The Membranes

by Chi Ta-wei

It was just that maybe she was better suited to another space, another world: a misfit peach, unsatisfied with its home tree and dreaming of growing on a different tree.

Instead, she felt like she was always battling to get to some urgent destination that she couldn’t even name.

She’d rather make a poor decision for herself, acting on her own desires, than have it made by someone else.

In the end, who had the right to decide what happened to a person’s body? To their life?

Did her body belong to her or did it belong to someone else?

They were caged not because humanity cherished them, but to torture them.

Having flown free, how did she know the outside world wasn’t just another, slightly bigger cage?

she still believed that behind her melancholic mask, Mother secretly delighted in Momo’s sadness.

In hindsight, she was too young to understand. In her wildest dreams, she couldn’t have imagined the changes she’d been through.

“I don’t have a choice. Our fates are decided entirely by the wealthy, powerful people who commission us.

If you wanted to be an artist, you had to look death in the face.

Momo wanted to call her back, but found she couldn’t use her voice. So instead she drowned in silence.

“Not a chance. I don’t want her to realize the truth; I’d rather she live forever in her mind, beautiful and whole.

The bird didn’t sing, nor did it hop about; it was as though sound asleep in a dark cave of sweet dreams.

Who are you before you read the book, and who after?