Category Archives: Creative Writing

Responsibility

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The cold wind swirled just outside the shed where I killed her. Her eyes were so blue.

Her heartbeat raced in her neck. I could feel it against my palm as I clenched her throat and steadied her thrashing. I placed a hand around her mouth, the blade against her throat.

She did not die easily.

I danced all night so I could forget, but she was waiting for me when I came home with her blue eyes and her frantic heartbeat. When the blood stopped gushing, stopped pouring, stopped dripping, she was still watching me with those eyes. They seemed to capture and reflect the endless sky she had seen every day. As long as she stared at me, I knew there was no way she could be dead.

She did not die easily.

I cried, heartbroken, into the crook of my arm. Saying “I’m sorry” wouldn’t bring her back. I tried it enough to know. She would never forgive me, nor stop accusing me with those beautiful eyes.

She did not die easily.

But when she did, we bagged and paid for her. We plucked and cooked her. Then we ate her. Her blue-eyed stare stayed with me. She would never die.

And I would never forget the day I took responsibility for what I ate.

What Naked Feels Like

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I step between the easels, watching their carefully casual gazes glide past my body. They had pointed me to a changing room, as if they weren’t going to see me nude, anyway. Beneath the clothes I change in and out of from day to day, I remain, for the most part, unchanged. No need for such a room.

I step onto the platform and suddenly I am Art, beyond vulgarity and eroticism, just lines and contours, shadows and highlights.

They can trick themselves, but I know the truth.

One girl draws me waif thin with sharp animal eyes, while a male student does for my manhood what quack medicine has promised for centuries. I almost point out the disparity in size, and then I remember that models aren’t supposed to comment. Besides, what guy wants an artist to draw him with a smaller dick for accuracy’s sake? I don’t know, and I can’t think of anyone besides myself.

Some admire, some desire, and some despise my nude body. But even nude, I’m covered in layers. Every day, I wear my “Asian” eyes, my “gymnast” physique. I wear black, black hair, the pride of my Chinese heritage. I wear flat feet and delicate hands.

Nude, I wear what others proffer. They drape me with coarse fabrics – “Asian” and “male” and “athlete” – with or without my consent. When I am nude before photographers or pencil artists, I wonder what it is they’ve clothed me in. But I will not apologize for my nudity, because what I wear when I am wearing nothing isn’t up to me.

Clothed or not, we are always nude. But I don’t know if we are ever truly naked.

I wonder what naked feels like – to be exactly what you are, with no concealing layers. I imagine that it’s a lot like being invisible. I imagine that it’s a lot like walking in a crowd on a busy day, mutually oblivious of the people around you.

I imagine that it’s a lot like wearing clothes.

The Worth of a Word

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Family comes first.

I carefully wrote down each thought, each idea, each quote. They were like little gems handed to me from ages past, from the greatest thinkers and the wisest sages.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

The little shreds of paper were like oversized fortune cookies. It was somehow disappointing that these ideas would even deign to fit on them.

 Be yourself and I promise people will enjoy it. And if they don’t, forget them.

Each one fluttered to the bottom of the bin in a different manner, some twirling like helicopter blades, others tumbling, some dropping directly while others looped in circles.

Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.

My hand was beginning to cramp up. I hadn’t written anything in a long time. Nothing by hand, anyway.

There are three choices in life: Be good, get good or give up.

I swept my arm against my shirt to soak up the sweat. The sun arched overhead, hot and humid.

Seek to understand before you seek to be understood.

When the wind picked up, it was like a giant dog panting at my back. I could feel the air, heavy with its slobber, wetting my clothes against my body.

Love is wanting others to be happy.

I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. The metal bin was filling up.

What would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow? In a month? A year? Everyone dies. Only a few truly live.

Sometimes I didn’t realize where the thoughts had come from, or how they’d affected me.

People first.

Sometimes, I didn’t remember who had said it, where I’d read it, what it even meant. Just that it was important.

Courage, originally meaning to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

Like tattered photographs of relatives I barely remembered, but photographs that made my lips turn upward in a smile nonetheless.

Who would you be, what would you do if you could not fail?

I took one final look at the words that provided guidelines for my life, words that have comforted me in times of sorrow and driven me to strive against my limits.

Ideas are worthless.

I took one final look into the bin and then lit the match.

Execution is everything.

The Things We Own

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Just as we considered moving the dresser, the lights went out. The entire house had gone black, devoid of its electrical pulse.

We carried the dresser into the kitchen and left it there. There would be no navigating the stairs with such a heavy load in the dark.

We fumbled our way around the house and found the matches, lit the candles and brought them to the far corners of the house, lines of light trailing out from the center like the explosion of a firework in slow motion. We lit up the crucial areas: the bathroom, the living room, the hallway. We settled in for a bit, expecting the lights to come back on at any minute. But they didn’t.

In the dark, it became obvious that the light of day had faded. A simple observation, but when was the last time you saw the world go from being lit with the fire of the sun at dusk to the soft black curtains of night and the gentle caress of the moon? Beyond our walls, lights, and computer monitors, we unconsciously slide into the shadow of the earth every day.

In the darkness, there was only the flickering of the candles to illuminate this or that thing, as if we’d never owned anything else beyond the small circle of light. The things we owned metamorphosed from inert possessions to ornery wildlife living in the darkness, eager to strike back at our shins and feet for years of callous, dispassionate ownership.

I was reminded of a short story I’d read years ago. With the invention of electricity and the incandescent light bulb, families everywhere had been forced to clean house in the austere illumination it provided. Perhaps we could do the opposite and just forget about the things that inhabited our home. Let them go free into the night.

My parents went to sleep. My sister and I stayed up and told stories.

We told stories about dreams, about family, about adventures. We traded – here, have this. This is what happened to me then. This is what I thought. These are my friends. These are the events that made me. This is what the future will look like. These are my stories. Take them.

We told real life stories – we were too old, too mature, our imaginations too prune-like to wring tales of pirates and skeletons and zombies from the fertile darkness. Instead, we merely took the ones we had and set them out, each one a little lightening of the spirit.

Maybe another day, during another blackout, we’ll recount the things we own.

New World Order

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I was just going to move the phone. Where it sat on the floor, in the middle of the piles of books, clothes, and other pieces of my life, just wasn’t very accessible. Ironic, because its enormous dial pad was adorned by inch by inch-and-a-quarter numbers. An elephant could use it to dial home. Somehow, I had more doubts as to the abilities of the aged demographic it was targeted toward than the elephant’s.

The problem wasn’t the phone. It was the trio of tennis balls right next to it. If I could just leap to the phone over the pile of belongings I had left on the floor my Sophomore year and not land on the tennis balls, I would be alright. Or maybe it was my Junior year, piles and piles of papers I would never look at again, stacked against the wall, that was the limiting factor. Or the two mattresses from the bunk bed I had disassembled when I was bored. They took up a good chunk of my room and they weren’t even particularly comfortable.

I had to move the phone.

So I had to move the tennis balls. And in order to clear a path to the tennis balls, I had to shift my Sophomore year out of the way, and to really clear a space, I had to get rid of Junior year, too. And while I was at it, I tossed Senior and Freshman year in the trash. My fifth year in college didn’t count – I had checked out by then. I had graduated on time, I was just bogged down by bureaucracy for a year after that.

I bumped into middle school and elementary school and found them a home with college and high school. They had swirled around, vagrant for decades, and only now could I usher all these scraps, like little puppies yipping for attention, into their respective cubby holes. I gave each a reassuring pat on the head before I bid it good night, to be cherished another day. What remained, I simply tossed out. I didn’t have time for memories that didn’t love me back. And I didn’t have time for objects that didn’t have memories associated with them.

I tore down the corkboard in a fit of pique and discovered a hole in the wall that my house uses to breathe. The picture I hung over it flaps idly with the house’s tidal exhalations.

I stood back and looked at the work I’d done. My room stood, empty and barren, like the first time I’d seen it at seven years old.

I lay down in the middle of the blank room and looked up at the ceiling. The tiles were scarred by a sabre blade. Some things, you couldn’t get rid of. You just had to clear your mind, mind your scars, and move on. After all, there was so much more left to do. So many more things, carefully chosen and carefully placed. It was the beginning. Another beginning.

It’s time to start again.

The phone would need a desk to rest on. It was a rather large phone, after all.

My First Car

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My first car was an aged Mitsubishi Galant. It was a hand-me-down from a friend who was moving away. I was at a community college and needed a cheap ride.

The deed says he sold it to me for $1, but he also bought me fried icecream at a Mexican restaurant to the tune of $4. That he essentially paid me to take his car probably should have been a warning sign.

I drove it home and discovered that it sounded like a 100HP Magic Bullet when I started the engine, it leaked oil constantly, and I could see the asphalt through the gearshift box. I was sure that it would explode into a ball of fire upon hitting 60mph, so I never took it on the highway.

But despite having to buy oil along with my gasoline, despite sliding into snowbanks on treads that weren’t worth replacing, and despite being absolutely sure I was going to die in it, I grew to love my Shitsubishi as it shuttled me through college.

My dad drove it once. “Too dangerous,” he said. So we donated it.

We murdered someone that day.

My Girl

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     Out.

     Her hand rests lightly on my back, just between my shoulder blades. My eyes, closed, wince a little tighter together. I don’t want to hear it. It’s been a long day and I’m sick of the back and forth.

     ”What do you want?”

     ”Just some of your time.”

     ”I gave that to you already.”

     She sighs. Takes her hand back and sits. I can sense that she’s getting low on patience as well.

     ”Look, are we going to figure this out?”

     Now it’s my turn to sigh. I can’t…I won’t just give up that easily. She means more to me than that. I can’t even explain what she means to me. It’s like she’s always been there, throughout the years, even though I only met her a year ago. I feel like we’ve known each other since I was little. I let her answer.

     ”We’re going to figure this out.”

     And yet, my sullen silence says that we are so different. She rises, puts her arms around my shoulders. I shrug her off spitefully, one shoulder at a time. But I can’t help leaning backward into her. It would have been imperceptible to anyone but her. She leans forward into me, balancing me, shifting me back on my feet from my heels, and wraps her hands around my waist, clasping them together at my navel. I tilt my head back so that we’re cheek to cheek, our eyes closed. I breathe-

     In.

     I blink, staring at myself alone in my reflection while the other dancers stare intently at the instructor.

     Sundays are like this.

Victory…over my apartment

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I just won an entrenched battle against Apartment 21.

     The war began long ago in the annals of history, but the final, decisive battle started last night at 9pm and only just ended.

Last Night – The Cleanup

This was actually after I'd done some extensive cleaning

     I came back to an apartment literally filled with trash. Not even the trash that had been in the garbage can had been thrown out. My roommates had all moved out and I was left with personal items left in the bedrooms and in the bathrooms, trash everywhere, and a full refrigerator.

     Just to be sure – I’m not blaming anyone. I am a little bit angry, but it’s fading. If I wasn’t the last one to go, I wouldn’t have known what my roommates did or did not want to keep, so I would have been more hesitant to throw things out. I furthermore might have left some stuff just in case my roommates wanted to keep some of it, and my friends and neighbors who helped me out actually did want to keep some of it, so that was a bonus. All I’m saying is that after a long, tiring drive, the last thing I wanted to do was clean until the wee hours of the morning.

     I got back at about 9:30 and started bagging and trashing. My neighbors, Fong, Jeff, Ying Ying, and Victor caught me throwing stuff out and asked if I could help them move. In turn, they helped me throw stuff out and scavenged whatever they wanted. I helped them move at 12ish. I ended up getting back to work on my own apartment stuff around 1am. Then the rest of the time I spent organizing what I was going to keep and what I was going to donate to Goodwill and loading it into my car. This included emptying the fridge and the freezer.

     By the time I was done, I was dizzy with exhaustion and I was making mistakes. I forced myself to keep going instead of sleeping. I thought I loaded everything I needed, and then I dropped the time sensitive frozen goods off at DK’s apartment, where I will be staying until the end of summer and from where I am typing this post right now. I was so intent on “finishing this fight” (cue Halo music) that I bought envelopes from Shnuck’s to drop off my key in.

Ah, the folly of hubris

     When I finally got back to DK’s apartment, I couldn’t sleep and kept getting up to do things. I remembered then that I had forgotten the food and fruit that my mom had packed me from the suburbs. I had locked myself out. So I called CPM emergency and got a number for the locksmith, who didn’t pick up. I figured I’d call them in the morning. But for some reason, I had forgotten the biggest thing.

The Big “Oops”

     The entire reason I am staying at DK’s place instead of practicing living in my car is because I have an important charge. I’m keeping Alfred, Lord Tennyson, my betta fish, in good hands until I can discharge him to my Korean TASC daughter, Cody (I just realized how strange that sounds).

     Anyway, I woke up in the morning at 9am and called the locksmith company again to find out how I could get in, and was informed that there would be a charge of $50 to get back into my apartment. At first, I dismissed it. I wasn’t going to pay $50 to get some blueberries out of the fridge and turn the outside light off. Then I realized. I’d been in such a rush taking care of the rest of the apartment that I’d forgotten my betta fish, Lord Tennyson, in my room, and the cleaning people probably wouldn’t take too kindly to his presence.

     I quickly called the locksmith back and agreed to meet them at 12:30 to get Tennyson out. Then I waited with DK for the Comcast guy to set up cable at his new place, ate brunch at Einstein Bagels with him, then went to donate stuff to goodwill. I figured I might be able to get into the apartment myself, so I grabbed a wire coat hanger in hopes of lifting up the plank of wood blocking the porch door.

Good thing I brought the coat hanger.

     Because it was useless.

     When I got back to my CPM apartment, I climbed the balcony to my 2nd floor porch, hoping nobody would call the cops. I tried to jimmy the wire between the sliding doors to get to the plank. Then I realized that the door that wasn’t blocked by the plank was jiggling. I planted my hands against the glass and pushed. Sure enough, the door just slid right open. The trust I’d had in that plank of wood all year long was instantly betrayed. Still, I managed to get in, called the locksmith back and told him I wouldn’t be needing him anymore. I emptied out my apartment for the last time, taking my fish and refrigerated goods, and here I am.

Great! Just enough time to head back to Chicago

     …and get there in time for dinner. Damn, my life sucks. I forgot a box and my passport in the suburbs. This term has never been this apropos…

     FML.

Nightmare Storm

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I gripped the wheel, leaning forward slightly, as if doing so would part the rain in front of me. Every once in a while my fingers would go numb and I would shake them to restore the sensation in my digits. My grip was cutting off blood flow. If I could see my knuckles, they would probably live up to the old adage “white-knuckled.”

Not that I could see much of anything.

It was raining hard, harder than anything I’d ever driven in, and more unrelenting. It had started out as just a downpour, but as I proceeded further and further into the heart of the beast, it became something else. A malevolent god, demons screaming and hammering themselves against my car, pounding to be let in, pleading to blind me and freeze me, the sting of rain and hail at the speed of gale force winds.

And still, I tore a path through the storm and across the highway, ripping a path through water and elemental fury at a stupefying (and stupid) 80mph.

The tachometer hovered there, sometimes falling dejectedly down to 70mph as I slowed, panicking over total loss of sight. The truck in front of me was spraying water in quantities that would have filled the car instantly without the windshield. I took a shallow breath and pushed down hard on the gas, revving back up to 80 and pushing through the solid wall of water.

For a second that lasts for what seems like minutes, I can’t see anything. I can’t even hear anything. My car is, for all intents and purposes, completely submerged in water.

The guide lights on the sides of the truck become visible through some miracle, and I jerk away from the truck slightly, having somehow drifted dangerously close. Again, the submersion, but there’s hope ahead, less actual visible signs and more like the reasoning part of my mind telling me that it has to end with the front of the truck. I pull ahead, outside the truck’s wind tunnel, and into just rain. It’s “just” a rain that obscures everything past 20 feet in front of me, but at least it’s just rain.

I feel myself start to breathe again, and my eyes dart to the next pair of rear lights in front of me. I’m driving almost blind, 15mph past the speed limit on normal days, god’s fury raging around me. I’m coming up fast.

There is no one going as fast as I am.

Part of me mourns the waste. Part of me wants to stop, pull over, stand soaking in the downpour and scream in defiance. Part of me wants to take it down a notch, to about 60mph and be one of the cars left in the wake of the trucks, massive whales on a highway lost in the ocean. But part of me has decided. It has decided on 80mph. The rest of me screams silently as I lose the road.

I relax, and it is very sudden. My brain scrambles furiously to pick out the yellow outer line and the white inner line delineating the lanes, but the white inner lane has reflector plates, so I make it easier by driving directly on top of those, in the middle of the street.

I’m coming up to another truck, but it is different this time. This time, the truck is in my lane, in the left lane. It’s passing a passenger car. In this bizarro highway, it is the trucks that move to overtake cars. Whether by dint of the trucker’s experience, the size of the vehicle, or the vantage point of the driver, trucks move effortlessly through the maelstrom. But this one is still not fast enough to outpace me.

Suddenly, the truck is right in front of me. I brake hard, unsure of where the truck is before me. My depth perception is fooled again and again by the blinding flashes of lightning and the obscurity of the water. But so close to the truck, I enter a dead zone. Winds pass right over the truck and over my car, taking the rain with it. Noise drops to a minimum, muffled not by water this time, but by air. Twin sprays of water ejecting from either side of the truck blind me to anything but the truck in front of me. It’s a safe haven, a bit of peace and quiet moving at 70mph behind a behemoth of steel. The little lights on the rear guide me, tell me where to steer to stay inside this place of quietude. The truck signals and lane-changes to the right and I follow, mesmerized.

I shake my head, signal, and swerve back into the strangely silent mist behind this truck. It is a FedEx truck. They are the worst. They are twice as long as other trucks, towing two shipping containers, and have two waves of backspray. But the spray is silent, diffused, unlike other trucks. Takes up more visual space. The overly active part of my mind jibbering in the corner wonders if the diffusion is a sign of aerodynamic efficiency. The rest of me focuses on surviving the maneuver as I pass the truck, again essentially blind.

Three miles, I tell myself. When I’m three mile markers from my exit, I will slow to 60mph.

Why not now?

I pass a giant yellow Hummer, a single spot of color in a monochrome world speeding past me. Lightning flashes, but adds no color. Water splashes, but only blurs. My eyes fixate on the next set of lights and the next.

I reach mile marker 240 and I slow down. Suddenly, everything is clear and simple. The rain is just rain. I can see everything. The car makes contented sounds. I can enjoy watching the storm and the lightning, now so clearly outside my car.

I breathe easy for a mile. And then I begin to feel that something is missing. I eye the mile markers, then the tachometer, calculating roughly how long it will take me.

The storm peals off another round of lightning in the distance, lighting up the sky, and then, just to see if the nightmare was real, I begin to accelerate again.