Shanghai Interrogation

The boy soldier was silent. 

“What’s that for,” the female Public Security Bureau official said pointing to the typewriter on the table.  

“It is for writing letters.” 

They have reservations about letters. Letters, they wonder, looking at each other with jaundiced eyes. Black eyes streaked with exploding blood vessels full of fear and suspicion. 

Letters indicate political insurrection, dissent, forced labor, mandatory abortions, propaganda, civil unrest, turmoil, revolutions, tanks in the street, torture, solitary confinement and executions. 

They see party leaders wringing their pale hands, nervously pacing forbidden cities past stone lions, conducting top-secret meetings trying to figure out what to do, how to put a face on all this. How to manage and manipulate disinformation rivers, how to control floods.

The boy soldier and his comrade save face by maintaining blank, stoic expressions.

They suspect I have connections. Maybe I am a plant, a party member sent to check their unit. Assigned to monitor their methods, their questioning tactics, their subtle use of intimidation, their implications to control and influence peoples' lives for the good of the state.

For all they know I am a subversive. A word terrorist.

“Letters. We will keep an eye on this one,” she said to the soldier.

A writer in Shuangliu, Sichuan, China. 

mr. lucky foot

One of his secret names is Mr. Lucky Foot.

What does that mean you may ask, well let him tell you in simple, plain, clear and concise English, the language of barbarians. Just get to the verb.

It means wherever he travels because he's addicted to new adventures like meeting shopkeepers, merchants in Venice, rest-a-rant owners and nondescript sad, lonely, neurotic and well adjusted humans struggling to find their personal way inside life’s labyrinth, when he shows up, because 90% of life is showing up, their day, life, fate and glittering fortune changes. Karmic destiny. For the better. 

It happened in the Middle Kingdom or China per se, in Asia Minor, on the is-land of Amnesia in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and Laos. A small journey inside life’s weaving.

Hand him down his walking stick.

mr. lucky foot

One of my secret names is Mr. Lucky Foot.

What does that mean you may ask, well let me tell you in simple, plain, clear and concise English, the language of barbarians. Just get to the verb.

It means wherever I travel because I’m addicted to new adventures like meeting shopkeepers, merchants in Venice, rest-a-rant owners and nondescript sad, lonely, neurotic and well adjusted humans struggling to find their personal way inside life’s labyrinth, when I show up, because 90% of life is showing up, their day, life, fate and glittering fortune changes. Karmic destiny. For the better. 

It happened in the Middle Kingdom or China per se, in Asia Minor, on the is-land of Amnesia in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and Laos. A small journey inside life’s weaving.

after my tongue

I sat up straight, inhaled three deep breaths and exhaled far out into emptiness.

I centered my unconscious on the paper filled with nothing.

The entire world has been reduced to a blank sheet of white paper.

My wisdom mind of intent became water. It was quiet, calm and still with concentration and focus.

I listened to brush, ink and paper. I am a conduit. 

Be the brush, be the ink, be the water, be the paper.

Each essence is pure, free, clear and luminous.

My useless tongue flapped in the cold December Himalayan wind.

Stories and songs are birds. I heard children laughing and singing. They greeted each other in the babble of nothing, playing with strings of word pearls. They dreamed with their eyes open. 

When we are asleep we are awake.

Is handwriiting alive?

ecritureinfinie

call