Crafted in the deepest mines, with infinite care
searched for like the most luminous pearls at the bottom of oceans
elusive like smoke traped in glazed glass
that we try to shape,
trap
the feelings inside words
and give them forms
to make them dance to tunes of songs
echoing along the corridors of our memories
like ghosts which refuse to move on

I think that's where stories come from
Compressed moments
like the montage of a million photographs
of sensations and sounds
cut up, sewn together, built into immense monuments
of our existence
like our shadow or our reflections
there, as a sign of our being but always beyond
comprehension, beyond a real physical connection
byeond our questions, beyond our imagination

Sometimes our stories leak out of our being
like tears welling up inside our souls
until they burst the dams and become a river
of songs, dance, visions
that we try to capture and make sense of in some understandable forms
like the man I once saw on a train
tattooing his pain on his skin
"苦难忘"
To make that pain definable
so that it can be forgotten or moulded into part of his being
But in process it also became mine

Stories are like that. Like those balloons which make air imaginable
Sometimes a deep well of life-bearing water
a weary traveller in a desert stumbles upon
by accident
immensing himself in a world beyond his own
that all plants and other creatures delve into
partake of
something far older, far greater
than just a single story or a single story teller

Sometimes, it is a monster
spawning out of some empty space in our beings
that nothing can fill
no emotion strong enough to close that gap
that simple happiness sometimes get lost in the fissures
So that everything is taken for granted
the plants budding on my balcony
the insects laying eggs this very instant
Stories make them beautiful, remind us not to forget
But then we always will
so we'll always need new ones
the black hole that engulfs on this end
but spews out something new on the other
An eternal forgetfulness, an eternal search
that process that takes the moment to moment of our lives
build it into a giant glass sclulpture
smash it into a zillion piece
to be rebuilt
again and again
again and again