EAST-ASIAN LITERARY TEXTS

GROWTH RINGS
Deng Hainan
The arc lines
Grow in layers imprisoned within the bark,
With a seed at the circle’s center,
Rings spreading like ripples across the lake.

In the end they are set hard by the chain-saw’s incision.

No sighing, no growing,
Silence.
Yet annulations have not been erased.
Like a cerebrum,
Everything that has been experienced has been stored in these whorls
Though they can neither sing nor tell tales.

The rain’s moisture,

The snow’s caress,
The chirping from the bird’s nest in the branches
The roar of the thunder and lightning overhead,
The black bear’s embrace,
The woodpecker’s kiss.

And more,
Much more…
Memories like air
Melodies like spring,
But there is only
Silence.

As the glade rotates,

It spins the record around
If only there were a needle
Which by tracking the grooves
Could excavate, resuscitate
The song of life that should not be silent.
 DESTINY OF DUST AND DIRT by Chenchen Du

The thing that people don't seem to get about reincarnation is that people aren't always
people. The Creation Goddess Nǚ wā was only ever a human for a times in her life, at
the very beginning. In between, she had been everything from a tree, a snake or a fly. 
When she was a tree, the sky would gleam with distant glee, happy that she wouldn't
bother them for a few hundred years until she had grown tall and wild. She was small
yet headstrong as a seed, growing from the concrete of a prison where human skulls
pile up like layers of a sweet potato. She would dance in the blazing wind, as
moldable and soft as clay. Until she had enough of it as they scratched her trunk
repeatedly till her trunk is as hard as stones. She waved her hand at the birds heading
south for the winter, she gazed at the mountains at the end of horizons. Her multitude
expanded as far as her imagination, manifesting as branches that hosted homes for
insects, birds and squirrels. She was the food, the shelter and the mother of them all.
That was the longest form she took in any reincarnation, it lasted a thousand years.
She was the origin of the tale of the Millenia Tree, until humanity struck her down as
if nature itself thought she needed a break or maybe a pat on the shoulder. 
She would have gladly remained a tree, since then she wouldn't have to deal with any
other living creatures. No reason to make noises as an attempt to communicate. Every
soul left the Tree alone. As a tree, no one required anything from her. The
woodpeckers don't expect an answer or a reward as they took away the worms that
were eating away at her heart. The flowers and grass stayed away from her shade
because she blocked the sun, but they never blamed her for her tall frame or large
leaves. She was simply a tree standing observant at the edge of time, unchanging yet
content. Until the First Emperor of Qin wanted to find a cure for immortality. She
would have been quite happy to hear that the asshole died of lead poisoning. 
When she was a snake, she had slithered across vast lands despite them never
belonging to her habitat. It was the form she was the most comfortable in, just
wiggling around and swallowing stuff twenty-times her size. She was as flamboyant
as the rising sun, a shade of red that was so blatant that rendered her venomous nature
obvious to everyone to see. She remembered shedding her skin again and again, like
trying on a new floating dress or a head-piece every spring or autumn. When she
slept, she dreamed of the sky with a hue that was the same as her scale. She would eat
rats or elephants indiscriminately, but she'd always spit out the remains as a tribute to
the soil and its many spirits. She was never a greedy creature, she never hid her nature
from the world. Everytime the sun is up, you'd find her curled up under the light to
absorb the heat it radiates. She'd flick her tongue out, as cosy as a drunk mortal and
inhale the light as if it was her delight. Until one day humans arrived and hunted her
down for the radiance that cloaked her existence for more than a normal snake's
lifetime. 
She hated humans then, how hypocritical they were. They built shrines for her and the
sky she replenished, yet couldn't respect the simple life of a reptile that was half of her
true self. No matter how many incense were burned in her name, she could never
forget the same people who bowed their heads and muttered their wish were the same
ones who crushed her kin in search of their skin. It would have been okay if it was
fear that drove them into doing all the killing, the primal nature surrounding snakes
and their potential risks. Yet it was the skin of such creatures the humans sought, as
their dead and dry lined up in their shops in all different colours, ready to be made
into belts and handbags. 
She had many lives as a fly, every single one short and unassuming. She was eaten by
frogs, drowned in the river and sometimes squashed by cows who swayed their tails.
She'd cramp where things were rotten and decaying, the last wailing of the dead as
they were dragged back into the Cycle of Reincarnation to begin another turn of life.
There were always so many of them, they'd gather together in tens of thousands and
discuss their dreams. "I'd want to fly to see where the Earth Patron had fixed the sky,"
one would say, even though their small wings had not been able to fight against a
single sneeze. "I bet the stones are shining even after millenia of use." 
"Don't be stupid," she'd replied impatiently as a fly. "The stones are part of the sky.
It's like this piece of garbage we're surrounding, nothing more than a necessity that
functions as part of the universe."
All the other flies had looked at her oddly and stayed away from her a bit further
away. She'd rolled her eyes. Speaking in terms like these often could get you
ostracised by creatures large and small. No one wanted to be reminded of their own
mortality, no matter how little their lives mean to the grander scheme of things, no
matter how much they were told they'd come back again and again as was designated
by the Laws of Reincarnation. Creatures struggle to survive every minute of every
day, based on nothing but the instinct of having to stay. It was laughable and arrogant,
to think one's existence serves a purpose to the larger world as a whole. They were all
nothing but a tiny piece of mud being ripped apart in the River of Life, stuffed into
different shapes until they found some contentment in themselves so they could reach
Nirvana. 
She didn't mind being a fly, even though it was a tedious existence. If the humans
didn't come along and slaughter each other in droves. She'd see her fly community
grow in size and proportion, as the food source grew. Men in different shades of
green, trying to blend in with the jungle and earth that surrounded them. Men whose
hands were stained red and whose scarlet inners were spilled in return before they
turned back into dust. Dust to dust, dirt to dirt. That's what the humans say on her
earth, because that's all they come to know. The humans who send their children away
to die in fighting for stuff they'd never get to keep. The dying murmurs of souls
speaking of their parents, lovers or children. Millions and billions of them lying on top
of each other, in graves unmarked or on fields no one had tread since. So very
predictable, war was a chore humans went through every other decade, more
uneventful than a fly's life. 
She'd side eye them disapprovingly as she swallowed their remains. 
The Creation Goddess Nǚ wā has only ever been a human once upon a time, in the
very beginning when she till played with toys made from Earth. 
There was a time she was nothing but a girl. 
There were legends of how she was born, but they were nonsense as she didn't even
remember her own parents. She had a best friend and a brother. They were lost
children of a different world, stumbling upon the lands that yet lay unclaimed as the
prize of any man. The mountains she'd witness in the distance as a tree, the trees she'd
lay on lazily as a snake and the fields where she'd eaten corpses as a fly. None of them
were corrupted by the existence of human beings. 
The human scholars of modern age would argue that The Creation Goddess Nǚ wā
was never a goddess to begin with, they'd say that she was just a merely human tribal
leader of the ancient times when women still held the mantle of lineages. They'd be
half-right. 
The Creation Goddess Nǚ wā was once a human girl, as clumsy and fearless as the rest
of them. She, Shen-nong and Fu-xi had been escaping a gigantic flood. As you see,
the ancient times are the times of nature, nature meant change and disruption and
never-ending horror. However, it was only as nature was meant to be. The
temperment of a beast that was untamed and uncaged. 
"We should stop running," Shen-nong said, her best friend was fascinated by the
flowers of spring that he almost drowned because he tried to eat a mushroom that was
poisonous red. "The plants here are rife and plentiful; if we set our roots here, we'd
grow as the soil is steady and filled with gifts."
"No, we should continue." Fu-xi, her brother who wanted to scourge every last piece
of the world until he reached the edge. "Only when we had conquered everything that
could be seen by our eyes, could we truly be safe."
"You're both idiots," she had said to them as she rested under a tree with a massive
shade and closed her eyes, feeling the sun dripping on her forehead. "No matter where
we go or where we settle, we'd forever be alone if we don't create some of our own.
An existence without people like us, can you imagine that? Just the three of us is less
than nothing at all. I can't be stuck with you guys for eternity."
"Fine, you came up with a better idea." Fu-xi kicked a rock towards her. 
"What do you suggest?" Shen-nong asked her, eyes filled with curiosity and
possibility. 
"Hmmm," she thought with her face turning towards the sky. The white clouds began
to gather and water droplets rained down like a piece of sky was threatening to crush
them. They all stopped to argue and looked at each other. "I think I have an
inspiration."
Fu-xi and Shen-nong blinked at her with equal fascination and dread, as she gathered
a handful of the soil that would one day host the thousand types of herbs Shen-nong
would taste and span across the thousand acres of land Fu-xi would explore. 
She cupped the dirt in her hand gently, as soft as a whisper and as quiet as a promise.
The rain melted into the dry land and gave it properties of water. She played with it a
couple of times, trying to envision herself, her best friend and her brother. The
curiosity of Shen-nong, the spirit of Fu-xi and the heart of her own. A statue that
would be all of their best qualities. An art piece. An experiment. 
"There you go," after an eternity, she held up her creation with the proud smile of a
mother and the naivety of a young girl. "Aren't they beautiful?"
The first humans of Hua Xia. The mould that all of them will take after. She could
still see it in every single face of theirs. The dark eyebrows and hair with the deep
colour of soil after the rain and the sleekness of waterfalls. The shape that came from
willow trees. The moist smell of life and opportunities. 
Humans would come up with so many justifications for their foolish tendencies,
claiming she had created the first humans with pale porcelain features and smooth
carvings as marbles. There were no crafting tools or pure white porcelain at the
beginning of the world, there was only the unchangeable Earth with its unchartable
soil. The nobility of the Middle Kingdom for millenia to come would like to believe
they were different from their own, so they say they were hand-selected by her, that
the ones further down the human hierarchy came from the whip of her rod once she
got bored making so many of them. 
That was ridiculous, of course, she put thought into every one of her figurines.
However, they were all made of dust and dirt. Insignificant and inpermanent, doomed
to fall apart as the land dried off.
"That was so very sad," Shen-nong would lament when she told them of her creation.
"Don't you want them to stay a bit longer? Maybe incorporate some of the herbs into
your design to mend their surface, and others could crack them further."
"What's the point of them not last?" Fu-xi pouted. "At least some of them should be
special, the ones who do not need to remain here. Maybe you can make them fly?"
"This isn't a group project," she'd wave her hand but secretly take note of those ideas.
"They are mine. They come from my hand and will return to me. Whatever tricks you
want to put in them are your business, but wait until I have enough of them so I don't
feel alone anymore." 
"Sure." Shen-nong and Fu-xi said. Both of them were assholes, as they'd tempered
with her children afterwards. Shen-nong who made medicine that determined the
time-span of life and death, Fu-xi who gave them invisible aspects that could ascend
to godhood if given they achieved something extraordinary. 
She should have stopped them. Manoeuvring those things into creation who came
from dust and dirt was the worst idea ever. The figurines wanted to prolong their
existence by exploring the Earth's every hair and string, regardless of what they
desecrated in the process. They try to one-up each other, wage wars and build shrines
dedicated to every other human who slightly killed more of each other, all in the
hopes that they would one day be remembered as the gods themselves. 
They thought they'd become immortal by keeping dust and dirt together like Shen-
Nong wanted, or have their names being spoken by generations to come in the hope of
godhood like Fu-xi promised. Hence the Cycle of Reincarnation was created, due to
the never ending hope and wish of dirt and dust wanting to remain on earth a little bit
longer. 
The origin of all the pain and suffering was because they just wanted more. She would
know, she created them. 
The humans declared the three of them as the Patrons of Hua Xia, the Founding
Emperors, the Potencies of craft. Slowly, Shen-nong, Fu-xi and her drifted apart, they
became three different concepts that kept the world running instead of actual beings,
let alone humans. 
They ascended, a human would say, but did they really? All she remembered of her
best friend and brother was that after a fall-out, they carved between themselves the
three Realms that were no longer even their own as more humans got shrines and
became gods. Fu-xi took the sky, the Heavenly realm where he resided as the true
supremacy even as the Heavenly court of the Jade Emperor took over the actual
function. In her brother's realm, a day is the length of a human year. The only
resemblance he kept as her brother from the same blood was their aspect of having
replaced their lower torso with ones of snakes, the humans like to put them together as
a couple as if playing matchmaking in stories - it would never happen, she really
wasn't into her brother that way despite how little humans cared. 
Shen-nong, her best friend, on the other hand, had grown so attached to humans, he
dedicated his whole being into helping them. That being swallowed so much poison
for humans in order to discern what could be used as medicine, it was almost fitting
he had taken an ox head because of it, because it surely was scatter brain behaviour.
He occupied the domain of the humans, the Patron of Humanity. 
They both would like to say they knew what humans are like, despite neither of them
having created the figurines themselves. She was left alone, the Patron of Earth, she
existed with the trees, the snakes and the flies. The Mother Goddess who mend what
was broken, even if it was the sky. The story the humans tell each other the most was
the one of her stopping the flood by using pieces of colourful stone to fill the holes, all
to keep humanity safe. 
For her effort, she was repaid with cruelty and callousness. The humans trample over
their own very being, they loosen the soil they came from until they used up all of
Shen-nong's herbs, they desolate the sky Fu-yi was in until there were no more clouds
to form rain. 
They buried plastic bags and waste into her belly and hair. They cut open her skin and
destroy the sinew of her protruding bones that gave them oxygen. They put each other
into her mouth with screams of the dead unending. Nothing could stop them. 
The destiny of dust and dirt was nothing but dust and dirt. They were nothing to begin
with and they are so determined to reduce each other into nothingness. 
She used to cry so much, her wails could be heard by all the hungry ghosts and gods
in the mountains. Until one day even her arrogant and estranged brother couldn't bear
to watch. 
"Would you like to take a break in the Cycle of Reincarnation?" Fu-yi asked with
uncommon sincerity and concern. "Might do you some good."
"Okay," she sighed as she watched her creations rolling through the Cycle of
Reincarnations like waves of autumn breeze. "Maybe if I stayed long enough, they'd
become different."
They never did. She had been in the Cycle of Reincarnation for thousands of years.
Humans did not change at all. Cycle after cycle, she watched in agony as they
repeated the destiny of dust and dirt. Floating and unsettled, forever caught in the loop
of their own making.
Nǚ wā 's children are nothing but dust and dirt.

THE FIVE FORTUNES by Leah Bartleson

It was a windless day of cloud and rain when the mute girl Milaka began to notice
things. 
She lived alone, on the outside of the village circle where only the noise of the wind,
when it blew, could be heard. It was the side where, rumor had it in her village, the
winds of change blew.
That day, a day of grayness and cheerless chill, Milaka had left her stool and her
quiet, lonely meal, and had gone to stand by the open window. For two days she had
not moved.
Her sisters, Darva and Kaleena, were beginning to worry.
“Milaka,” they said on the morning of the second day, at the time they always came
by to  visit. “Come sit with us and eat some of this good warm bread. It is new and
fresh--the first bread of the week!”
But their smiles faded when Milaka remained motionless, because it seemed as
though their sister had turned deaf as well as mute. At last her sisters left.
By noon of the third day, the clouds and the cold remained unabated, and neither had
Milaka moved from her stool. That day a small wind came through the window and
seemed to awaken the girl from her trance.
She shuddered and put her hand to her mouth. Turning about suddenly, she pulled in
her skirt and sat on her stool before the loom. 
In a basket at her feet Milaka kept an assortment of colored threads for her weaving,
all dyed by her own hand, and all as beautiful and bright as the colors of day. Now
Milaka took the blue thread, which was pure as water and rich as honey, and she set to
weaving the first tapestry.
First she wove a bright blue sky, broad and generous. It was a sky more convincing
than the real thing, so deeply, beautifully blue that a person might imagine no cloud
had ever dared to blemish it. When her sisters came in the next morning bearing a
bowl of porridge for her morning meal, they were delighted to see her busy. They saw
her weaving, and unfinished though it was, they set the bowl on the table and ran to
look at it.
“Oh, Milaka,” they gushed. “You have learned to weave the true color of the sky!
How do you make it so beautiful? Tell us, sister!” But they might as well have been
moths in the room, for all the notice Milaka paid them. She wove on, swiftly as ever,
like a miniature thunderstorm in the tiny room. Before long her sisters grew bored,
and slightly irritated at being thus ignored, they left.
For the next two weeks Milaka wove. She ate next to nothing, drinking only a little,
and slept only when she could keep her eyes open no longer. Her sisters learned not to
speak to her, for she no longer offered any kind of response.
On her loom Milaka wove a hill, a healthy apple green against the crystal clearness of
sky. White doves she added to the sky, flying up and away in beautiful grace. Their
beaks she made short and black, and each eye shone in a brightness more alive even
than the eyes of real doves. Last, she wove a border of gray, upon which twisted the
dark green leaves of a plant; three leaves on each stem, and each shaped like a sickle.
The first weaving was completed when the moon was at its peak on the fourteenth
night. Milaka took a wooden post, buried it in the ground outside her house, and hung
the tapestry there in the sight of all before returning inside. Promptly Milaka laid
herself down in her bed, and fell exhaustedly into the arms of sleep.
At noon time the next day, she awoke. It was a moment before Milaka realized the
entire village was crowded outside and inside of her house. All were talking loudly
and shuffling for space to stand in her tiny room, and all were discussing her tapestry.
Immediately Milaka was on her feet. She pushed her way through the crowd of
chattering villagers until she was out the door at the place where her tapestry stood
hanging. 
“How wondrous!” Milaka heard people saying. “I believe this is the very hill upon
which our village sits. The houses are gone; it is empty, yet all the more lovely for
that! And the birds flying into the sky--how exquisite! Yet all tapestries tell a story; I
wonder what it could mean.” 
Milaka’s sisters were gathered on either side of it, talking excitedly and raising their
voices over the babble like twin auctioneers. Milaka put out her thin white arm to
touch Kaleena, engaged in rapid conversation, on the shoulder.
“Just a minute, wait your turn like everyone else!” her sister called over her shoulder.
Then she saw it was Milaka.
“Oh, sister!” She turned about at once, a grin spreading across her rosy cheeks, and
clasped Milaka’s hands in both of hers. 
“You will not believe what the people are saying! Where, oh where did you learn to
weave like that? The whole village has come! They are saying it is good enough for
the lord’s hall! Listen: the mayor himself has just been to see and place his bid. Eight
thousand rubles, he said! We accepted at once, of course, and now everyone in the
village--” 
Milaka’s mouth dropped open in surprise. She shook her head violently at Kaleena
and gestured that the tapestry was to stay here. Kaleena was astonished. “You do not
want to sell? Milaka, you must think--” Milaka stood miserably for a minute, wishing
fervently for a tongue with which to tell the people why they must not take the
tapestry away, why they must only look and what they must know. The tapestry was
not meant to be a beautiful thing! Her sisters tried to tempt her with descriptions of
riches, but Milaka was adamant, and at last her sisters sent the people home.
When the house was finally empty, her sisters implored her of why she was so upset,
but Milaka would not have them in her house either, and with a will exceeding her
size she drove them out as well.
Milaka straightened her stool and collapsed on it. Her dirt floor was scuffed and loose
and the air was dusty, and her furniture had been shoved against the walls. Milaka
took the tapestry and unfolded it before her. She gazed at it long and sorrowfully, and
after a time went out and hung it back on its post. The tapestry was insufficient. None
knew her message. She drew up the stool once more and set to weaving the second
tapestry. 
It was very much like the first, except this time the sky was empty, and upon the hill
there sat a circle of houses. Small and fine in the center of the circle grew a small dark
sapling--leafed with the same sickle fronds that had grown around the border of the
first tapestry. Equally fine was the farmer who stood beside the plant, holding out a
bowl. Inside the bowl lay a leaf. The tapestry was hung beside the first. 
Again, the villagers came to see. Again, they begged to buy it, and again, Milaka
shook her head.
“What skill! What fine stitches!” cried the mayor’s wife. “I can clearly make out our
village on our hill. It is as though one might reach out and touch the wood of the
houses, feel the grass beneath their fingers! And yet all the detail lies in this one small
farmer in the center, standing before this odd plant. I wonder what it means! But it is a
mystery, I suppose, and that is a pity, for the weaver is mute.”
Later, after all the people had left once more, Kaleena and Darva were left alone with
their sister in front of the tapestries. They were growing weary of turning away
villager after villager, purse after purse.
“What is the use of displaying them in the sun and the rain where they will soon be
ruined, when you could sell them and be famous?” her sisters demanded. Milaka
shook her head in  frustration, gesturing wildly. Her sisters exchanged glances. “We
will leave you to rest,” Kaleena sighed, and they left.
The next day, a cry of wonder went up from the village center. A dark green sapling
had grown up in the night, and upon its branches grew the strange sickle-shaped
leaves. The villagers gathered around it, chattering about Milaka’s weaving which
resembled it exactly.
“Could it be that we have an oracle in our village?” gasped a young woman.
They wondered at the plant and admired it for many days, but when any villager came
to ask Milaka’s sisters about the meaning of the tapestries, they could say nothing, for
they were just as clueless. Milaka remained silent, as always, and inside her house she
had already begun a third.
Now Milaka wove a forest of the sickle trees. She stitched tiny people moving to and
fro among the village houses, carrying baskets and armfuls of leaves. Children sat
happily in the crooks of the trees, passing down branches to the people below. Sitting
on the ground, more people crushed the leaves with mortar and pestle. A fine yellow
powder rose up from the bowls and became the tapestry’s border.
“If it is indeed true that the weaver tells the future,” said a man peering closely at this
tapestry, “It seems that our village will soon be filled with these plants!”
And sure enough, in the days following, the single sickle tree in the village center
unfurled into a forest. A spicy, sweet smell wafted from the leaves and drew the
villagers outside. It was not long before the boldest villagers tried the leaves in tea.
They drank as their fellows watched, and their faces lit up in wonder at the taste.
“Why, I feel as light as the wind!” one drinker exclaimed.
“The colors are so bright! The sun is so warm!” cried another.
“It is as though I am a child once more!” they all agreed. And the villagers became
like children, greedily pulling leaves into their bowls to make into tea or grinding
them into fine powder for eating. They did not forget the one who had foretold it,
though, and soon they were crowded with gifts and money at Milaka's door. They
begged her to predict their fates and wheedled for the secrets of her powers.
But Milaka shook her head at their words of praise and pushed away the handfuls of
coins. She looked beseechingly into the eyes of each, trying to express what she
would never be able to say. But of course, the villagers did not understand. 
When the villagers had left, Milaka’s sisters came running ruddy-cheeked to her
house, each bearing a double handful of the leaves. They tugged at her arms and
called for her to come join them, but Milaka swatted the clusters out of their hands
into the dirt. Her sisters eyed her in annoyance and left.
The fourth tapestry was almost finished.
Now the woven forest had grown such that it almost concealed the hill’s bright green,
and nearly obscured the sky. Now children ran, plump-faced and smiling and each
holding a sprig of sickle leaves. The villagers sat outside their houses with bowls full
of yellow powder, and spoons in their hands. Their cheeks bulged with it, and they
smiled like infants. In the border, around it all, were hands passing leaves into hands.
The villagers said, “It seems we will soon have even more leaves of the sickle trees!
All praise Milaka!” 
As the villagers smiled among each other and bowed to her in thanks, Milaka almost
despaired. Were the people merely blind, or was she herself merely stupid? On her
stool before the loom, all alone in her room, she wondered what she was doing wrong.
She let out a long, weary sigh, a meer hiss of air in her throat, and set to weaving the
fifth tapestry.
This time she wove the border first. With black thread she wove branches around the
entirety of the tapestry. With white thread, she wove doves perched on the branches.
Next, she took her small ball of red thread, and seeing the color was dull and faded,
she set the ball on the ground and took up in her right hand a needle. This needle she
put the faded thread through, and then holding up her left hand, Milaka pierced her
own thumb so the blood dripped forth. She pulled the needle through, and where the
thread entered the thumb dully russet, it came out a glistening, scarlet red. Now
Milaka wove with it upon the white breasts of the doves.
Milaka locked the door behind them. The birds were not beautiful. She was not
finished with her weaving. 
Now she wove the same image as before, of the village on the hill in the forest of
sickle trees, except this time the people were not smiling happily. They were grinning
twisted grins, mouths stretched exquisitely like cruel gashes or melted wax. Their
heads were bent back upon their necks and their limbs were contorted in the way of
spider legs. Like bubbles in a boiling pot, their eyes bulged from the skulls, and like
curled claws their hands beseeched the heavens.
This was what the leaves were doing to them. This was what would happen if they did
not heed Milaka’s warning.
From their mouths gushed red. It spilled down their fronts and stained their throats. It
splattered in the air before them and made mud of the earth beneath them. Mixed like
soup on the forest floor were hundreds of sickle-shaped leaves, and hovering in the air
above their heads was a fine yellow smoke.
This was what the leaves were doing to them.
It was the end of the tenth week since the day the wind of change had come to Milaka
by her window. Five tapestries were now finished, and all hung on wooden posts side
by side just out her door. Milaka put away her threads and drank a little water, and
laid on her bed to await the morning.
Milaka’s sisters came as they always did, with a tray of food for her. 
As always, their eyes went eagerly to her loom, but this time they screamed and flung
the dishes into the air, and fled.
It was not long before the villagers arrived, pushing and shoving to be first to see the
new creation, but at the sight of it they yelled and leaped back.
“A monstrosity!” wailed a woman.
“She’s mad!” bellowed a man.
“It is a thing of evil! Take it away!” yelled all the people. Then the very villagers who
had vied to be first to praise Milaka for her talent, now rushed to rip her work from
the posts.
In horror Milaka sprang from her bed and raced out the door, but the people had
already marched far away, shouting angrily and hoisting the tapestries high over their
heads. They pooled in the village center and set to building a pyre. 
Milaka, running as fast as her weak legs could bear her, opened her mouth to scream.
Only a rush of air came out, feeble as wind through a hollow reed. She ran straight
into the crowd, pushing between the people, hammering her fists on backs. A few
people noticed her. 
“She’s mad!” they yelled, and at once a man seized her by the arms. 
“Light the fire!” roared the mayor, and with a whoosh and a crack the pyre rose high
in flames. 
“Bring out the powder!” someone yelled, and soon a bowl full of the stuff was in
every villager’s hands. The villagers ate where they stood.
One by one each tapestry was cast on the pyre. The people roared in delight. They
brought out more sickle-leaf powder and ate greedily with joy. They danced like
savages and paraded around the fire. The soot stained hollows into their cheeks and
turned their eyes into shadows. The smoke made Milaka choke and cough. 
Suddenly the strong arms holding Milaka went slack. There was a great thump as the
man fell to the ground, but none of the villagers took any notice.
The man writhed on the ground. He twisted in the dirt and curled into an infantile ball.
His eyes bulged and his hands curled. Then his head flipped back and his mouth
spurted forth a jet of scarlet.
No one noticed. But some of the man’s blood had found its way into the fire, and it
hissed like a wild creature. The villagers nearby ceased dancing in surprise, before
they, too, doubled over. 
Now all the people screamed in horror. They dropped their bowls and tried to run, but
before they made it a few steps they fell coughing, vomiting blood.
The fire sputtered and crackled with it. The ground turned to mud with it. The people
turned mad and fought each other. They grinned twisted grins, mouths stretched
exquisitely like cruel gashes or melted wax. Their heads bent back upon their necks
and their limbs contorted in the way of spider legs. Like bubbles in a boiling pot, their
eyes bulged from the skulls, and like curled claws their hands beseeched the heavens.
This was what the leaves had done to them. 
From their mouths gushed red. It spilled down their fronts and stained their throats. It
splattered in the air before them and made mud of the earth beneath them. Mixed like
soup on the forest floor were hundreds of sickle-shaped leaves, and hovering in the air
above their heads was a fine yellow smoke.
 FIGHTING THE COLD by Arun Budhathoki

          This village makes me sick. After the earthquake in April I am moved by utter
destruction and pain. I lost my beloved wife and five-year-old son. It is cold today and I have
no idea how long it will take for the concerned authorities to reach us with warm clothing
and build earthquake-resistant homes for us.
 
The sun too hides behind the foggy weather. I stand on a high hill—green everywhere, but
my mind is black. This valley used to be beautiful but not any more. Most houses have been
ravaged. I shudder and get the vibes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two elderly people had
told the villagers, say about twenty years ago, about the coming disaster. No one took it
seriously as they were mere drunkards. Now it has come true.
 
I am hungry but I am not sure what it means to eat full any more. Have you ever lived in a
tent? I never did but had seen foreigners coming to our village and live inside tents in the
same place. We have become foreigners to our own place. We have become strangers to
our own people. We are in exile, and excluded.
 
These days I don’t even bother complaining to the city people. You know they come in
groups: wearing dhakako topi, formals and casual wears. I cannot make any particular
distinction you see. I only went to school till eighth grade. I simply couldn’t comprehend the
education system. It was too tough for me. I wonder how city people pass the Iron Gate.
How do they achieve education and then leave this beautiful country? Maybe that’s what
means to be educated. I am happy I didn’t study. I went to Qatar and worked in the labor
industry. I did earn some money and sent it home to build a house. That house, my friend,
was brought down by an indifferent earthquake. But isn’t it funny that natural disaster
spares no one? Our corrupt chief died inside his expensive house. Who would have thought
that he would die that way? No one did. Not even him.
 
I think I have become less human. I feel so desensitized these days. I try to repress
memories of my wife and son. I couldn’t cremate them you see. First, the house was
ravaged by the earthquake and then came the landslide—it swept away my home. I was
busy working in the field when it happened. I saw it happen right in front of my eyes. My
seven-year-old daughter came running and hugged me tightly. She had no words to say but
only wept bitterly. I stood stunned, tears rolling down my disbelieving eyes.
 
City people keep coming with false promises and house designs. Their smiles too are
vicious. Some of them are kind though. Few young people had come to our village last
week to distribute blankets. But other people they just come, give a speech, hand over
10,000 rupees and go away showing us maps of imaginary houses. I think I am living in an
imaginary country where you are free to imagine but dreams never come true.
 
Today is extremely cold. I don’t know why. Maybe our gods are angry. Although I see fog
covering the sun. Maybe that’s the reason. You see, I am not an educated person so I
barely understand all this science stuff. I am only concerned about my tent.
 
My tent is a small one where I live with my cute daughter. I have a radio too which was
gifted by one of the city people. I listen to the news and understand a little bit. The leaders
are doing nothing but they have got so much money. I wonder where it is all going. I wonder
why people are so greedy and evil. It’s true that people think about themselves and I have
to do the same.
 
It is a bit windy today and frosty. The ground is frost-bitten and cold is seeping through the
tent. I am covering myself and my daughter with a single blanket. We have worn our ragged
clothes and still feel the cold. Thankfully, the young people from the city gave us an extra
blanket seeing my daughter. Now I have to see where it is. It looks like it has been stolen.
Bastards. I wonder who stole it. This is madness.
 
At midnight I hear people crying. I don’t like all these melodramas and try to go back to
sleep. The crying gets stronger and I go outside. I see a family crying over a body. I go near
and see an old man has died because of cold. I feel bad and shudder. I remember my
daughter and walk towards my tent. My daughter is fast asleep. She’s my princess. I go
back to sleep as the family continues to wail.
 
It is a beautiful morning. I go outside my tent and see my daughter smiling, running and
singing. I have never seen her do that. This is a beautiful place indeed. Suddenly I see so
many people around me and it is not even cold anymore. They are so white, pure and
radiant. Where am I?
 
I turn back to look at my tent. There’s no tent and I see the old man that had died last night.
He comes near and hugs me whispering in my warm ears, “It is all well.” I do not
understand what he means. What is so well about our pathetic state? He must be a mad
man.
 
This place is beautiful. I no more see the valley. Suddenly I see my wife and son coming
towards me. My daughter comes running too. We hug each other. All of us are happy now.
A small but beautiful family. We don’t feel cold anymore. This place is too bright you know.
It smells good too. We walk towards the bright city along with the old man.
 
The city people reach Sindhupalchowk village the next day after they heard about the old
man’s demise.
 
“How did it happen?” asks one of the city people.
“Cold, what else?” replies a villager.
“Is it so? Anyone else?” asks one of the city people.
“Oh, a man and his daughter,” replies a shivering man.
“Where?”
“Don’t you see the tent over there?”
 
The city people open the tent and see the man and his daughter fast asleep, smiling.