Bottled fireflies

Dear Ben,

I am reading Murakami by the window, patiently waiting--Naoko searching for words in space. It's one of those uneventful Sunday nights when there's nothing really good (not that there's ever anything good) on TV. I have a half full mug of milk tea beside me, courtesy of a former student who just arrived from Taiwan, and an ashtray half-filled with cigarette butts and two empty wrappers of Flat Tops. The sea, just a hundred meters or so away, is so calm and silent that it might not even have been there. The dark night, a few degrees deeper than anywhere I have been in my life, conceals it. But it is there. I can feel it with unusual clarity. It is there…always have been and always will be.

When I was ten or so, a psychic friend of my grandmother visited us and read my future. Hazy as most of my childhood experiences are, I could never seem to remember if she used cards or read my palm. What I do remember is her telling me to be wary of water. And having had a few brush ups with drowning by that time, I couldn't help but agree. Of course, I drowned a couple more times after that before I finally learned how to swim. Funny now that I realize I learned how to swim at the exact moment I learned how to let go. Or maybe it was fatalism that I learned. I could never seem to draw the line. The details no longer matter. Only this: I found myself drowning, so I flailed, gasped, fought, got tired, went still, and eventually, floated. All these in a matter of seconds nobody even realized what happened. Those few moments may have given me all there really is to learn about life.

Back to now, still reading Murakami by the window, considerably at peace--Naoko chuckled…