STARDUST WHEN OUR EYES MEET
What makes a man? When we leave
The world behind, is it to star dusts we return?
What makes a man? When we leave
The world behind, is it to star dusts we return?
In million ponds of moonlight we bathe—
Potion of pale white, oblivion for eternity.
Do they forget? Or if traces of memory
Still breathe under the slightest trembling of stars?
Head held up in the night sky. Gaze upon
The intricate galaxy of stars. We see them,
In white gowns dancing with eternal dignity of fatality.
Commemorating parades on the sprinkling mist of
Wishing stars’ tails. “They still remember,” we told ourselves,
“Still remember.”
In insipid indifference I leaned over by the windowpane. I gazed outside to the midnight pavements: it was as if the stars cared to pay a visit to this crowded little town of a weird familiarity of mine. How long has it been since I left here? Limply I pushed the panelled window outwards to let in some breeze of the bustling night. A faint symphony of noise and light floated upon the gliding waves of wind into the dimly lit room. The clock already struck eleven in the late evening. Certain clusters of hungry wanderers gather by the glowing fluorescent signs above some street-side restaurants. The smell of restaurants’ late-night dishes reminds me of home. This city has always been sleepless, no matter if it was before I left or after I returned.
A wavering glow of lamplight from the breezy pavement navigated its way to a dusted mirror at the back of my room. By the faintly glistening mirror, there comfortably rested a niche ornamented by Polaroid photographs of those days of us back in the States. Three placid knocks at the door tenderly interrupted the wandering tunes of the interweaving lamplight. A glimpse of ghostly grey crossed the threshold and entered the space on the moonlit mirror.
“Did I wake you?”
Falteringly she angled her palm to the shoulder. She stretched a strand of hair to the corner of her lips and nibbled it contemplatively. Pale scratches of violets somewhere near her wrists revealed themselves, perhaps with the slightest intention, in the compassionate caresses from the glistening moonbeams. The benign rays from the pale moon seemed to refract through her, as if she gleamed like a transparent torso of a fallen angel.
At the feeblest sight of her faint scrapes on the wrists, my wearisome eyelids stung in shivers. The strips ran across the frontmost part of her forearm like a trenched valley engulfed in a violet glimmer. The pounding of the swells filled my mind: it rhythms along the beating heartbeat of hers. A sentiment of unutterable dread loomed in the gloomy darkness. I realized I could not bear the sight any longer. I laid my eyes once again over the windowpane.
The lamplight flames burnt even more dazzlingly now. The moon, the lamplights, the clusters of townsmen, everything— receded into an entangled vision of blurriness. A voice crept towards me very strangely, as if they were Sunday summons at a gathering in the cathedral. The words conjured themselves as if they were delicate petals floating upon water. They came into existence out of nowhere.
Unleashing my troubled soul from the sinful flesh,
I rose to see the Mighty King go voyaging by.
Over tranquil meadows and ferocious waves.
I barely had any idea what they meant. It however reminded me of the men and boys in the church choir chanting the words of a prayer’s worship that I had paid little attention to. I turned slightly towards my wife: she did not seem to be aware of the voice. She stood in her long white robe, bathing in the tenuous downpour of moonlight. The voice continued:
I ponder if it appears to you, the earthly pains
I have come to endure and all the pains that live to be.
All cease into oblivion as they climb the path of eternity.
The voice gradually dissolved into a chained bubble of smoke. I made myself get up from the windowpane. Without knowing why, I felt like the words, like music, seemed to be chanted by a friend of mine. The voice bowed to him as if it paid him a deserving homage.
A SOUL IN THE STARS
To all souls in the stars. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if you are
A Dream Weaver or a Wandering Soul.
We all live for a purpose; I dearly believe so.
foreword.
Constructing a narrative is not an easy task. And it is even more so if one is to construct a narrative of themselves— their past, their memory and eventually their identity. “Who am I?” then becomes the recurrent question I have been inquiring myself throughout the entire process of writing the Self. I steer away from writing myself in a conventional manner, instead I take an imaginary approach. An approach, largely fed on inspiration from ancient mythologies and surrealist observations. And I, humbly, ascertain you that this approach itself does represent who I am as a person.
I title my work “A Soul in the Stars”, structured with two episodes: “Episode 1: Weaving Dreams on Stardust” and “Episode 2: A Wandering Soul in the Unknown”. It is from multiple perspectives that I write about myself: from a Dream Weaver and wandering souls in the celestial territories to the “real” me here on Mother Earth. Always have I believed that there are multiple sides to a person, or multiple egos I would say. I therefore strive to reveal most of those different sides to me with a surrealist narrative.
Episode 1: Weaving Dreams on Stardust
Once there was a time, the celestial grounds were the battlefields between the Gods and the Monsters. Heated storms swept across all colonies and darkened the eternal Sun. All lives in the galaxy drowned in such a profound despair, losing lives of their dear ones one-by-one. Some of them even lost count. Grandparents of my grandparents could no longer bear with the chaotic situation they were in. They packed all their treasuries and embarked on a relentless journey. A journey that took forever, or at least, seemed so.
On one bleak hilltop the earth was sturdy with a grey frost. The frosty air rendered a few shivers among some of the most courageous voyagers. The comet storm soon began to drive heavily. Such a rough weather that my ancestors knew they would not survive if they failed to retreat to some temporary shelters. Trembling down the hill they went, but out of all of their expectations, they were greeted delightfully with the radiance of a seemingly immense fire. A huge block of rock not very distant from them shifted and led them into a paved space somewhere in the middle of a colossal mountain.
“Rest your fatigue torsos on the blessed territory of mine,” a sweet voice marked with certain dreaminess came into existence from hardly who knew where. “Treat it as your home now.” Rising and reaching in between the two glitteringly gold banisters in the far end of the corridor, the Goddess entered their blurry sight with such grace and elegance none of them would ever forget. Many of them now had a distinct, yet distant, view of her whole figure and features. Venus, despite her age as old as the eldest man amongst the voyagers, appeared to be holily slender. A feminine figure who seemed to have had perhaps even slightly past girlhood. Her delicate form won admiration from all men and women: she had the most exquisite face one would have dreamt of, with a maiden ringlet of divine goldenness hung loose on her feeble neck.
Oftentimes the Heaven sheds tears of violet,
The long-lost pathway to the Garden’s eyelet.
“People of the Roman Empire are used to overlooking my fair wisdom because of the visual pleasure they find from me. But I do possess certain wits and wisdom.” Continued the Goddess in such a mellow tone. “I have chosen you because I see kindness in your eyes.” Limply she motioned her delicate hands to cut an inch of her blessed hair of such divine goldenness. She tied it with some invisible strings she cut from her purely white cloak and rendered it as an interlock of a golden heart. “Here, take it. It is a gift.”
Vanished in the vacant space she then went. Little traces of her presence, however, remained discernible. She left her mark with a trace of golden sprinkles on the rough surface of rocks. Blessed with the eternal gift from the Goddess of Love and Beauty, the people of my ancestry founded a factory of dreams. They served wandering souls from all around the galaxy who wished to get some rest in their exhausting voyage and perhaps also be given a vision of their dreams.
The legacy of the dream factory soon never was heard again. The eternal gift of Venus also seems to fade into oblivion. But I, as one of their descendants, however insignificant I may seem, carry on the legacy to weave dreams for wandering souls. I, however, do it on my own.
There was a time when my mind was stunningly transfixed by the descending curtain of a comet rain. The incessant sparkles from the comets’ tails ignited the pupils in my eyes, itching them with a mild touch of scorching pain. Only ten feet away I noticed a soul stumbling towards me. The iron chain he drew all around his soulish torso wound about him like a comet’s tail to a comet. It was comprised of steel padlocks and yellowish ledgers wrought in rusted metal. With a green patch of wound on his shoulder, he hesitated a slight moment, then forced himself to advance with the unbearable carriage of the fixated chain around him.
I was not meant to be frightened. As a Dream Weaver, I had encountered a few more haunting souls before, but none of them compared to such a deprived soul advancing towards me. He did not motion any forward when we met eye-to-eye. Staring at those fixed, glazed eyes of melancholy, I allowed silence to set in for quite some time. And so did the visiting soul. He wondered about me silently, with a touch of relief ripening beneath his face, which was smooth and pale like the skin of a white grape.
“Much bothered am I with this,” The spirit raised a whining cry, while motioning the ponderous chain around his neck upwards. “As you can tell, probably.” He wore the chain he forged in his past life. All the weight and length of the earthly pain he had endured reincarnated themselves in the form of a coiled chain.
“What an incessant torture of remorse it has to be.” With some measures of deference and humility, I took a step towards him. “I have nothing too extraordinary to offer, but this.” I handed him a bouquet of purely white lilies made out of stardust. The delicate lilies were a calming moon-white, stained with enchanting pollen. Above us, the comet rain ceased to be, a planet behind us shifted and invited rays of sunlight to fall upon the depressed torso of my visitor.
“With every inhale of the lilies’ scent, a certain part of your memory will dissolve in eternal oblivion.” My visitor who felt the motherly warmth from the Sun began to relax and work the chain briefly down his elbow. “It shall render you the courage— to forget.” He felt as if the child’s fist of his heart was beating in his throat. Handing him over the bouquet ofwhite lilies, I heard the little rough scratch of his rusty coil against the silky wrapping of the bouquet.
Traces of memories breathe underneath the slightest trembling of star,
Inks of regrets paint our souls to conceive the most treasured memoir.
The incoherent sounds of lamentation, remorse and regret— three of the most faithful accompanies to memory. Memory haunts us like a loaded chain which wraps all around us so painfully until our flesh cuts and bleeds. There shall be no denying that memory does leave traces of wounds on our torsos.
As you may have probably noticed, I seldom paint a wandering soul a vision of their dreams. A dream, to us dream weavers, shall not be a matured state of mentality, but it shall be a forever evolving vision of fulfilment. The fluidity of a state of dream is what we confide our belief in. Oftentimes we offer a wandering soul a tool, a key, or some may say a spark of inspiration, for them to make use of when they are trying to paint their very own vision of dreams.
“Are you the Dream Weaver, sir, whose wisdom was foretold to be capable to free me from my lost of vision?” There was another time when I encountered another wandering soul in the Forest of Perplexion. Different from the soul I once stumbled across, chain around this particular soulish torso was nowhere in affordable sight. This soul, however, was rendered in a strange figure. Its legs and feet were most intricately formed, which wore the tonic of the purest white. The lustre of which was almost dazzling. But what determined the quality of strangeness was the haunting fact that this soul had no head. The head seemed to have dissolved in the dense gloom which encapsulated the so very wonderous existence of him.
On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essential est invisible pour les yeux. ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
To see rightly, shall we use the eyes or the heart? That was the question I asked myself upon encountering the soul without a head. Without a head, the soul shall still retain his capability to read reality, and, even, life in general. Hardly is life a puzzle of fragmented sights or views, but it is conjured of experiential sensation. We do not see life, we feel life.
I therefore chose not to grant him vision, for what he already had surpassed the capability to exercise vision, he had, more remarkably, the gift of conceiving life’s sensation. I gifted him a brush ever dripping with paint and a white canvas. “Share your inner vision of life to other souls whom you may encounter on the way. Paint with your gift and wisdom.” I leant out a firm hand and clasped him limply by the shoulder.
Forgive me that I may not be able to recount every encounter I made with those lovely souls. They may be wandering with scarcely a distinct purpose in mind, but who on Earth is not wandering in some sense? Dream is an ever-evolving vision. It is subject to incessant change. For a delicate slice of moment that we may perceive ourselves a beholder of certain dreams, but who knows if we will alter our vision of dream the moment after?
Yes, it may appear to be true that I weave dreams for other wandering souls. But I have never asked myself— what is my dream? I may envisage what others’ are, but what is mine then? Perplexed, I paid a visit to a planet which I’ve heard to have had a rich history of intelligent lives. A journey that granted me a friendship. A friendship that would forever be emblazoned on my mind.
Eyes render vision of the supremist beauty,
Hearts encapsulate sensation of the spiritual truly.
Episode 2:
A Wandering Soul in the Unknown
Ever so often am I drawn back to the sweet neighbourhood where I am born and raised, the sky-reaching towers of residential blocks and extensive patches of suburban villas. The one particular view that my heart has always treasured would be the framed window in my dear little room looking out to a panoramic view of the Park just opposite to where I live. Where I live is quite close to the Heavens actually. The twenty-second floor of a high-rise tower that seemed to overlook the entirety of Tin Shui Wai’s landscape. The Tower of Babel, perhaps?
Clouds are there beyond clouds. Never have I believed that there is a limit to the Sky. Something must be out there; out there lying on the bed of stardust, out there wandering along the currents of comet. Something way beyond our earthly capacity to comprehend. My spirits heighten whenever I feel in my mind the key to the unknown of the galaxy; with all its profound glory, it is a place I call my own. A place where I simply get lost, bid farewell to reality, and wander sheerly upon my imagination.
Every night before I resort to my evening dreams and fantasies, I trade conversations with the Moon. Bells in the Basilica on the Moon ring twelve times at midnight, precisely after the clock strikes twelfth. Not soon after the twelfth ringing of the Bell does the Avenue to the Moon pave its way down on Earth, landing its destination right at the side of my windowpane. And on one mystical night, I met a soul. A soul who calls himself... a Dream Weaver.
“Such wonderous creatures,” he whispers, gazing down to the glittering streetlamps and the criss-crossing pavements. Though it seems that he is speaking to me, he is not. His cheek comes to rest against my windowpane, a delicate damp weight I can tell. Astonishedly struck by an encounter of the celestial visitor, I gestured the window open and welcomed him in.
That night is cool, chills incessantly blowing in from the territory of the Moon. Both glistened by the brilliant March Moon, I come to appreciate the delicate countenance of my unexpected visitor. His eyes glitter with traces of radiant sapphires, the kind of melancholic blue one would have witnessed with such mild grief, with pink lips and shines in the golden grain of his hair. His uncovered arms reveal a strip of silvery-white flesh and I begin to wonder what he is thinking beneath it.
“The city is breathing. Do you hear it?” The broad cobblestone pavement that stitches across the little neighbourhood beneath us is dark and safe. The street in Tin Shui Wai has never been too narrow for those slender metal lamps, shredding their patches of yellow light squarely onto the paved streets. Indeed, my visitor exercises acute observation. Now that he mentions about the breathing city, it is the first time ever I realize how the city inhales midnight glows and exhales warm breaths. The city, indeed, breathes in silence.
My two sisters are still in their sound sleep when a midnight tram rattles northward into the far end of the neighbourhood. The metal railways reflecting glistening shines from the midnight lamps navigate their way into the curious eyes of the visitor. “Oh dear, what are those?” A mild suburban breeze lifting his golden hair reveals the expression on his features just like the first time when I was a kid witnessing a forwarding tram in the midst of the skyscrapers— delighted, perhaps slightly tellingly anxious and flushed with mild redness.
It was a Spring’s night we first met. The Blood of China camellia trees pave their way into the cobblestone streets right through the neighbourhood. Fallen petals of the supremist redness render the intricate web of stones to be an artist’s canvas. A violent splash of floral blood with an earthly touch of muddy brown and moody green. What a beautiful sight for sore eyes in an early morning. It is especially so for my delightful visitor.
The faintest shadows of them all contain the subtlety of blue,
Submitting to childhood innocence is the wisest thing to do.
On a fine sunny morning we head out the apartment for a walk in the neighbourhood― such a wonderous site my dear visitor derives a fond intrigue from. Down the narrow alley next to a wet market we trail, vendors are busy laying out their stalls of stacked clothes, cracked porcelain and bureaus with missing handles. Next to the Alley of Vendors stands a mighty tree of a height amounting to 20 metres or so. I used to climb along the veins of this beautiful friend of mine to the treetop. Stretching my arms and widening my chest, I fetched a handful of stars in those youthful hands of mine, which once were so much more petite and delicate. I tasted them even. The smell of galaxy intrigued me. I slid down the tree, most carefully that I could manage to so as not to disturb those tree fairies taking a nap on the slender branches of the earthly giant.
My hands age, I age, the tree ages, and so does my grandmother. Dawn falls upon the stardust-sprinkled tree by latest at six in the afternoon. The coarse voice of hers shall guide me home by then. The ruins of history leave their traces of scar on her. Both on her and on her voice of course. I hear nothing but heaviness each and every time she utters words of however trivial importance. She, however, takes history with her like it is a conventional cold one shall most probably catch if they are out in the chill for too long. Memory ever so seldom, if ever, haunts her. They come and go like a visitor of certain mysteriousness.
“But still I remember, the blossoms from the Blood of China Camellias are her favourite.” The story of the respected lady of mine enthrals my celestial visitor, now that his eyes gaze right at the splattered ponds of fallen red blossoms across the pavement of such profound indifference. Elongated shadows cast themselves behind us, compromising their space with those ponds of brilliant red. Twice our eyes meet; the second time he lifts the corner of his mouth, “What makes her fall in love with the Blood of China?”
⸢那些花瓣多像血，濺得一地都是。⸥
“Splattered ponds of blossoms are just like those of blood.”
Never did my grandmother answer the exact question I for multiple times raised. I in fact inquired her, more than ten times, about the reason why she likes those blood-red blossoms. She however opted for silence over words. My pure guess would be that the Blood of China is a faithful friend of hers. Both, crushed by the unbearable weight of history, strive only for survival. History traps the scorching heat of memory and set them on fire at a warm spring night. The flame hurls up the street and ventures through the lonesome ribs of hers.
The first feathery drop of a midspring shower descends upon my head. The March sun filters through the silky petals of fallen blossoms, rendering the subtlest shades of reds and purples on the moist terrace. Only a little more while does it take before the midspring drizzle grows into a howling storm. Fierce drops of rain crush the heath and mud like comrades on battlefields. Budding, flourishing, blossoming, blooming and withering the drops go. So very vividly do I hear the blossoming of raindrop. “Can you hear them as well?” Like a cycle of life, they appear to me: no life endures eternal springs, or is there?
Not very soon after the storm subsides do the layered clouds surrender to the outpour of sunray. Like daybreak, the cloud cracks open and drifts their separate ways. The skyward racks of bleak canvases then bleed into a tremendous pouring of paint. My visitor kneels to collect a fallen petal, now moistly laden in muds and soils, on the cobblestone street. Like a reddened patch of flesh, distorted in a warfare. With his eyes slanted up and mouth pinched, he displays intent on certain moment of contemplation. Above us a cloud shifts, daylight descends upon the stilled half portrait of him. Glistening in contemplation.
Bouquet of memory perfumes the dusty panel of the windowpane,
Swiftly the surrendered petals drift along the Moon River drain.