A Single Swallow

by Zhang Ling

But your fire was different than the others’. It wasn’t the type that would warm others.

War is one world, and peace another. Each world has its own door, and they are not connected in any way.

The river was higher that day, filled with our tears.

“God and the bodhisattvas are useless,” she said. “They only control good people, not bad people.”

We weren’t brought together by one love, but by one hate. Was hate a stronger bond than love, or weaker?

The fear of war had passed, and the responsibilities of peacetime had not yet arrived.

The memory of flesh and brain is soft, worthless, and unreliable.

The memory of the bone reaches all the way to the grave.