Roya Liu

• I am Trapped in a Raindrop

• New Year's Time

• A Balloon

• The Glass and the Mirror

• To the Greenland

paintings by Paul Klee

PROSE POETRY

• Dreams of Folding Paper

• Sick Baby

• A Doll and a Robot

Dream of Folding Paper

Jing Jing had never traveled far, but she always dreamed of drifting.After waking up from her dreams, Jing Jing was always folding paper, folding one dream after another.By chance, in dream after dream of faraway places, Jing Jing couldn’t know where it went, where it was going.The destination in the dream falls away in the minute before waking, becoming blurred at the moment of awakening. The figure seen in the dream, upon a closer look, remains distant, with only the view of a blurry double image seen through tears. The overflowing images resemble those in a bus window on a rainy day, where the outside world is suspended. It is also like tears dropped on a sheet of paper, causing the words to blur and spread, creating layers of rippling black vortex. Only with this is the letter complete.Jing folds train carriages. She didn’t know how many carriages to fold before she would catch up with the one in her dream where the story was about to unfold; or if she could only keep lengthening the train, just as the passenger in her dream prayed that the locomotive would never stop. Jing wanted to fold a train long enough to last longer than the dream's prayer, and stretch out longer than the dream's silence. The paper train stands on the desk, rain dripping from the roof outside the window. The train in the dreams seems to drive on forever. The person in the dream is leaning on the window seat, arriving at some definite future in the carriage.Sometimes folding a boat. Jing Jing regrets not being able to fold a ship; the two in the dream walk by the seaside, looking back now and then at the footprints on the beach. When they reach the Swinging Bell, they separate, walking in opposite directions without looking back at the footprints again. Neither rings the bell, although they have both heard that ringing the bell can make a wish. They missed a boat that traveled far before they saw the big Swinging Bell. How long can a small paper boat float on the water in a fishbowl? Why is the ocean in the dream not as blue as imagined and the beach far from the golden color that symbolizes eternity?Sometimes folding a bridge. Through the bus window, the person in the dream gazes toward the bridge as it was captured in old photos. And, standing on the bridge, she sees someone waving to her and running toward her. She is anxious, trying to tell him to stop, as if she expects that as soon as he runs, the bridge will dissolve into the water and become a curved reflection, a shadow close to the moon.Sometimes folding a paper fortune teller. The person in the dream plays the game, “West, 13 counts,” “East, 27.” ... The person wakes up and forgets who the person on the other side was. The paper fortune teller folded by Jing Jing, leaving the four directions on the white. There is a radio in the dream, squeaking and singing, “plant two crêpe myrtles, pour three bowls of millet wine, open four Penglai cottages.”Sometimes folding a paper cup telephone. The person in the dream, reaching the edge of the cliff, shouts into the valley, not hearing the slightest echo. Except for the sound of the wind, there is only a waveless quiet, swirling into the throat, followed by a soundless cough, choking back tears. Uncertain whether to avoid the wind or face it, with no clear choice, they end up being blown into a swaying silhouette, continuing to breathe.Sometimes folding a wutong (the Chinese parasol tree). Someone in the dream promised to photograph the never-before-seen wutong, maybe she should fold the fallen leaves on the ground, and finally she folded a distant wutong tree, the wutong leaves are still communicating with each other the yellow color of the fall; sometimes folds a little bird, a layer of yellow on the belly, she looked up in the dream just in time to see the goose bellies tinted with the yellow color of nightfall; sometimes she folds a cloud and can't restore the wispy edges of the cloud, but the folded cloud is very close to her, like the cloud in her dream, so close to her. Sometimes an old house is folded. On the night before it was demolished, a light was on in the old house, smoke hung around, and it was branded far away on the heart.Sometimes folding a red dress with Peter Pan’s white collar, like the red dresses worn by witches in fairy tales, or the red puffy dresses worn to the prom in childhood dreams. The person in the dream wears a red dress and is photographed under an old tower in the East. The dream switches to a crossroads and the person taking the picture asks her, “Where did that red dress you like go?”The folded paper should turn into fallen leaves and go home.2022.10.18

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To the Green Land

Blue loves green. When she was a little girl, Blue always ran towards the green. Until one day, she found a branch of an old tree, covered with moss, lying flat. Blue tried to pry at the old tree's yearly rings, and found that the center was empty, and there was a tiny plant sprouting through the dust. What surprised her even more was a small box behind the grass. Blue took the box out, wiped off the dirt, and opened the box. There was a book inside, like a scripture from a long time ago. Blue put the book back in the box, looked around to see that no one was nearby, and took the box back home.When she got home, Blue was disappointed that she couldn't read the book. The words in the book were crooked, like earthworms on the road eager to crawl back into the dirt. Blue was unsure, flipping to the end. There was a map of many islands, each in various colors, only one place was different, so distinct it was like the center of the whole map. It was small, round, and green. Unlike the other islands, this one was only green, a small piece of green land that looked like it had been drawn with a compass. Blue stared at this green land; maybe the book was supposed to show how to get to this green patch. Blue stopped running to the green place and stayed at home, trying to think of as many ways to read the book on how to get to the Greenland as she could.The biggest difficulty was deciphering the symbols in the book. Blue pored over the symbols, memorizing the general shapes, their locations in the book, and the shapes they put together. But the symbols didn’t make sense in Blue's head. She had gained nothing but the conviction that "If you read this book, you'll get to Greenland." Perhaps because of these strange symbols, which produced an inexplicable and marvelous reaction in Blue's mind, she one day looked at the cracked walls and realized that the shapes of the cracks were similar to the symbols. Blue was surprised to realize that she had found these symbols in many corners of her life.After this, Blue began to look around for anything that could echo the symbols in the book. She sat on a small bench and spent the afternoon looking at the sky, the clouds rolling in and out, changing colors, resembling the layout of the symbols on the first few pages of the book; tracing the curves of the stars, or the flickering fireflies, the trail of lights winking on and off; looking at the smoke curling up from the cooking fires at dusk, the black smoke choking her nose on the edges of the fields, the little wisps of greenish-gray smoke on the ends of cigarettes; and, most of all, looking at the cracks on the old, worn-out walls, the color of the bricks, and the peeling siding; what frustrated Blue was that her newly-learned Chinese characters didn't seem to help much in deciphering these symbols. She filled out her exercise book, stroke by stroke, and could only find some similarities to the symbols in the wrong words she wrote when distracted by the TV, or in the illustrations scribbled in class by her classmates.No one knew the secret of Blue and Greenland, but they realized that Blue was becoming different, "Blue, what are you saying? We can't understand. You're getting bluer and bluer."Blue looked in the mirror and realized that a small circle of blue had grown on the outermost part of her pupil, a circle of blue that she couldn't notice unless she looked closely, "It would be nice to go to the Greenlands. In the Greenlands, no one should think I'm blue. But will people only be able to wear green there? Then it would be nice if I wore a green dress too and became green."
Blue wanted to go to a green place, where no one would think she was blue.When Blue grew up and learned not to speak some of the blue language, she met Yellow.She called him Yellow because he reminded her of yellow and she gave him yellow clothes as a gift. Blue saw someone's journal that said, "Yellow's eyes are glued to Blue." Blue was curious, did Yellow notice the small circle of blue in her pupil?Yellow accompanied Blue to have her wisdom teeth extracted. Afterwards, Yellow packed Blue's wisdom teeth in a small plastic bag, and he said seriously, "The extracted teeth have to be thrown to the roof of the building in order to grow new teeth." Blue thought it was funny that she was disgusted with her extracted wisdom teeth, but she suddenly felt that living in a room with Yellow, who wasn’t, should be an okay thing to do in the future.Blue asked Yellow, "Is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go?"
Yellow said, "I'll go with you wherever you want."Blue didn't tell Yellow right away that she had a wish to "go to the Greenland". But Yellow's answer reawakened Blue's wish, "Maybe I can tell Yellow about the Greenland."Blue begins to speak to Yellow some of the blue language that alienated her from her friends. Yellow didn't listen very carefully. He didn't know what Blue was saying, but he could tell it was Blue's own language. He was always distracted by the dandelion seeds floating up in the air, picking up lots of pine cones under the big trees, withered leaves, and slipping them in his and Blue's books. Yellow liked to draw, copy Buddhist scriptures, raise plants, and feed the small fish in the pond; he liked things that were close at hand. Blue was a little discouraged that Yellow probably wouldn't have wanted to go to the Greenland like her.On the days that Yellow and Blue went out, it always rained. Once they took shelter under the eaves of a house, Blue said, "It's a bad sign when you go out and it always rains." Yellow teased Blue about her blue words again, and he noticed the blue color in Blue's eyes as a sparrow flew past them. The rain was about to stop and Blue told Yellow the story of her relationship with the Greenland, "I've always wanted to go to the Greenland, but I didn't know where it was."A few days later, Blue received a painting from Yellow, a shining lighthouse on the sea. Yellow pointed at the lighthouse, "I've thought hard about how we shall get to the Greenland. Let's look for a lighthouse on the sea first, where there's more hope of finding the Greenlands." Blue was intrigued by this lighthouse on the sea, "Yes, let's go to the lighthouse first." Blue and Yellow moved to the beach and waited for a boat to go to the lighthouse.Time passed slowly on the beach. Yellow and Blue began to learn new things to pass the time waiting for a boat.Blue watched the raging waves, splashing white starbursts one after the other as if they had made a promise with someone. The shimmering curves of the waves reminded Blue of the symbols in that book. The sound of the sea was not in the same rhythm as the ebb and flow of the waves. Blue had never learned to play an instrument and could not remember the song of the waves. She picked up a lot of shells on the beach, wanting to hear more of what the waves were trying to tell her at the last second. Blue didn't miss the silence of the waves either. Blue became very very busy, because she had to remember the sea, the flickering shadows, the sound of the waves, in time with the beat of the sea. Blue began to write on the beach with twigs, writing the language that the sea had taught her, blue words that were washed away by the waves at every turn, "The sea has received the letters I wrote," Blue thought happily.
Yellow became obsessed with drawing fish, all kinds of fish, in the sea. The local fishermen, who loved the fish Yellow painted, would even buy the paintings and take them home as hanging ornaments. Yellow fell more and more in love with drawing fish. He began to get on the fishermen's boats, went to the sea during the day to observe and imitate the fish in the sea, and at night he told Blue all kinds of fish-related stories. When Yellow asked Blue what she did all day, Blue said she wrote on the beach. Yellow asked her what she wrote. Blue didn't know how to answer, and Yellow was so tired that he had already fallen asleep.The boat to the lighthouse hasn't come yet. Blue suddenly realized that the sea was the only place that would listen to her now, and Yellow hadn't told her a fish story in a week. On a night when all you could see was black, Blue saw Yellow crying, Blue turned her back and wiped her tears as well, "Yellow, I hope, in the future, you make more people think of yellow when they see you." Blue knew that Yellow was not colored blue.For the next week, when Yellow fell asleep, he unconsciously hugged Blue tightly, and Blue began to lose sleep. One rainy day, Yellow went out to sea to paint fish as usual. Two weeks later, Yellow had not returned.Blue puts on a blue gauze dress and dances under the blue moonlight on the beach, "To the Greenland," Blue says to the sea.2022.07.21

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The Glass and the Mirror

On Green Island, Dot and Bot are waiting for a boat to leave Green Island.When will the boat come? No idea. Uncertain.What was certain was that Dot knocked on the clear glass between her and Bot, who heard her knocking and talked to her occasionally to pass the time.There was a clear wall of one-way glass between Dot and Bot, through which Bot could see Dot on the other side, a clear and definite mirror image of Dot, while Dot could only hear Bot on the other side of the glass. With colored crayons, she traces imaginings –– blurry drawings of Bot. The glass is not a mirror. There are no mirrors on the island. Dot can't see herself, only Bot can see Dot every day through the glass.Dot wanted to know what she looked like each day. She asked Bot, but Bot could only give a few empty adjectives. He didn't know how to describe the details, but he was sensitive to numbers, "I can give you a score out of 10, you get an 8 today.""Is 8 a high score?"
"It counts. That's the first score that came to mind when I saw you today."Dot knew that Bot wouldn't be able to explain specifically the reason for giving an 8. At the moment, Bot's scoring system would have to be the most logical and effective way for her to understand what she was like each day.Dot knocked on the glass, "Bot, do you know when the boat is coming?"
Bot: "From what I've seen and analyzed, perhaps as soon as next week. If it doesn't come next week, it may never come."
Dot: "I wish the boat could come sooner. How would you rate me today?"
Bot: "Let's see." A few seconds pause, "7.8."
Dot: "Why is it 0.2 points less?"
Bot: "Probably because you have dark circles under your eyes today. I'm going back to weaving my web."Most of the time when Dot knocked on the glass, Bot was weaving nets, intricate and delicate nets, in order to get to the next island and catch the rarest, most precious sea fish. With the abundance of supplies on the Green Island, Dot didn't understand Bot's fishing obsession, but she admired his determination and perseverance in weaving his nets, "How can he spend so much time, so dedicated to weaving his nets?" Dot drew a picture of a man weaving a net. She had never met Bot and could only draw a vague emotion with a crayon of the man, anxiously and obsessively weaving a net in order to catch the radiant sea fish on another island. Dot wasn't interested in eating fish, she was content with the fruits of the Green Island, colorful, fragrant, and sweet. Eating the delicious fruits made Dot feel so happy that she wanted to become a butterfly on the island, or a seven-star ladybug, and Dot almost forgot her wish to leave Green Island.Dot could never resist knocking on the glass and talking to Bot. She was curious about Bot, as much as she would be curious about the only man on the island, "Bot, do you know when the boat will come?"
Bot: "I don't know."
Dot: "How would you rate me today?"
Bot: "A 6.5."That was one of the highest scores of the week, and it was likely that there wouldn't be a higher score than that, Dot thought to herself."How's your web weaving going?"
Bot: "60% progress. Expect to finish weaving in two weeks after I rush the next one."Dot wondered how Bot could calculate the time so well, could pinpoint the progress of weaving the web down to a percentage, and did he, who had planned the time precisely, take into account the time they spent talking through the glass?"Then should I knock less on the glass and not disturb your weaving?"
Bot: "That's not so bad, you could go by the routine and knock on the glass at dusk, and I wouldn't have to worry about missing the sound of you knocking during the day."Dot hadn't realized that Bot would be worried about missing the sound of her knocking; she'd suspected that Bot intentionally tried to miss the sound of her knocking on the glass at times. She had no way of knowing how loud she knocked, so why did Bot fail to hear it at times? Could a person really be that focused on weaving a web? Why was it that she couldn't get interested in weaving nets? Why couldn't she be fascinated by just one color of fruit?Through the glass, the wall of clear glass where several crayon drawings hung, many moments are swelled into balloons that were about to explode the next second. Dot's mind was filled with questions about Bot, questions that were always unanswered. All she could do was to draw the pictures formed in her mind. Upon thinking of him being able to see himself through the glass, Dot thought that Bot’s obsession with weaving webs was a good thing for her. They didn't know when the boat was coming. Every time Dot knocked and Bot didn't respond, Dot would always worry that he had seen something ugly and unpleasant about her, so he didn't want to talk to her anymore. The time spent waiting for the next time Bot knocked back felt like frozen time for Dot. The next boat was probably frozen stuck on its way as well. During these frozen moments, Dot drew potted plants with drooping leaves, geese in disorganized formation, garbage bags flying into the air and scurrying around, scared rabbits, impatient dragonflies ......Bot: "Dot, I was just weaving a net and tying a knot. If I pause in the middle, the knot won't be tied. Is everything okay?"
Dot: "You told me I could knock at dusk, and now it's dark."Dot regretted what she had just said and expected him to be silent. Bot probably felt it had to be something important before he could knock on the glass and talk. At the moment, he has nothing more important to do than weaving a web. Dot was afraid that Bot would ignore her. She needed to knock on the glass, to hear Bot's voice and to know there was still Bot on Green Island. She also believed that Bot could lead her to the next boat off Green Island.Dot: "Do you know when the boat is coming?"
Bot: "I don't know."
Dot: "How would you rate me today?"
Bot: "It's nighttime, I can't see too well, but I saw you collecting dew in the middle of the night yesterday, and you get a 9.5 out of 10 for collecting dew."Dot was surprised to hear that. She hadn’t expected that Bot would give her the highest score ever because of the way she collected dew. On Green Island, Dot would always wake up in the latter part of the night to collect the freshest dew, and for that reason, the dark circles under her eyes were getting heavier and heavier. Nonetheless, she still religiously collected the crystal clear drops of dew, late at night, off leaves and petals. In these moments, her world was filled with nothing but herself and the sight she saw before her, the blushing tulips wrapped in crystal dewdrops at midnight, each one whole. The soft peach blossoms were glistening with the starry dampness, and the branches of the trees were wet with a light mist. The dewdrops rolled down the shiny slide, and Dot's glass bottle was their inn for the night. The dewdrops swung in the breeze, and Dot seemed to hear them laughing, and she was awkwardly at a loss for how to respond. But she was sure that the dewdrops, in the late hours of the night, saw her, and at the moment they wanted nothing more than to speak to her, and she was only too glad to have met them. Time on Green Island seemed lighter than the drops of dew on the ground.This night, the glass bottle of dew seemed emptier than usual.Dot: "Bot, how's your net weaving going?"
Bot: "Within a week, it should be finished."
Dot: "Will the boat come when your net is finished?"
Bot: "I don't know, I'm so tired of weaving nets, I just want to rest for a few days when I'm done."
Dot: "Well, after a few days' rest, the boat will come." She paused. "How would you rate me today?"
Bot: "I'm too tired to weave a web, I can't see well."
What does the net look like when Bot is done weaving it? When will the boat come? Dot draws another picture of a man sleeping next to a fishing net, the dark shadow of the net overlapping the man's shadow somewhat, with a blue sailboat behind him.
Dot: "Do you know when the boat will come?"
Bot: "I don't know, perhaps it will come tomorrow, or it will never come."The moon was full tonight. As Dot collected dewdrops, she always saw flashes of light blue, and flashes of fireflies. Dot was mesmerized and followed the fireflies. When she reached the sea, a boat rowed toward her. The fisherman in the boat asked her, "Where do you want to go?"
"I want to go to an island with mirrors, I want a mirror of my own."
2022.8.17

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