can he be made of wool, Kvadrat wool, a Divina Melange, a nice grey?
[EDITOR: …

“Has everything changed?” I ask.

The owl shrugs. How did he do that?

I notice the sun has gone down behind that building. Before, the light came straight down through the blue sky, and stuck to my body. This made me think clearly, but it also made me sweat. Now, there is the cool breeze instead, but I feel this may be Reality again. Oh, Sir Reality.

“You sound melancholied,” says the owl.

“Well, it is only a matter of time, now,” I retort. “Look at what happened to John and the rest of the Lost Boys, and then even Michael.”

But even as I speak to him, he turns back into a pillow, the little, wise bastard of a librarian.

00

“I want peanut butter toast for dinner, from the highly-regarded Singaporean chain, Toast Box.”

“Why?” she asks.

“You know poets eat peanut butter. I think Thoreau said that.”

“I don’t think he said that.”

“On account of what?”

“On account of peanut butter wasn’t invented yet.”

“…I’m going to put it in here anyway.”

Even if she’s right, I can change it later.

—

“You answered my prayer!” I jolt suddenly.

“Which one?” God asks. He may be thinking of a new flower, or music – I can never tell –

“The one where I asked you to show me magic. And don’t be smart! You know very well ‘which one’!”

“Yes, yes. I answered that ten times over!” His eyes sparkle, that wise child.

“Well. Hmph.” I say. “The man. I met the angel man, and then he disappeared, on a sunny blue day.”

God nods. Oh, he loves stories!

“You’ll meet again, little child.” He moves to show me a flower. It is delicate, a pure blue, minimal.

“It looks Japanese to me,” I offer.

He nods. “This is one of the ideals for which I have created that culture to yearn. Of course, how few realize the kingdom in a flower!”

—

“Why am I not wise, God?”

I may know the answer.

“I see light, and I saw it, but I think I’ve been taking the escalator, and many of the others take the stairs. They’ve more of their heart and body in it, right, and for me it’s mostly just mind. You can’t take the escalator to truth.”

“I’m lazy,” I add.

“If I were an animal, I’d be a sloth,” I add next.

God nods. “You are a bit like a sloth, in some ways!”

I’m not sure what he means.

“Did you know sloths only come down from their trees to shit once every week? And they have incredibly strong claws – three of ‘em?”

One thing I always like about God – he doesn’t get tired of me asking questions to which he surely knows the answer. He know questions are how I like to share wonder, and he’s all about wonder. Super into it.

—

There are millions of people in the city, and tens of thousands in the neighbourhood. Of all those, I run into S. and F., after the Muslim noodle place. I am surprised, to be sure, but then not so much. I don’t know why, but there is a reason to this. On the one day I leave my phone at home and simply wander, at the exact moment I’m crossing the street, I run into them.

“What are you up to?” S. asks, or some equivalent.

“I’m trying to be invisible,” I respond. “I’m trying to find, or perhaps be, some sort of Tian-Ren, heaven-person. I’m trying to live deliberately, to find out what life means…”

“What?” he asks.

“Just wandering!” I repeat. “Yep! No phone today. So crazy to see you…”

—

God, this jacket becomes heavy.

God, these pants become tattered.

God, this becomes too much to bear.

Come to you? Rest , we the weary?

In time. In time.

Hurry up , please , it’s time.*

———

Did you ever know? Did you ever know how far we went? How we almost made it to you , made it through to you?

I bought that damned dictionary , you know?

My heart , like his , was an open door , and you were…