Chapter 1
Paper angel.
I have been fishing from the lake near my village for half of my life. Sometimes I caught crabs and turtles that inhabited the lower silt around the lake. A concrete bank protruded from the silt; the mud and algae caked the bank where it met the surface of water; sometimes alcoves revealed themselves when the tide ebbed; upon the bank was where I fished, and it’s almost twenty years since I sat on the same spot, overlooking the same panoramic view, and fished the same fishes. Repetition dulled my old bones and wore down my sense of curiosity. And I could promise you that I knew the lake really well, just like knowing all the niches and corners of my house. The many wonders of the world fascinated me. Due to a rumor of our town and an ambition for oddity, I decided to look up at the sky and wondered: What the existence of the sky is if it is not full of clouds buried with unwanted mysteries?
I was flying a kite one afternoon over a green hill. The fresh smell of grass suits my mood. The shuffling sound of beating wings battering through the air mixed with the holler of spring breeze created a harmonious atmosphere. A shaft of sun light cast upon my wrinkled skin, soothing my withered soul. I’m 70 years old, and I was still full of passion for a new wonder to land on my feet.
I slipped the string from my hands, sending the kite up. And I waited for that moment of ascension when the wind caught the flight and carried it forward. It roamed free in the passage of the sky as if it had a mind of its own. Suddenly a cloudy feeling spanned my head, as if I was swapping places with the kite. An exultation of wings flew past me; I was a paper angel roaming free under the sun.
It’s not until several minutes pass that my pleasure dwindled as the kite surged right into a mount of clouds, and that caught me off my guard. I was worried it might fly out the other side of the cloud tattered, instead, it’s wholly intact and a bit weighed down, usually It always went on higher and higher, as if an invisible hand dragged it up until it reached its own limitation.
My mind ran wild while trying to discern the feeling I conceived as a sense of uneasiness. And slowly, it was giving way to tiredness.
Maybe not today, I thought, and I pulled the thread back. It seemed like a day had passed when the kite snaked its way right back to me, making an upward flipping sound like a dog on leash still wanted to run wild.
I hadn’t noticed it when I got home. There’s a white envelope attached to one of the hooks on the kite. I opened it and fished a key out of the bland envelope. rusty key coated with dry emerald skin. Is this a message? I wondered. But nonetheless, it hooked my interest.
I went back to the green hill the next day, bringing my kite with me. The kite rode the wind right into the cloud, and like the first time, a new treasure was unlocked when I retrieved the kite. This time an egg, the yolk leaking out from the broken hull—the damage done by the hook.
An egg from the sky. Mother Nature had been offering us egg not from farms or meadows; now it’s from the sky. I was wondering if one day it’s going to rain eggs.
I received many treasures from the sky: a love letter, a key, a dray petal, a feather, a childish drawing of a sunny day, a pencil, an earring, etc. All these things seemed disconnected; unlike a puzzle, it seemed to me that each item shared no connection with each other at all.
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