Shadows on Water
A few miles to the north-east of your village lies Pearl Lake, as smooth as a mirror and the colour of the sky, whatever it may be. On this spring morning, sky and lake are a clear, heavenly blue.
Around it, the story-heavy, memory-deep hills. Were you a thousand miles from this place, given a brush and ink you could still draw that line on the horizon that divides above from below. Though towered over itself by hills, the lake has always seemed like the top of the world to you, a place open to the gods, where men tread quietly and watch their words.
To the imagination of a child, the screech of a hawk echoing off the hillside could be the call of a creature from myth. By the shore may be found cracked pieces of bone carved with cryptic symbols; dragon bones, as the old men of the village (with no less imagination) would have it. A child once played near here, pieced together the bones he had collected, tried to make himself a dragon, or at least part of one, but found the bones to be nearly identical, found he had perhaps a dozen dragon shoulder-blades. Even at such a young age, he searched for another explanation to fit the facts, but was left with only mystery.
Here then is Huan Tan, who no longer believes in dragons.
Here too are your immediate family, dressed in white, assembled to pay respect to your Father, who drowned in this lake many years ago.
Around it, the story-heavy, memory-deep hills. Were you a thousand miles from this place, given a brush and ink you could still draw that line on the horizon that divides above from below. Though towered over itself by hills, the lake has always seemed like the top of the world to you, a place open to the gods, where men tread quietly and watch their words.
To the imagination of a child, the screech of a hawk echoing off the hillside could be the call of a creature from myth. By the shore may be found cracked pieces of bone carved with cryptic symbols; dragon bones, as the old men of the village (with no less imagination) would have it. A child once played near here, pieced together the bones he had collected, tried to make himself a dragon, or at least part of one, but found the bones to be nearly identical, found he had perhaps a dozen dragon shoulder-blades. Even at such a young age, he searched for another explanation to fit the facts, but was left with only mystery.
Here then is Huan Tan, who no longer believes in dragons.
Here too are your immediate family, dressed in white, assembled to pay respect to your Father, who drowned in this lake many years ago.