Where Waters Meet

by Zhang Ling

He just felt her smile and voice had a texture and substance to them, wrapping him up in some sort of a glow, making breathing a task. It was a very strange feeling, reminding him of his gawky adolescent years

A silence shared by two people could be contained, but the silence of three felt as though it would explode.

Hunger teaches us skills in a day that would otherwise take us twenty years to learn.

Mother learned to adapt, over the years, to Father’s impossible habits, like water conforming itself to the contour of a twisted riverbed.

indelible

The scent of the flesh underneath his shirt sent a swoon of warmth to the base of her legs, a weird sensation she’d never experienced before and didn’t have a name for.

Just as she was about to get down from the bike, Meng Long stopped her, his attention drawn by a sound coming from inside the house. Mother was humming. Her voice, soft and tentative as it was, had drowned out, strangely, all other sounds. A wordless tune, looping round and round, like distant ocean waves, enticing but bashful. Something in that voice poked a hole in the heart.

Static, static, and more static. Rain, ocean waves, distant growl of thunder, rustling of trees, and crackling of fire, all suppressed, fuzzy, running into one another.

reticent.

What’s remembered gets a life, she read once in a book. She didn’t want to give that beast a life, but she couldn’t kill her memory either. Memory exists on its own terms and decides what life to give.

It’s just mud on your body, a good hot bath will take care of it. Change your name, move to a new place, marry a man that doesn’t ask a lot of questions, a new life, all over again.”

The door was a mere display, a lie, as the latch and padlock had been removed. Anything could intrude—ants, roaches, wind, a snake, a penis, or a ghost.

Stop thinking your bad thoughts. Bad thoughts lead to bad luck, they are the root of all the bad things.

she always harbored an unwavering faith in the panacea of a good sleep.