I was despondent, for I thought I had certainly fallen to the place where I was before I started my vertical motion. But a long time passed, and silence still lay all around me. Did another kingdom lie beneath the desert, a dead kingdom? It was very dry here, and the earth was not the black earth of before. All of a sudden, it came to me: this wasn’t earth, it was sand! Right. This was shapeless sand! I had clearly fallen down, so how had I ended up in this kind of place? Could gravity have changed direction? I didn’t want to think about this too much. I had to start my work as soon as possible, for it was only work that could put me in a good mood with a steady self-confidence.
I began digging — still in the upward, vertical motion. Motion in the desert was quite different from motion in the earth. In the earth, you could sense the track — and the sculpture — your motion left behind. But this heartless sand submerged everything. You couldn’t leave anything behind, and so you couldn’t judge the direction of your motion. Of course, with my present lifestyle, vertical motion was just fine, because my inner body was attuned to gravity. As this went on, I felt that this work was harder and tenser than before. And what I ate was sand: flavor was out of the question. I ate it just to fill my stomach. I was tense because I was afraid of losing my direction by mistake. I had to keep paying attention to my sense of gravity: it was the only way to maintain the vertical route. This sand would seemingly choke all of my senses. I had no way to know if I was even in motion. And so my feelings shrank inward. There was no longer a track, not to mention the sculpture, but only some blurred throbbing innards, along with flashes of faint light in my brain.
And so, was I squirming in the same spot or was I moving up? Or sinking down? Was I capable of determining this? Of course not. Every so often I made expanding and contracting motions, which I thought meant I was moving up. Of course the sand’s resistance was not nearly as great as the earth’s, but this slighter resistance left me uneasy. If you have nowhere to stand, then you have no way, either, to confirm the results of your exertions, and there’s likely to be no result. After tiring from my activity, I ate some sand and then fell into a death-like sleep. After my skin cracked, it healed again, and after healing it cracked again. Little by little, it was thickening. The humankind above me wears thick skin. Had they all gone through what I was experiencing? Ah, this quiet, this desolation! One can probably endure it for a short time, but if it persists, isn’t it the same as being dead? Uneasiness germinated tardily in my mind. I reflected on the one who had disappeared: Perhaps he was still alive? One possibility was that he and I were both living and that we would never actually die. Buried by this boundless yellow sand, each of us leapt on his own, and we would never be able to see each other. When I considered this possibility, I began twitching all over. This occurred a number of times.
The last time it happened, it was really dreadful. I thought I would die. I became aware of the mountain, which was the two black things that had formerly been above me. After disappearing for a time, they had returned. They pressed down toward me, but didn’t press me to death. They were just suspended above. At this time, I stopped having spasms at once. As this eased, at first my consciousness functioned rapidly, and then it was entirely lost. I leapt up with all my strength! At once, the mountain weakened so much that it was like two leaves — leaves of the phoenix tree above ground. Indeed, I sensed that they were drifting. As I saw it, a miracle was taking place. In my excitement, I leapt again, and now there were four phoenix leaves! There were actually four. I heard the sound of each one. It was the metallic sound mentioned in legends. I knew I hadn’t lost my way: I was on the correct path! Soon, the metallic leaves would split and I would see light! Although I had no eyes, this wouldn’t preclude my “seeing.” I — an insect underground — would see light! Ha ha! Not so fast. How would I do this? With my scarred, haggard, restless body? Or was it just my mirage? Who could guarantee that the instant I emerged from the earth wouldn’t be the moment of my death? No, I didn’t want to get to the bottom of this question. It would be fine if I could just keep sensing the phoenix leaves above me. Ah, those eternal metallic leaves: the cool breeze on Mother Earth shuttled among the leaves.
I fainted. When I came to, I heard sand buzzing all around me, and in this sound an old, low voice spoke:
“M, is your beak still growing?”
Who was it? Was it he? Who else could it be? So much time had passed. This desert, this desert. How could things be like this?
“Yes, my beak, my beak! Please tell me: Where am I?”
“You’re on the uppermost crust of the earth. This is your new home.”
“Can’t I bore my way out of it? Are you saying that from now on I can only wander around in this sand? But I’m accustomed to vertical motion.”
“You can only engage in vertical motion here. Don’t worry, there’s more sand on top of this sand.”
“Are you saying I cannot break out completely? Oh, I see. You’ve tried it. How long have you lived in this region? It must be a very long time. We can’t measure the time, but we know we lost you long ago. Dear ancestor, I never imagined, never imagined that in this — how to say it? — that in this extremity, I would come across you. If my father. ah, I can’t mention him. If I do, I’ll faint again.”
He didn’t say any more. I heard his far-off voice: cha, cha, cha. as he dug the sand with his long, senile beak. My bodily fluids were boiling. It was bizarre: I’d stayed in such an arid place for so long and yet I still had fluids in my body. Judging by the sound I heard, this ancestor had fluids in his body, too. This was really miraculous! Somewhere above me, he walked away. He must have seen the phoenix leaves, too.
Ah, he returned! How wonderful — now I had a companion! I had someone to communicate with. The boundless yellow sand was no longer so frightening! Who. who was he?
“Grandpa, are you the one who disappeared?”
“I am a wandering spirit.”
This was great: I spoke, and someone answered me. How long had I been without this? Someone of the same species would engage in the same activity and live with me in this desert. Father’s last wish was for me to find him: I realized this!
=
I was a little critter submerged in the desert. This was the outcome I had pursued. In this mid-region, I was envisioning the phoenix leaves on Mother Earth. Yet, I didn’t forget my kindred in the dark.
Red Leaves
The first light of morning had just streamed through the sickroom’s window. Teacher Gu lay on the bed with his eyes closed. The cleaning woman was spraying disinfectant in the room. She had arrived particularly early today, as though coming not to clean but to disturb him. Gu knew he couldn’t go back to sleep, for each time this happened, his thoughts leapt up in the midst of the strong smell of Lysol. One red leaf floated in the air above the forest of his thoughts — a forest that was totally bare, for it was winter now. Gu had been pondering a question for several days: Did a leaf start turning red from the leafstalk, the color gradually spreading throughout the entire leaf, or did the entire leaf gradually turn from light red to deep red? Before falling ill, Gu hadn’t observed this phenomenon, probably because he missed the chance every year. In front of his home were hills where maples grew. But it was only after he fell ill that he had moved there.
After the cleaning woman left, Gu bent his legs and lightly massaged his distended belly. He thought: perhaps one’s body is most vibrant when one’s disease reaches its last stage. His poor liver, for instance, must have reached this stage. A tragedy had occurred last night in this large ward: a terminally ill patient had rushed with a roar to the balcony and jumped. After that, the ward was as still as death, as though no one lying there dared utter a sound. Was it because someone had died that the cleaning woman had come so early to disinfect the room? He thought this was unreasonable. The person hadn’t killed himself because his condition had worsened and his pain was unbearable. He knew he was improving after going through chemotherapy. The next day he would have been moved out of the ward for serious cases. Who could have guessed that he would do this? This guy really chose an original approach.