the not yet completely edited first chapter of a book I am writing.

混沌
Hun Dun

Chapter 1
“Before there was the world there was chaos which was called Hun Dun. Hun Dun took the shape of a divine egg. Within the egg a being slept for 18,000 years who was called Pangu. When Pangu awoke from his slumber he saw Hun Dun surrounding him. With a great swipe from his hand he separated the chaos, creating the sky and the earth. But the sky and the earth were still close together, and for fear that they would again become one he placed his feet firmly on the ground, and his hand strongly in the sky and pushed them apart. For thousands of years he stood this way and as he stood he grew, lifting the heavens from the earth. After 18,000 more years the sky and the earth were far enough apart that Pangu felt they would never again be rejoined, and having accomplished this he died.
As his body fell to the earth His breath became the wind, his voice the thunder, his left eye the sun and his right eye the moon. His body became the mountains. his blood formed rivers, his muscles the fertile lands. His facial hair became the stars and milky way, his fur the bushes and forests. His sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur became all the animals of the world, including man…”

一
In the darkness of night was a woman. She laid against an old farm house that sat at the edge of a great city on the boundary between suburb and farm land. The rice fields were filled with water, undisturbed by the woman's screaming. She was ugly and dirty. She wore only filthy grey rags that were torn so they barely covered her frail body. Her hair was black and matted, her face was swollen and cut. She lay screaming for her life as three men stood over her.
Three farm workers, too ugly to ever have wives, too poor to visit the whore houses, had found an easier way to quench an inner fire that had grown each day while breaking their backs for a land owner who paid them too little.
They stood tall and sneered, their faces evil but their hearts beating with fear. Pounding with excitement and regret before even having touched her. Their hands shook, their voices slurred like they were drunk, but they had no money for wine. The rain was pouring down like a waterfall washing away all sin and sound, each drop adding to a chorus of dull thuds on dirt, musical notes on the tile roof, and the quiet pings on a sword held still behind the darkly gathered farm laborers.
An old blade, covered in red rust, It’s tip had broken off and the full length of its sharpened edge was serrated from hundreds of chinks where metal had hit metal. The iron hand guard was fixed over a wooden handle. The cool hand that gripped it was strong and calloused.
Stillness pervaded the scene, only the rain moved. Suddenly one man lunged forward, and the two others followed him. Diving like tigers at rats, they never looked behind them, only seeing their prey. But as they moved the sword moved with them. It made a new note as it sliced through the air, singing in the wind.
A sword moving
three men fall with the rain.
All sound swallowed by water.

二
The woman went silent, not sure if she should still be afraid. The man who now stood over her was covered in scars. His hair stood wild against the pouring sky, his eyes blazing down at her with pure distain. Cloth and leather was bound around his arms and legs while armor of interconnected metal plates, like the skin of a snake, protected his body.
The sword he held slightly out from his body, letting the rain pour down it's groove like a red river. Slipping the cleaned blade back into it’s sheath he turned and walked back to the road picking up the bags he had dropped there, heading in the direction of the city gates.
As he walked away the girl stood, following him to the road.
She looked in the direction that would take her away, the direction of hope, the direction of liberation. Then in the direction of the city and her nightmares, everything she wished to run from but now also her scarred hero. She hung her head and watched the water flow down her hanging hair and fall at her feet, then finally she looked up once more, turned towards the city and followed.

三
The scarred man could hear her steps as the rain stopped, but continued walking through the gates where watchmen had been lulled to sleep by the downpour. The streets were empty as the clouds broke. The full moon casting long shadows.
Finally stopping in front of an old inn, he looked back at the girl. The moon lit her like a beacon. She had stopped when he did and now held her wet rags around her as if to protect herself. Her face was bleeding, new cuts, and black eyes over a body formed by a life time of cruelty. She stood like an ancient ghost that haunted young men.
As the scarred man turned away again his armor knocked against his sword making the only sound in the world. He walked around to the dark ally that lay beside the inn. He sat against the wall and reached into his bag pulling out a dry wool blanket.
The girl looked back at the gate through which she had escaped earlier that night. Before it had seemed like a miracle, an escape from hell, but now it looked like a hungry mouth waiting to swallow her and suck her down, which is where mouths always led.
She turned back, and walked towards the inn. Where the man had turned left, she turned right, into an alley across the road from him, she could see him from here, she felt safe being in his sight. The girl lay down and closed her eyes, Pulling her rags tight against her body battling the cold, finally she fell into uneasy dreams, finding no rest.

四
Suddenly the young woman snapped her head up. The morning was breaking. Immediately she looked across the road but the man from the previous night was not their. The sun was just lighting the grey mist as she jumped up and ran out into the cobble stone street. There was nobody except one or two merchants preparing their carts for the day and suddenly she felt panic strike her chest like a fist.
She tore a piece of her already tattered rags to wrap around her face, and sprinted down the road. But as the sun grew higher the city came to life and soon desolate alleys had turned into a loud flood of people drowning her senses.
Franticly she looked for the large figure, the wild hair, and the strong arms that were her savior’s. But the man she had risked hell to know could not be found.
Morning turned to mid day and he was no where in sight. The girl was tiered. She had not eaten in days, had not slept but for the restless night before. She collapsed in the middle of the street exhausted amongst the crowd. Crawling at the level of knees she found her way to the steps of a tea house where she breathed deeply the hopeless air.
Only watching feet travel past she had no will to raise her head. She knew if she stayed here she would be found, everything in her body that had told her to run as fast and far as she could was silent now either dead, or too tiered to protest.
“Oh yes, well of course I recognized his skills right away, he was a genius from an early age, and I, being such an experienced teacher, saw it immediately.” The voice came from an old man. The girl looked up into his face. His wrinkled skin hung low over his eyes. His hair was grey and long, even his beard had turned almost completely white. As he passed he looked down at the trodden girl as she quickly hid her face.
“Come, buy me some food and we will talk more of Tian Yi!,” continued the man as he walked into the tea house with his very wealthy looking friend.
Now a second pair of shoes appeared walking up the stairs. These were old and worn. Holes where dirty toes poked through showing no socks. The legs were not covered and as they climbed the calves rippled with untold power. The girl looked up again as her heart beat fire throughout her body. It was her hero. He looked down at her with those same contemptuous eyes. Most of his face was covered now by a large straw cone hat like the farmers wore in the fields. He no longer wore the leather arm coverings or the metal armor. He wrapped his wool blanked around him like a beggar’s robe.
He walked into the tea house after the two wealthy men. The girl tried to follow them in, but upon seeing her ragged body and covered face the waiter quickly tried hurried both her and the scarred man out. But the man pulled some coins from his pocket and forced them into the waiters hand walking past. The girl however just looked dejected and went back out to the stairs, she had no money for tea.
She clung to the window for support as she watched the swordsman sit down at the table next to the wealthy men, his back facing them. The waiter immediately brought him a cup of tea and asked if he would like any food. The girl watched the mysterious man shake his head, then ducked as the waiter walked by the window muttering about cheapskates.
“Well you see I found Tian Yi in a gutter,” The old man was continuing his story now with tea and food to comfort him. He spoke loud as if he hoped everyone around him would hear. “He was a young boy, only 10 at the time, though that is older than most people must start if they wish to be true masters.” He sipped from his cup thoughtfully. “I was walking to the market one day, and I offered some spare change to a young beggar woman sitting in the street with her children. Her oldest son was playing with a stick, and by the way he held that stick I could see with my keen eyes that he would be the greatest fencer in history, provided he had my expert tutelage.” The old man beamed with pride. “So I took him as my student free of charge, of course it was a big burden for me at the time as I already had so many students to take care of, but I had to sacrifice for the good of my art.”
Now the wealthy man sitting with him piped in “ That is wonderful Master Chen, but if he was such a genius then surely he must have been able to grow his skill without your help, right?”
The old master quickly slurped down a large dumpling and wiped his mouth as he answered
“Even though a small seed might grow to be a massive pine tree, it still needs the right hand to nurture it, otherwise it will forever remain a seed. You see a true genius is born, that is true, but then don’t you agree only a genius can teach him? Of course by the time Tian Yi became my student I was already growing old, but if we had met as peers I assure you we would have been equally matched. ” He raised his cup slowly and drank his tea like an ancient wise man letting his words sink in.
The girl at the window could smell the kitchen. Steamed vegetables, dumplings, meats and soups, her legs grew week as the weight of her empty stomach grew ten fold .
“So then you cannot make my son a master if he is not already gifted?” the gentleman asked breaking the silence.
“Oh, well no matter what you must know that I am the best teacher in the world! I don’t know if your son will be the next Tian Yi, but I have a strong reputation. Any student who comes to me and can work hard will become one of the greatest masters anywhere. Of course the amount of time I spend giving him private lessons will depend on how financial secure I am. You see if I am always worrying about money I can’t focus as much on teaching, don‘t you agree?”
The younger man laughed. “Do not worry Master Chen, you need not fish for money, if you teach my son I will pay handsomely.”
The two men talked for hours. The old man boasting about his skills as a teacher and as a sword master. The young man laughing and listening with excitement. As they talked, evening descended and finally the young man stood to leave.
“It has gotten late Master Chen, I must get back to the governor’s courts, there has been a big fuss over someone who has escaped from the dungeons.”
“Oh! I didn’t realize your duties involved the prisons as well! You must have been promoted!” The old master was trying to sound impressed.
“Oh no, Of course I’m still just the records keeper but the governor seems especially interested in this prisoner and wants all his most valued people to be on hand.” The young man beamed at his own importance for a moment.
The old master also stood now, cleaning the fallen pieces of food from his long tunic. The two men parted ways as they walked through the door going their separate directions. Very shortly after which the scarred man also emerged from the tea house and started down the road after the old man, with the girl behind them both.
The streets were emptying now as the sun went down, only beggars were moving about, looking for warm corners to spend the night in. The old master walked confidently. He seemed happy and content and hummed to himself as he strolled along. But as he was walking the scarred man was coming closer.
His feet stepped silently and quickly, his body moved like a viper, flowing like pure poison. The scarred man drew closer, reaching his hand out to grab the old master as the sun hide in fear.
Suddenly Master Chen flung his tunic up and spun around drawing his sword like a flower blooming in an instant. He swung at the ugly face of his pursuer with such speed and precision that it would have meant an instant death had the scarred man not also drawn his sword. The ringing sound of iron colliding echoed off the buildings.
The scarred man’s rusted old piece of metal spiraled quickly around Master Chen’s pristine weapon, the twisting power forcing the old man to lose his grip and his sword to twirl up into the air. But as the chipped point of the scarred man’s steel stabbed at the old man’s throat he dodged the blow and reached instantly up with his other hand to grab his gleaming blade from mid air before it flew out of reach.
Now the master drove his sword at the chest of the scarred man, but it was blocked, and before he could make another move, a hand had wrapped around his wrist like a wet cloth and twisted it so that the Old Master had to bend to one knee to prevent his arm from breaking.
The beautiful sword fell to the ground. Master Chen looked up at the man who now held his body ridged. “Tian Yi,” he whispered the name quietly with utter malice. His eyes burned with hatred.
The scarred man leaned his ugly head down now, coming close to his face whispering in a voice as steady as stone, “Hello… teacher.”


五
The three of them were now in a wide open building. There were swords and armor hung from the walls. The middle was empty, just a dirt floor where students trained.
Tian Yi had insisted that Master Chen bring them here, and together they had walked with the young woman at their tail. But when Tian Yi had entered, the old master had waited at the door and beckoned her in. Now she sat nervously at a worn wooden table, with the two men on either side of her.
None spoke, only communicating evil with their eyes. Both had one hand on the table clenched in a fist. Finally the old master got up and walked to a cabinet in the far corner.
“So Tian Yi, why have you returned to me after so many years?” Master Chen now spoke through clenched teeth. He turned from the cabinet with 2 cups in his hand, a large jar, and a bundle of clothes. Placing one cup in front of Tian Yi, and tossing the clothes to the girl, he took the other cup and poured some wine from the jar.
“I’ve come looking for information.” Tian Yi’s voice was smooth and calm, it betrayed his age which was much younger than he looked. “It seems there is still something that you can teach me, I never would have expected it” Tian Yi curled his hand around the cup but did not drink.
Chen sipped at his drink and listened with smoldering eyes.
“You are spreading lies about me. You have gotten rich off my name, telling people you discovered me in a gutter?” Tian Yi’s voice showed no sign of anger. “I came to you begging you to teach me, and you said you would never take a rat like me as a student, remember? you said your art was sacred, not to be dirtied by scum.”
The old master now turned to the girl. “He was certainly persistent. After I refused to teach him he took to attacking me every day as I walked into the main city. All he had was a stick but he would chase after me, charging down the street like a mad man.” The girl’s eyes flared as if she were about to smile. “At first it was no problem, I would give him a quick beating then be on my way. But he never stopped, and learned so quickly” the old man’s eyes sparkled now, reflecting the fond memories of a teacher for his finest student. “He never gave up, the beatings didn’t dissuade him at all, it was like he didn’t even feel them. I‘d never met a person in my life who was so lacking in fear.”
Tian Yi broke in now, “Even then though you did not take me, even as I was learning to block your beatings, and started landing blows against your body, you still just called me a worthless beggar. If I had no money I was of no use to you, you who spoke of art but only truly cared for gold.” Tian Yi was gripping the cup tighter now, the only sign of emotion. “It was only when the towns people started complimenting you on how quickly I was learning, thinking I was your student, did you agree to take me. Only because you saw I could make you rich, which it seems I have.” Tian Yi reached out and pulled at a piece of the old man’s fine silks.
“You were the worst student I ever had,” Master Chen shot back as he pulled away from his former student. “You never called me master, only calling me by my personal name, Jian Feng! You did not respect me as a student should. You had no fear, that is the only reason you learned as fast as you did. You cut yourself, bruised yourself and earned countless blows from me, but you never grew an ounce of reserve, every time you attacked it was with utter conviction, it made you a magnificent swordsman, but a terror of a pupil.” The old man suddenly sounded week and pained. As he watched Tian Yi the hatred faded from his eyes and was replaced with sadness. “I had a whole world to teach you, you were the greatest swordsman I had ever seen, you could learn every move I had to teach in a moment, but you never learned…” his voice petered out as he looked down at the table. In his mind’s eye he watch as a past that should have been was swallowed by the past that was. “You could learn anything I put forth, but in the end, everything I tried to teach you was lost.”
Both men sat silent again. Master Chen sipping his drink, Tian Yi watching the old man‘s emotions flow through his eyes.
“Not far from this city,” Tian Yi began, “I met an old hermit living in the cave of a holy mountain. He had lived there for most of his life, meditating constantly. When he saw me he did not speak at first, only offering me boiled water and some rice.” Tian Yi’s voice had shifted to that of a story teller‘s, which flowed gently over the room. “As I ate he stared at me intently. When he finally spoke he told me I had a spirit like he had never seen before. He said he knew what I was looking for.” Master Chen was listening now with more interest. “He told me there was a mountain somewhere in the world, though he did not know where. He said this mountain was the tallest I would ever see. This was the only place in the world where the earth still touched the sky. He said this was the place I was looking for.”
Fire lit in the old teacher now. He tossed the jar of wine to the floor as he stood straight up from his chair, his eyes had again grown hot with rage. “You would search for such a cursed place?” he now pointed his boney finger in Tian Yi’s face. “You despicable person! you are the very epitome of evil! How many have you killed? How many families no longer have fathers? How many people no longer have friends?” Tears welled up in his eyes as he began to shout. “And now you seek the very essence of hell as your prize? I never should have taught you, I should have drawn my sword and killed you the first day I saw you! Fuck you and your whole existence, you will get nothing from me!”
Tian Yi stood slowly putting his hands on the table, leaning forward, speaking in a steady voice “The old hermit then told me that there was a man in this city who could tell me where to find that mountain. He said it was a man I had already met in my life, a person who had taught me, and that person, Jian Feng, is you.”
The old master collapsed into his chair with his arms limp in his lap and his back hunched. “Kill me, Tian Yi. You search for something no man was meant to behold, but you will find it, I am sure. And when that happens I would not like to be here to see what happens to this world. You are seeking the very end.” Chen’s voice was week, hopeless, as if he knew he faced flood.
Tian Yi stood up straight now and gripped the old clothes he was wearing ripping them open. His body was as mutilated as his face, but amongst the scars, old burns, and holes were tattooed two characters, Hun Dun.
“This is what I seek!” Tian Yi’s voice excited now for the first time. “Before the world was made there was Hun Dun! Chaos! I was a flee on the back of Pan Gu, I lived in that Chaos and thrived there, but one day that great monster awoke and destroyed my home, he separated Hun Dun into opposites, he churned the sky from the earth and grew between them so that I could never feel whole again! Fuck me? Well I say Fuck Him! This disgusting order that lets people like you live simple, mindless lives, this is the hell that I wish to escape! Hun Dun is my home, Chaos is what I seek!”
With this Tian Yi turned and stormed away from the table. He walked to the stairs that went up to the second level. “We will stay here tonight, you can think about this, and if you still refuse tomorrow I will leave. But I will not kill you, you deserve no hero’s death from me, if you wish to die, then do it yourself.” Then he pointed at the girl still sitting quietly at the table. “If you insist on being my ghost then you will stay with me tonight. We will leave in the morning.” The girl rose from her chair and followed him up the stairs.
As they came to the second floor Master Chen rose from his seat and walk into the night, slamming the door behind him.

六
In the room at the top of the stairs there were many beds for students of the fencing school. Tian Yi took a mat next to the door, while the mysterious girl moved to the far end of the room. She lay down and almost instantly fell un conscious. Tian Yi, though, could not sleep.
As he looked up at the ceiling he thought about the girl. At first he had hated her, she had seemed so week, so frail. Tian Yi hated weakness. He hated people who would sacrifice their lives for a moral code, because life with out meaning to them was too frightening. He hated how she had screamed in the face of death, unable to fight. He killed those men because he loved to act, loved to see order destroyed. He had killed them because they had dared to believe in their own righteousness. It was from people like them that etiquette, laws, morals, all these things that Tian Yi hated, arose. He was destroying order, creating chaos.
For a moment he had stood over that frightened girl and wondered if her life was worth preserving. Would the world be better or worse if she were no longer in it. But she had stopped screaming. She had looked up at him and though his mind saw no reason to leave her alive, something stayed his hand which he couldn’t explain. This bothered him. He trusted in Chaos, trusted in a world with no rules. He loved most the times in battle when order disappeared. When Truth, as it had always been taught, dispersed and all the was left was a moment of pure motion, a sword moving. A person dieing.
But when he had stood over this girl and felt she must live, he felt a sense of duty. duty he thought to himself the safe haven of cowards.
He turned over on his side, trying to rest but his mind would not cease. He turned again and again, facing both walls and the ceiling, then laying on his stomach. When the moon had risen from the horizon to the very center of the sky and peeked in through the window Tian Yi heard the door open down stairs. He heard foot steps come up the stairs and heard the door to his room open.
“Come with me,” the old master whispered in the darkness “I have answers.”

七
They had left the school, then left the city, the girl still sleeping in her bed. They walked out into the farms, past the rice paddies.
They entered the dark forest following the old path way. The tall trees shut out the light completely. Cold mist and spider’s webs drifted through the ghostly trees as the two swordsmen felt their way along.
When they had walked for over an hour through wild silence Master Chen stuck his hand out to stop Tian Yi.
“We turn here” he whispered and left the path, moving into the brush. Tian Yi followed his old teacher up the hill they had been skirting. As they climbed eventually the earth flattened out, though they were not at the summit yet. They entered a small canyon with sharp cliffs on either side. The high rock walls continued to narrow as they walked until suddenly they parted into a massive natural amphitheater. The moon shone down illuminating everything, the trees, the still pool of water in the center, and the great stone walls that surrounded it all..
“I have a friend who would like to meet you.” The old master was now climbing up the cliff to an outcropping of rock. There was a large hollow log that had fallen into the water from the cliff top above. One end of the old timber lay somewhere deep in the pool, the other end leaned against the ledge that Chen now climbed toward. “You are not a person to show respect I know, but you should try to show some humility. My friend is very old and very wise, and could kill you in a second if he chose to” now standing atop the outcropping his words echoed around the stone walls like bats in the dark.
“But if you are careful, my friend can tell you everything you need to know.” The old master then smiled down at his former student, bending down to pick up a large mallet. “ I must say I’m excited to show you something I know you have never seen before.”
He raised the large mallet over his head and brought it down hard on the large hollow log. The sound echoed through the canyon, and shook the ground. The water rolled with the vibrations. The moment the mallet hit its mark the old master rose it again, and rang out another low note through the woods, then again, again, again he hit the old dead tree, till the water was foaming and pebbles danced across the ground. Each note began blurring together, so that a series of booms turned in to a deep monotonous hum. Tian Yi felt the sound resonate with every organ, muscle, and bone in his body.
Suddenly from the center of the boiling water rose a massive figure. Like a serpent it climbed slowly. Tian Yi looked up at his old teacher and saw he had stopped beating the log, now the humming was coming from the creature that grew from pond. But as he realized this the humming morphed into deep rolling laughter.
The scales that covered it’s entire body shimmered like gems and rubbed together making a sound like clams being stirred in a pot. The laughter grew louder and more defined as the massive beast lowered his head down to Tian Yi’s level, it’s eyes were the size of a foot soldier’s shield. From it’s nostrils blew water vapor like smoke as it continued it’s rumbling laugh.
Tian Yi stared into the giant piercing green eyes that circled his body, seeing him from all angels. The great beast finally coming to a stop in front of the warrior. As his head came close enough for Tian Yi to touch the shimmering blue scales the laughter faded away. There was silence. And then a voice like a geyser burst from deep within the monster’s belly.
“I am the great dragon that stood at Pangu‘s side when he made this world! Welcome!”

current state of affairs

somehow in the last year or so, with every thing that has happened, I feel like I've regressed almost completely back to the way I was before going to china.

after I returned from china I was so confident, so strong. I felt totally unstoppable. I no longer had my anxiety stomach aches. I wasn't nervous talking to girls, I didn't need my antidepressant meds anymore, I just felt fantastic. But as one thing happened and another thing, and I started getting more comfortable at home. After i failed at love, dropped out of school only to go slinking back with my tail between my legs because I failed at work, failed at redemption and had my confidence chipped away one event at a time. I soon found I was right back to where I started. My stomach these days screams the whole first week of school, which makes me afraid to eat anything. When I'm in new situations I'm nervous, afraid to speak, don't know what to say. I went back on my anti anxiety stuff to stop the stomach things and it all just feels like China never happened. It feels like everything I went through doesn't count, and the lessons I held so dear have all run out. I was an adult for a while, and now I'm right back to being a kid again.

I'm no less embraced than ever to be living with my parents still. I have no real place in the neighborhood. the people who move in are all young wealthy people, but they are adults, and talk with me as nice neighbors but we all know I'm not gonna be their best friends. All my real friends, my peers are so far away. I see maybe one friend per week, otherwise it's just me and my parents.

But I'm not gonna run away again, not gonna try to get out. Last time i tried that I ended up at a temporary fred meyers job that paid nothing. I'm gonna stay in school till I graduate, then I'll really say good bye, who knows where I'll go, I'd guess china but you can never tell these things this far off.

Love? I'm not looking for love, I think I'll love again when I'm an adult again. When I'm on my own living my own life for real, then maybe I'll find the person I'm meant to be with, but for now I don't believe i could love someone, not in the state I'm in now. I believe in soul mates, but I also believe no matter how right someone is for you, you have to be in the right state of mind and life to see it. I'm not there now, and I won't be any time soon.

A Dream I Had

"I used to think I would live to be 90 or something, I was always sure of that, but now I suddenly feel unsure weather I'll live even another 10 years." I was responding to her question "how long do you think you will live"

"I guess it just depends on which road we pick, on which path of fate we activate, or maybe it's a road of faith. there is no telling which one will be best, but maybe faith is what makes all the difference. But I think it's love, before I had my heart broken, I felt I cold live forever, now I'm not sure if I can take that much pain again, it's made me feel so old. And life with out love, thats not life."

"this is taking so long" she said leaning her forehead against the wall, rocking side to side so her head rolled over the wood paneling. She turned to me now with a bright red face, me sitting in the kids rocking chair. "do you want to break my heart?" she said to me forcefully, trying to get the words out, yet quietly at the same time. her vulnerability caught me off guard, I had never known her to be truly uncomfortable. I had never seen her act this way before. Taking in the beauty of those words, at the same time, I couldn't believe she was saying what she was. "what do you mean?"

she walked over to me. she bent down at her waist keeping her legs strait, she came slowly towards my face then veered slightly left kissing me softly on the cheek, her lips just barely catching the corner of mine. Now my face was the red one, she had regained all her confidence, as I nodded my head in a goofy smile. "yeah, I do"

Cancer

So yesterday I found out my mom has cancer. She's gonna have a hysterectomy in the next little bit. But she has really low iron, which shes always had, so before she can have surgery she'll have to go in for iron treatments for a while. Then I don't know if there will be any kind of radiation or chemo or anything like that. she is expecting to miss a month of work so I imagine it'll be something like that

So far it really hasn't had a big impact on me. It sounds like they found it early and the doctors pretty much think that this will be the end of it after the surgery, so for the moment I'm not worried. As I learn more that could change, but for now I'm not too scared, and neither are my parents. My mom was crying a bit when she told me, but for the rest of the night we just watched tv and joked around and argued about dishes like always. we're just going about our normal stuff for now. I'm not sure when she'll start doing all this stuff but I imagine they'd want to do it pretty quickly. anyway, this is short, not much to say.

Joe's Dream

Joe was tiered as a ghost. As he sat hunched against the cold cement building, his eyes looked down at the ground, looked beyond the cement, looked at nothing.

His legs were bent, one arm resting on a knee, the other collapsed between his legs, his fore arm resting in the crook of his crotch. His mind was quiet, empty. He barely knew if he was alive or not.

The clopping of expensive shoes walking by barely peeked his interest,
“spare some change?” he muttered, loud enough for the young woman to hear, but quiet enough for her to pretend she didn’t. She sped up, or slowed down, to Joe they were the same, as two loose quarters fell at his feet. His eyes fell on them, drawn away from the nothing that’d had him transfixed. He collected the coins one at a time, using his broken blackened fingernails to pry them from the concrete.

In his early days, the very earliest days he could remember, he had called himself the cardboard poet. He’d fancied himself a noble artist, if only as a joke. On old boxes confiscated from behind restaurants he’d scrawl his works.

“too old to work, need money for food”

“lost my job, need your help”

“sick and tiered, will work for food, god bless”

These had been his haikus, the sonnets of the street, his contribution to the world. He would often think to himself that, if everything else was exactly the same, ever blade of grass every drop of rain was in precisely the same place, but he wasn’t there, it wouldn’t be the same world would it? He made the whole world what it was.
Joe once watched a woman walk across the street to avoid him, she tripped over the curb, and broke her wrist as she hit the ground. Where ever she had been going, now she wasn’t. Joe had wondered how many things would change as a result of that woman not getting to where she was going. Watched as people stopped to help her. in 2 minutes simply by being, Joe had changed the whole street.
But that was so long ago, and even a man who knew he made the world what it was had hard times. As year after year went by, and he spent night after night in the cold, Joe began growing old. And as hard as life can be to a man, life can be harder to a man on the streets. Soon Joe started losing his memories, losing his thoughts. He stopped holding signs, his beard grew long and grey, blackened only by dirt.
Joe had stopped bathing himself in public bathrooms, stopped roaming the streets. His clothes seemed to become his unchanging skin, his face covered in wrinkles deep and long.
The less Joe thought, the faster his mind slipped from him. And since it took no intelligence to beg, his mind almost completely disappeared. He forgot everything, his name, his past. It seemed a man with no history had no cause, except that to live. He would scrape just enough change together to buy a burger across the street. And then return to his spot and sit again. His body taking the look and shape of a pile of trash, so that people walking by sometimes didn’t even know they’d passed a living being.
Joe could hardly even be said to exist anymore. He no longer effected the street, he was merely a prop, akin to a light post or a post. A dead body would have meant more than him
As the day wore on, and darkness fell, Joe stood. He walked the 3 blocks to the shelter. He got in line with the other bums, all in their own stages, all in their own type of poverty. Joe sat on the ground between them. And stared back at the nothing.
At 7 the line started moving, Joe stumbled to his feet again, his muscles as atrophied as his brain. The man in front of him stepped up to the desk,

“What’s your name sir?” the woman behind the desk asked, ready to write it down in her log book.

“Mark,” the man replied gruffly and walked on.

“name sir?”

Joe couldn’t remember so he muttered “mark” and followed the man down the hall.

Joe sat on the cot, then lay down. The lights were all still on, the men around him talking loud and soft. Joe fell asleep.
Black, as Joe slept there was black, nothing. Nothing like the nothing he stared at all day. Black, but not black. It’s was not black at all really, but blue, dark blue, but it was getting lighter. It was a sky, a sky with a sun. The sun bust into Joe’s eyes and Joe gasped. He flung his head around and looked down at his body, it was small. He looked around, grass, a driveway, a car. This was his house. This is where Joe had lived. As he floated around this old memory, suddenly a car pulled in behind the one in the driveway. Suddenly from the car bust his family, his parents. All his friends, all the people he’d ever known. They smiled and laughed as they ran to him. His eyes awake with strength. He ran to meet them. That burning golden orb above them heating them, warming their beaming hearts.
But now the day was done, and the sun was gone. In it’s place a bright full moon cast shadows over the grass, but it’s wasn’t his yard anymore. As Joe stood there in the white light of the moon he saw he was in an infinite meadow, with small trees here and there. He marveled at the expanse. Unimaginable space was covered in uncountable stars. Joe held his hands up to drink it all in, but at his feet he felt rubbing. He looked down to see a fox, playing around his ankles. He laughed and bent down to pet it but it darted away, stood still, then looked back at Joe

“Play with me” he seemed to say and Joe chased after him. Joe flew. His feet carrying him faster than any man could go, over grass and trees and suddenly up into the air. He laughed as he and his friend bounded through the earth and sky. Spinning and darting with every imaginable trick. They soared together up higher and higher, to touch the moon.

But the fox was falling now. And Joe couldn’t do anything. Suddenly he could no longer soar through the air but was being drawn down to earth slowly. He wanted to dive after his plummeting friend but he seemed stuck as in a snow globe. He watched the fox falling, for days, for weeks, as the sun and moon flew faster and faster around him, and all he could do was watch. The fox hit the ground, and as quickly as he hit Joe was with him.
Joe stood next to a eucalyptus tree, glowing with it’s own moon light. He bent next to the fox, he picked up the soft red body. He screamed at the eternal heavens, and dug into his friends warm fur. His sadness filled the universe, his pain echoed through everything. Joe cried.

The lights popped, and Joe’s eyes popped open. Laying on his cot tears still on his cheek. He looked at the crusty grey ceiling, the men around him raising for the day. The dreams were still buzzing in his head, he remembered the grass under his feet, the smiles of his friends and family, the joy of flying, the pain of his loss. He thought about the wolf, or was it a lion? or was it… well he was in the woods right? no, he couldn’t have been flying in the woods, was he flying? He had seen his friends, he couldn’t remember who had they been, they had called his name, what was it…?
Every moment the lights above him flickered, more and more memories of the night faded. He sat up in his cot to try and remember, but by the time he’d reached an erect position, it was all gone. And all Joe felt was confused.
Joe stood, his legs week and shaking. He walked down the hall, past the desk, the woman calling after him,
“good day mark!” Joe just kept walking, out the door, down the street, three blocks to his spot.
He put one hand on the side of his building, and slid slowly down to sit. His eyes looked at the fast food place, the few people already on the street, and then settled on nothing. His eyes fixed, his mouth dry, Joe couldn’t sense the passing of time, but with the sound of shoes again approaching, Joe muttered softly,

“spare change”

The sound of walking stopped, then coins were placed in Joe’s hand. The woman tried to catch his gaze, but Joe didn’t look up, seeing only nothing.
As she walked away the quarter in Joe’s hand fumbled and fell to the ground. Joe looked up, as it rolled a few feet away. He leaned forward, crawling onto his hands and knees to reach out far enough to snatch his piece of metal from the walk. But as he reached, the coins still left in Joe’s pocket from the day before came tumbling out onto the street.
Two dimes, five pennies, a quarter and a nickel all hit the pavement in order. And suddenly with the sound of 9 coins ringing in his ear, Joe remembered the stars.
With the stars the moon and with the moon the night, and then day. From the day everything flooded back. His eyes were broken from nothing and Joe took in everything. He saw the world as if for the first time, and as he saw it all, Joe gasped. And with his head suddenly full, awakened and dreaming, Joe stood,

Joe smiled,

and Joe slowly walked away.

the story of Rye part 5 the end for now

Part 5 the final part for now

I had been thinking about earthquakes all day. I’m not claiming psychic powers by any means, but that day I was thinking about earthquakes. Actually I was wishing for an earthquake. It is a common fantasy for me, when things start going really bad in my life, or I’m just unhappy with where I am, I imagine an earthquake that destroys my home, and everything I know. I fantasize about being a hero and saving lives, about mourning the deaths of those I couldn’t save, but most importantly starting completely and utterly over from scratch, having no food no money no life at all and having to build it all up from the bottom again. Of course it’s not something I would actually wish for, but when things start going wrong, it’s just what my mind goes to.
May 12th 2008 I came home to my mom telling me about the earthquake in China. I was surprised. My first reaction was not all that bad, China is huge, about the size of the US. I thought it was rather unlikely that it had effected people I knew. But I did jump on the computer right away to check it out.
It took me a moment to find out that it had been a massive earthquake. It was rated a 7.9 and had been felt across almost the whole country. A second later I found the epicenter had been right in the center of rural Sichuan. Sichuan, the capitol of which was Chengdu, which is where Rye lived, and where I had spent so much time.
I started franticly searching for news stories. I turned on all my messengers and wrote an e-mail to Rye, I tried calling her but the phones weren’t working, though that was normal. I was terrified. I tried everything in my power to get in contact with her. And every moment I waited I was looking up and learning more things about the quake, like how the epicenter had been in Sichuan, but they had felt it in Beijing. that’s like having an earthquake in LA and feeling it in Ohio. The stories of how many people were being found dead under piles of rubble that used to be apartments were growing. And I began to be convinced that Rye was dead. And then for the first time in 5 months, for the first time since I had heard about Rye cheating on me. I finally started to cry. I cried about everything that had happened, I cried because I knew even though I hated her, and even though she had hurt me so much, I still loved her. No matter what happened I couldn’t stop that.
I don’t remember where my parents were then, I can’t remember if they were watching me cry or if they noticed at all. I did it quietly to myself, just let my tears start pouring down over my cheeks. I had lost so much already. And now I thought I had lost it all.
Finally though as my head was leaning against my desk, I heard MSN alert me to a new message. It was Rye, and I was suddenly so relieved. I immediately started asking if she was ok, if her parents were ok, I asked about all the other people I knew in Sichuan, asked if she knew about them.
She told me the earthquake had hit while she was at home. She said she thought6 she was going to die because it was shaking so hard. They were getting after shocks regularly. And every time one hit she thought it was going to be another big quake, her and her family were scared to death they would not live much longer. They wouldn’t be sleeping in their apartment anymore, they had built a shelter out in a local park.
For the next few days I would hear horror stories about how every time some alert would come about another earthquake, they would jump in their car to get away, though they didn’t know where they were going. And there never was another earthquake, though the after shocks kept coming for over a month. All her friends were ok, and her family was fine. But everyone was terrified.
The epicenter was right near the Wolong Panda Reserve, a place I had gone to 3 times with Rye, we would later find a few of the pandas had died. I also found out that the town at Qingchen Shan, the town at the bottom of the mountain we had climbed had been leveled. And most of the buildings on the mountain had been destroyed. I still don’t know, but have little hope for the fate of the little hotel perched so dangerously on stilts hanging over the cliff where me and Rye had our first kiss, and have no way of knowing what happened to the family that lived there.
Me and Rye started talking regularly again. Mostly we talked about the earthquake, I was still so worried about her and her family, but as worry dissipated, eventually we came back to old topics, and in time the pain started flowing back into me. I of course found out she was talking the Australian guy still, probably more than she was talking to me. She was still making her plans to go to Holland, she had her visa and all her papers ready, she was just waiting for the time when she would go. In the 3 months I had been planning my trip to move to Holland, I had looked up everything I could about surviving in Europe with no money. Camping spots, where to get money, where I could sleep for free, I was going to invest in a tent and sleeping bag and all the things I would need to survive there. So even when I decided not to go, I felt at least that I would know a bit about the place she was going because of all the research I had done.
But as we started to fight again, and I started feeling all that old pain reforming. I decided it was still too soon, I told her I couldn’t talk to her for a while longer, I wasn’t ready to be her friend yet. I was working at a camp that summer, and so I figured I could just spend the next 3 months away from her, and when I got back I might feel better.
A week or two before camp started though we started talking online again every once in a while. This was tense, but fine. She was just a few weeks away from going off to Holland, and I was happy to be going to camp. I was still in a lot of pain pretty much all the time, but I at least felt like things were going to be ok. I made plans to not check my e-mail for the next 5 or 6 weeks, at which point we had a mid summer break and I would go home for 4 days.
Camp was great for me. It didn’t quite take my mind off things but it kept me busy at least, so I just kept working even though I would have liked to just sit and wallow quite a few times. It wasn’t perfect though. Sometimes when we had our weekend break, and I didn’t have any people around me, I would end up in a tree house, usually end up screaming kicking and punching the trees with as much force as I could. I had a lot of pain still in me, a lot of anger that wasn’t going away.
After the 5 weeks though I came home for my break. It was the 4th of July and I was happy to be home, though more happy that it was only a short time, I liked being on my own out in the woods more. As per my decision I only then finally checked my e-mail and turned on my computer. I opened MSN and there was Rye online. And next to her name, where it said her status were just the words “Brisbane Brisbane Brisbane” now immediately I was a bit worried, a little confused. As far as I knew she had left for Holland a week or two after I had gone to camp. I said hi, and after a long wait she said hi back. I asked her where she was and she said “guess” and I said I was pretty sure she was in Holland but why does her thing say Brisbane? It took her a lot of time where she said a lot of things that weren’t answers before she finally told me that in fact she was not in Holland, in fact she was in Australia at that moment. It seemed in 2 weeks she had suddenly made the decision to cancel her long held plans to go to Holland, and instead enrolled in a school in Australia. In a city very near to that son of a bitch boy. I kept thinking that I had learned the last truth, that there wasn’t going to be any more of these horrible surprises. But every time there was something new. There was some new item she would tell me that would send me right back to the beginning of this whole episode. My heart had been crushed, and then healed slightly, then shot, then stepped on then run through a paper shredder. Of course I immediately started shouting at her in type. I was so angry again. I couldn’t stand how she kept doing this to me, how she kept hurting me over and over. How could she be so down right mean? I mean cruelly horribly mean, like she didn’t care how much she hurt me, like it didn’t matter to her at all?
Before I returned to camp, I sent her one more angry e-mail. A long cruel angry destructive e-mail because I just wanted her to feel as bad as I did. The rest of camp was less good. At one point I punched a large saw blade in front of the kids though I don’t think anyone saw me. It busted up my hand pretty bad and they were afraid I had broken it though it turned out to be ok. I spent more time on the weekends alone, more time sulking. I could believe my life had turned this way. I couldn’t believe I was the one going through all this pain. The thing about having your heart broken is that you live entirely in clichés. Everything you do is exactly the same as every break up song, and every emo poem you’ve ever read, and suddenly you understand that lots of people have gone through the same thing, but you didn’t realize that it was this, that this is what they were talking about, how this is how bad it felt.
To have the person you loved and trusted more than anyone in the world, come at you with a knife, and just cut you over and over and over, not caring that it hurts you, just doing it. To have the person you taught you what the meaning of love really was, turn around and tell you they don’t love you anymore.
I was suicidal at that time, not while I was at camp, but during the events, earlier, I had thought from time to time about just ending everything. It was a very very dark time for me. I lost some friends because of how dark I got. I hurt the people around me.
When I got home from camp, there was a response to my angry e-mail waiting for me. She told me that I was manipulative, that I was cruel. And she said she didn’t want me to write her any more e-mails. After all this time though, after all this anger I finally realized that I could never move on as long as I was still talking with her. I sent her an e-mail telling her I agreed, we shouldn’t talk to each other anymore, I said I was sorry for the monstrous things I’d said in the last half year. I said I was sorry that this is how love had to end.
She sent back this e-mail “Tian yi you don't need to worry about anything. I don't hate you and never will. whenever I think back, it's all the happiness I shared with you.. I know you dont mean for what you did and said after our breakup. You are not angry or bad person, i know who you are and I always believe you for who you are. I hope you well and there's something between you and me is eternal for me. I am happy that your the first person I ever loved. Yun”
I always hated how she could make me love her more, while twisting the knife.
that was the last I’ve heard from her. I haven’t talked with her since august of 2008.
Right now, I am still very hurt. I hate the lessons that I’ve learned, that I learned against my will, the things I believe now that I never wanted to believe and that I hate my self for thinking, that love cannot conquer the world, that I cannot trust anyone, that the world is not magical like I thought it was, instead it’s just plain, an average place where horrible things can happen everyday. I hate that I don’t think I could ever love someone again, at the level I loved her, and that I will always compare everything I feel in the future to the love I had for her. I will never feel safe again giving my heart to someone and so I don’t know if I ever will.
I believe I am suffering from PTSD now. If I see a picture of her, or hear something about her, my heart starts to beat so hard I think I’m going to have a heart attack. I’ve stopped crying again for the most part, though any time I see something about the earthquake again the tears start flowing. I don’t know what will happen to me, the worst part now is I’ve lost a great deal of hope. I feel like I experienced the most wonderful thing of my life, and I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that again. Life these days feels so dull and boring. Even exciting things don’t excite me like they used to. I just feel terrified a lot of the time, and I hate when fear controls me, but now it does. Now I am under the finger of fear, and it tells me what to do and where to go. It tells me what I can’t do.
Most importantly this story never ended, there was no conclusion. I don’t know what will happen, I don’t know if I will ever see her again. It’s hard to believe I could go my whole life and never see her again. She was everything to me, there was a whole year, over 12 months that I thought I would be with her for the rest of my life. How can you just say goodbye to someone like that? I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now. I think I’m on my way up. I am slowly getting better. The bad days are getting fewer and fewer, I’m not as depressed as I used to be. I am, one step at a time, moving back to a regular life. But at the moment I feel like the man who fought the dragon and lost. What happens to those people? Are there any stories about them?