Very Short Stories Concerning Parties Not Present (a series of poems written in and about Beijing)

On Coming Forth by Day

She found him in the garden, dying. He lay on the steps of his master's thoughts drawn to the extreme. With nowhere left to go, he returned home; she knew to look for him there. He didn’t see her because he couldn’t see; he didn’t feel her with his heart, either (that had died long before). The moon rose backwards that day, and the sun spun around the horizon as she peeled back the layers of years surrounding his soul until there he stood, naked before that tiny intangible thing we keep hidden in a little box beneath the altar of life, known as love. He bathed in her tears as they held each other bodily, never again separating.

Concerning the Past or What Has Been Will Not Be

When he thought about the books he called his own, that sat at his parents house collecting dust, his mind always wandered to a particular passage in a particular book hidden amongst the larger and more well known tomes in his collection. It was written by a man who spoke Aramaic in addition to Manchurian, and in it the man often reminisced of the precise physical and chemical arrangements within the cores of certain stars necessary for the creation of elements required to form proteins. His life was never quite the same after he began to forget that passage his mind once often turned to.

On Linear Continuity Excluding Actors Prostitutes and Unclean Tradesmen

It was a Sunday when the Emperor died. Later that day they named a new Emperor. On Monday, the bakers baked their bread and the fish mongers recited their wares to passersby; only the prostitutes wore a darker shade of lipstick, and the actors heavier mascara, until they too, forgot about whomever it was they were mourning.

Arrived Promptly at Dawn

After they met it always seemed that the moon was a little bit bigger on weeknights, and the red of envelopes and leaves was just slightly more vibrant after the first cold autumn wind. That same wind still tore though the Hutongs with its usual bitter vengeance and the eggs in moon cakes would always taste funny, but the bats never flew quite as high over Beijing after they had left.

It was a Tuesday when he parted from his mistress (the city, that is, lest he misrepresent himself) for the last time, leaving with that woman who would later become his wife if only he could master the aggregate of human knowledge before the next predicted apocalypse. She told him 'abracadabra' was Hebrew for 'I create what I think', and that he was (maybe is) the only thing holding himself back. It was also a Tuesday when he met life walking upon his path.

Before they grew old and died they saw the world together, they were humbled by lives carved of hardship and houses built of straw and mud. They would rest only occasionally, as they imagined a pause in life would lead to greater consequences. Curiously though, they often found solace in those most silent and still moments under the stars when the nocturnal world begins to slumber, yet while the day still sleeps.

Reflections in the Landscape

No towering skyscrapers sat glittering in the moonlight beyond their windows; only dull and gray apartment buildings like theirs littered the horizon towards the mountains. They lived on the edge of the world, as the city was their world –it was all they knew besides each other. And there it was that a life began to grow into memories; fondness faded into love, and thoughts, great and small, were born into reality.

The Last Empire

It was the early morning when they arrived at Jiangguomen, as they had gone to work quite quickly that day (for some misanthropic reason, no doubt). It always seemed to the locals that these four boys possessed a deeper, nefarious purpose; all they wanted, though, was to simply be. It was not until years later that the one of them who remained in Beijing realized that he had been lost in the culture of it all, and had forgotten what color her eyes were.

Through Geometrically Aligned Back Alleys

It is quite well known that the drink of choice purveyors of fine alcohols in Beijing wish to level upon their foreign clients is, in fact, the mojito. It is a lesser known fact that outside the city of Beijing during the mid-autumn festival there are more fireflies than in any other place in the world. And it is only known by few that the large, manhole cover like device, in the basement of a particular store near Beixinqiao subway station conceals a very ancient well, home to some antediluvian wyrm.

Epilogue

 

I have written these short poems over the course of about a year while living in this lovely city I affectionately refer to as The End of The World, for as in that dream like vision in the mind of the narrator of Hard Boiled Wonderland, I sometimes feel that this place exists only in my head. These poems represent the city of Beijing as seen through my heart, which more so than the mind can be seen to represent the 3rd eye Mr. Gautama once urged humanity to open. But even more than that, I cannot say that I see the city through my heart because I like to believe that I exist in the heart of Beijing, so it may be more fitting to say that these feelings which I have translated into words are the love children of myself and my mistress, the beautiful world capital known as Beijing. 

This series was inspired by the writings of Alex Epstein and his style of writing that he deems micro-prose which I stumbled onto quite fortuitously several years ago. His book, Blue Has No South, is a thoughtful and amazing work that I can only imagine strikes the heart much more deeply when read in the original Hebrew. Mr. Epstein's style of writing inspired me to write in a similar fashion, and what better subject matter than that place which I now call home?

My first love in this life was the written word for which I have had a great passion since childhood; it fills my heart with such purpose and love that I now have a platform with which I may share my poetry with the world. Thank you for your time, I hope that you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it. 

-Joseph