A Friend in Need
By Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé
Liuling is pottering around naked because he lives between heaven and earth. He feels his house suffices in bundling him up. Da-Ren is in the house too, reshelving The Homeric Hymns under Depth Psychology. He likes the way verse translations help him hum about things he would never hum about like subway tokens and bad directions. Old journals end up in the in-tray and the dictionaries? They now line up under Creative Nonfiction. Liuling hasn't taken a bath in a long time because he perspires into no shirts that put his own dirt back on himself. "They must go back a long way," the archivist thinks to himself, reading a Thank You card that was never sent out. There are food coupons and utility bills and warranty cards strewn across the sideboard. The dishwasher is plugged into the kitchen tap where water flows in and siphons out. The computer monitor is covered with stickers like a screensaver that never blinks. "I made that myself," Liuling gesticulates towards the wind chime of cowbells, seashells and paper cranes. In his wine, Liuling sees the entire world for what it is and then tries to drink the memory.
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25159873-i-didn-t-know-mani-was-a-conceptualist
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