大學上Ebele創意寫作的短篇小說
自從一年前，電腦當機，所有檔案掃蕩一空，我惦念不忘的就是這一篇短篇小說，這是大學修Ebele創意寫作時，花整整三天多的時間寫完的。我還記得，那三天我別無雜念，待在特教館一樓的教室，邊按著無敵埋頭寫完的。一直以來我以為就此消失的文章，剛才突然想到或許還在信箱裡，經過小心搜尋一番，真的，還在。好開心，po上來好留念。這是大學裡我最喜歡、最神秘、最有藝術家氣息的Thomas Ebele老師出的作業。
忘不了的是，美國夜那天，我鼓起勇氣問老師可否和他同桌？我們聊了很多他在美國的事。他說他曾被女孩pick up過，我不太記得了，但那時他有說到他的老婆是台灣人。我問他身邊有照片可以看一下嗎？他笑說沒那個習慣。大四下沒他的課，只是從朋友Avon那聽到，有次她在中餐廳吃飯時，Ebele剛好也來，問可否坐她對面。後來他們聊一聊，他說他離婚了，Avon一時也不知該說些什麼，就照慣例的說了聲I'm sorry to hear that. 聽了Avon的話我，我心裡一驚，難道那是他教完這年就要回美國的原因嗎？抑或，他因為執意要回美國，所以只好放下這裡的婚姻？我也想不清，後來老師開了個畫展，我當然去看了，畫中有好多潑灑溢流的筆法，混亂、失序、激情、破碎，有扭曲的臉龐，有死亡的豔紅.......。我和朋友瞠目結舌地看著，似乎想從其中找到一些蛛絲馬跡。這樣一位我所敬愛、甚至超越僅僅敬愛的老師，或許是心靈上的依託、崇拜，雖然知曉的朋友都說：「什麼，妳說他有藝術家氣息？？？」
或許這篇裡頭的Father我是以老師作為塑形的吧。
Once upon a time a long, long time ago, a boy called A'neglakya and his sister A'neglakyatsi-tsa lived deep within the Earth. As often as they could they came up to the surface to go on long walks, exploring the land, watching and listening carefully to all and everything they encountered on their journeys. Upon their return they told their mother about everything they had seen. However, one day the twin-sons of the Sun-god grew suspicious of them and they wondered what they should do about the inquisitive pair. Soon after, A'neglakya and his sister were once again on one of their walkabouts, when they came upon the sons of the Sun-god. Casually the twins inquired about their well-being: "We are very happy" was the reply, and A'neglakya told the twins how he and his sister could make people fall asleep and have visionary dreams or let them 'see' the whereabouts of lost objects. Upon hearing this the twins decided that the two definitely knew too much and that they should put an end to A'neglakya's and A'neglakyatsi-tsa's doings. That day the sons of the Sun-god let the brother and sister disappear into the Earth forever. But lo and behold, two beautiful flowers emerged from the ground in just the same spot where the two had vanished. They were the same flowers that the brother and sister had laid on the heads of the people to give them visions. In their memory the Gods called the flower A'neglakya and their children spread far across the Earth - bringing visions to many people.
This Zuni legend about the origin of Datura also provides an insight into the nature of it's essential character….. Their distribution spans all warm and tropical regions of the world. Daturas usually grow as herbaceous annuals/perennials whilst some Brugmansias grow into trees. The most striking feature, shared by all species are the beautiful trumpet-like flowers, ranging in color from white to pinkish purple, and in some varieties even to bright golden yellow and red. The flowers exude a beautiful, narcotic scent, especially at night.
Datura
It was five thirty at dawn, she hadn’t come yet. A man loitered about in front of the automatic door, with his arms stretching to either side, his half-closed eyes revealed pangs of impatience. It had been one and half an hour that he remained there, but he would rather keep waiting like this than call her with the dormitory phone as her to come downstairs as soon as possible. He knew well her habits. She would not drop her water color pen till she put the finishing strokes to the painting of an ocean-and-rambling-lane-at-twilight. To her, delineating that kind of scenery was no less natural or substantial than breathing. He was not sure whether only those were the subjects that infatuated her, but he firmly believed that no other objects could be dearer to her, even he himself had yet any chance to be her model.
Thus he pondered for thirty more minutes, but his eyes never lost any sight of her presence. On a sudden, a figure, his target prey, showed behind the door and walked toward him. There was an ostensibly sheepish look on her face. Some people deemed it as coyness, but he interpreted it as her only being too often absorbed in her own-created world.
“I’ve just finished painting the picture; I don’t think I did a good job, though. Anyway, I hope you wouldn’t be angry at me, would you?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t if you would paint me a picture.” His tender eyes fixed on hers attentively.
“Okay, but about what?”
“About us.” he stroked her fluffy hairs.
“You know I could never draw figures well,” she said retiringly, “but some day I’ll try.”
“Well, then I’ll be willing to forget about all these boring afternoons.” Her sense of compunction melted into smiles, as amiable and charming as a newly-metamorphosed butterfly. “You must be hungry, let’s have something to eat.” He held her hands, and then the two roamed vivaciously out of the campus to the streets.
She could still vividly recollect how she fell under his charm three years ago. At that time, she went to the stationery store for painting material, but could find none there; no sooner she walked out off the store then she saw a man unloading boxes from a truck. She approached him and inquired if there were any orange watercolor tube. He answered unhurriedly and friendly
“Sure.” Then he unloaded three more boxes, opened one of them and took out a retail orange watercolor.
“Are there any cheaper ones?”
“Sorry, I’m afraid there’s none, but if you could just save some expenses on diet….” he finished, and soon discovered that she was from thin to angular, though far from lanky. Chagrined in saying so, he said apologetically, “I was awfully sorry for saying that, I didn’t mean to say it. But since I haven’t carried it into the store, I’ll tell the boss that there’s an orange watercolor leaking on the way here, then it would cost you only half the original price. What do you say?” he said with his face beaming with assuring sincerity. “Thanks a lot, I think I’ll have it.” He smilingly handed it to her, which she received with her heart beating like an out-of-controlled alarm clock.
After thanking him once more, she turned back to her dorm. Repeating in her mind was the way he carried the boxes. It seems that it reminded her of something familiar, something dear. Those goods seemed intolerably weighty, yet to him, appeared like a sweet burden. His sweat had drenched his shirt, but his visage showed no hint of annoyance, his every step was unremittingly dexterous, revealing no sign of weariness. He looked so light-hearted, that every line of his face was smoothed with a harmonious melody. Every glance at him elicited her reminiscence of something familiar, something dearer to anything else. Hence, she unconsciously, irresistibly slipped into an amorous whirlpool.
Hand in hand they walked to the tumultuous streets. The burning, sanguine glow of the sun slowly faded, while the remote horizon was getting more and more indiscernible. Gradually the sun entirely hid behind the anchor of a far-flung boat. The street lights were lit, and permeated the entire city with idly and indulgent ease.
“How about the noodle stand down the right-hand street?” he asked.
Seeing that the night was falling, she responded, “Sure, it’s good that we have something new for a change.”
They turned a street corner as they passed by a 24-hour convenience store. Seldom did they buy meals in such stores, since they knew it well that every commodity sold in that sort of store cost at least threefold its cost. So both passed on, till the light bulb of the stand threw its soft, simple gleam on their contours.
After ordering two bowls of noodles, they took the seats around the stand. The vapors fogged her glasses and warmed their cold hands. To them, being together produced a wondrous magic. Though they had never been rich, with the companionship they shared, they felt like being the wealthiest billionaires in the world. Nonetheless, she looked like a social outcast—dowdily dressed, lean and dark-skinned. How she captivated him he couldn’t elucidate plainly. But he knew that it was something extraordinary about her that infatuated him so much. There’s a likelihood that this was because he always had a flair for seeing into one’s mind. He perceived restlessness in her eyes. Notwithstanding, he assayed to look into her eyes, he couldn’t convince himself that what he saw was the intrinsic portion of her or only his illusion—there seemed to be a bottomless abyss, or some dust that had taken root in her eyeballs. Perhaps he just thought too much, he thought.
“Ann, I’ve had something on my mind lately,” he said, “I thought maybe it would be better if I change jobs.”
“How come?” she asked anxiously, “I thought everything went well. I’m afraid.”
After a hiatus, “I just think that if I have more income, we will live better,” he said, his eyes evading hers.
“I’m satisfied with everything, you know, I don’t wear earrings, I don’t eat at restaurants….”
He interrupted, “I know too well,” he continued, “I never try to cause any difference in you. I like the way you are. I just think that when we have a family some day, if I can find a higher-paid job, everything will go more smoothly.”
“Phil, isn’t it too early for us to talk about that kind of thing like having a family? I am just a student and have never earned my own bread.”
“I know both of us will have our own jobs, but….”
“But what?” she asked intently.
“I hope, in the future, our children would live comfortably and receive a better education than I,” he answered as if preoccupied in thoughts, “and then you will be much happier.”
“Can I be happier? Since I grew up, I had never lived so happily or contently as I do now. It’s you that dispelled my fear of people. It’s you that gave me a hand when I fall…,” proceeded she, “Phil, I just want you to know, except for you, I really want nothing.”
Seeing her eyes brimming with tears, he reached out his hand to wipe them off, but she turned her head and said, “I try not to be so frail, I shouldn’t have shed tears.” He gently placed his hands on her shoulders. “I know your will is strong, much stronger than mine, I’m afraid. But sometimes people do look much stronger than they really are. At least I do.”
They left the noodle stand, and left behind all the gossiping crowds, heading toward the pond lying on the middle of the campus. They exchanged no words, for both were engrossed in their thoughts. He hoped she could confide in him, so that he could help clear the cloud from her face. If he had the potency, he would create another world like Eden , the paradise, which solely belonged to them; and only then, he thought, would she have full confidence in him, and in herself.
Then leaned against the railing, and watched the halo of the moon which was wrapped in mist. Angelina, casting an attentive eye on the moon, broke the silence.
“I believe there are some mysteries in it. What do you think?”
“Well, I believe it does hide some secrets from us.”
“It conceals secrets, making herself remote, aloof, inaccessible, and yet eliciting our sympathy, our reverence.”
Thus she paused, taking Phillone’s hand and placing it on her other hand tightly and assuredly, and let her inexplicable sorrows dissolves into the dense night.
A fortnight slipped away, puddles peppered here and there reflected the clouds floating aloft in the sky. The school bell ringed, Angelina lifted up the painting-tool box and her canvas, walking toward the stationery store at which Phillone worked, unwavering that today she would disclose everything he wanted to know.
Go back to the dorm and put down the things? No, holding something in my hand makes me feel better. Puddles, how I’m jealous of you. You walk not, you feel not, but you can breathe the air of freedom, you can watch the clouds passing by. When the sun rises, you can open wide your eyes without stooping your head. You are valorous, you stoop not. But the sunshine is so bright, don’t you think? Its beams are all too dazzling to look at, they are its tentacles. They stretch and fetch you. They will compress your throat and suffocate you. Then you can move no further, your feet get stiff like being stuck in the mud, and gradually become powerless, than you would sink to the ground and cannot stand up, till someone faithful will lend you his hand and let you grasp and save you. Don’t you think so? Don’t you think the sun is too lofty to glance at? I really can’t, I really can’t. Any glance at it would make me horrified.
Well, it was five thirty , what could I tell him? About these? Tell him that I’m afraid of the sun? Tell him that I dare not look at it and any glance at it shocked me? So weird, so weird, I’m afraid he cannot understand what I mean, but what more could I say? Even I myself cannot understand why I’ve got this phobia—solar-phobia? sun-phobia? sunshine-phobia? But if the sunshine could have been fainter, I might not have feared it. I love the twilight, it makes me feel that time has stopped, the earth ceased rotating, and people disappeared from the horizon. I would feel much more peaceful.
I know I love him, but there always seems an icy bridge between us, I know he always tries hard to cross it, but fails because of me. I am cold as the stone, but not cool as the blade. He’s too good to be real. I dare not show my whole self to anyone, yet only he knows well my weaknesses and never attempts to disclose them. He possesses what I’m devoid of. The larger portion of my disposition is considerably dark and he has the brighter side of me. No one, even I myself, can ever see through the darker side of me, but I’m not totally hopeless, at least I still have a little portion which is far brighter. I’ll have a job, after graduation, only two months later, I can draw pictures pertinent to the repetitive themes—twilight, sea and rambling lane. I should have learned to paint other subjects, like flowers, villas, cottages, or people. I promised to draw a picture about us. I’ll try, I’ll try. But I am confused about how to put two people into a picture? With their hands folded in each other’s? With their figures standing side by side? Or with the girl sitting on the boy’s thighs and murmuring?
It was five fifty , throngs of people squeeze into the crowds from all directions. Isn’t he my senior-high classmate, Gabriel? He looks extremely happy, should I greet him?
“Hi, Angelina, how’s everything?”
“Just fine.”
“I’m going to a party, wanna go?”
“I’d like to, but I’m afraid I have got a date.”
“That’s a pity. Well, I’ll talk to you then. Bye!”
“Bye!”
It’s been four years since I last saw him, but how little he has changed, he still merrily lives his life, and appears always carefree. Well, I’ve changed a lot, both in thinking and attitudes toward reckoning with problems. Did he sense it? I’m afraid not, for we merely talked for no more than one minute, how could he notice the slightest difference in me?
The dark clouds dispelled while the rosy clouds rose. She kept roaming the agitated street, and occasionally the shadow of a cloud passed across her face. Most of the pedestrians scurrying between throngs of people carried a briefcase in their hands, approximately one out of the ten held their children’s hands. It suddenly struck her that it might not be convenient for him to talk to her now, since it was not yet six o’clock . She thought she would wait till then in some bookstore. She cast a momentary look at the surrounding shops and found there were two bookstores nearby. If the night had fallen, she would opt for the one situated on the right-hand street; nevertheless, the sun still lingered around the anchor of a faraway vessel and mantled the city with a marvelous veil, semitransparent yet impenetrable.
Toward the other bookstore across the road she was about to stroll, but all of a sudden, someone, no, two people, a father with his daughter sitting on his shoulders, riveted her attention. The girl gaily peeped around, as though something excited her curiosity; the father held her both heels in his warm big palms, assuringly and proudly. Their faces every now and then beamed with joy and security. As if the sun had made them a safest bulwark, a securest haven, a firmest anchor that never let them drift away with the billow. Such were what once she had had.
When Angelina was only a five-year-old child, the roof of her house was her favorite playground, particularly when it was at dawn. Always she quickly finished her dinner and pleaded with her father to go upstairs to the roof and bear her on his shoulder, so as to steal a look at the crimson, enigmatic and elusive setting sun behind the too-high-for-her enclosing wall. For how many months or years this routine habit they kept she had no conscious recall.
But those twilight moments had been branded on her memory as the happiest childhood times. Over the enclosing wall, on her father’s robust, broad shoulders, she always fixed her eyes on the sun, moonfaced and awestricken. She found that the sun rested on the mast of a distant boat, and imagined that his father and her to be on the deck of a massive vessel and drift with the ebb and flow. However, those jocund times swiftly slipped away. One day, her father came home from work much earlier than usual; his eyes lost their former brightness, and were covered in ineffable shadows. The more days ticked away, the more she got fidgeted at her father’s bed-ridden illness. Her craving for being with her father alone on the “vessel” was no less than watching the splendid sunset. How she anticipated some day not far off her father could bear her on his shoulders as readily and agilely as before.
One day afternoon, after days of coma, her father recovered his consciousness at last, with his eyes glinting with extraordinary buoyancy and delight. Notwithstanding her wife’s dissuasion, he got out of bed, taking Angelina’s hand and walking to the roof. It was then six o’clock , the sun was about to sink into the horizon. He did his utmost to hold her up and place her on his lean shoulders. She looked at the remote sun, agonized to find that the sun never appeared to be so remote, so distant, so untouchable that as though it was going to sink into somewhere unknown, somewhere unforeseeable, somewhere hideous. Too tormented to see all these, she closed her eyes. On a sudden, she felt dizzy and tottered; within seconds, she fell down with her father, sitting right on her father’s thighs, with her face facing the floor, the deck of their vessel.
A series of scenes displayed in her mind like an edited film, and the last beam of the twilight penetrating through the crack of the building shed on her visage. She trembled, she cried, and at last fell to the ground in a faint.
How many days she stayed in the ward she could not count, for she had remained comatose since. Even though there were many times she could hear someone speaking to her, but she could not recount what he said on account of her temporary loss of consciousness and the vagueness of the voice. When she finally awaked, she took delight in watching the sunlight streaming in through the window. Seeing Angelina sitting up, the nurse thus asked. “Miss Dalloway, the man who says he’s your boyfriend’s been waiting for your waking up. Would you like to see him now?”
After dwelling for a few seconds, she responded, “Not for now. Would you please tell him that I don’t feel well enough to see anybody? Apart from that, would you please help me persuade him to leave and tell him that when I feel much better, I’ll call him right away?”
“Sure you don’t want to see him?”
“I’m afraid, yes.” With a confused look, the nurse walked out of the ward.
But then she didn’t call him. The day she left the hospital, she took a taxi home. It was not because she wanted to slip the amorous whirlpool, but only there were too many thoughts that engrossed her. In front of the door to her room, she groped her box loaded with painting tools for a key, and then unlocked the door, crossing the dusty threshold and locking the door behind.
It had been scores of days since they last saw each other. Phillone started to feel intense uneasiness by her absence. Why she didn’t call him after leaving the hospital? He felt tricked. He carried the last box to the warehouse of the stationery store, wiping off his cold sweat, firm in his mind to see her and talk things over.
It is at half past five , I hope she’s in the dorm. Undoubtedly she’ll be in her dorm. She’s always to miserably solitary. Probably she’s on the street, but if so, I would have spotted her since she always insists on walking this way and never rounds any street corner in the daylight. Yeah, I remember one time it’s urgent for her to buy something down the westward street, she kept looking at the ground. I really can’t understand her. And she would cover her face with her both hands. Is it so awfully fearsome to get darker on the face? Women love having fairer skin, I guess someday some magicians would create bleaches for women only. What a ridiculous idea! Well, it’s five forty , hope she’s there in her room. It’s been quite a long time she evades me and my calls.
But she doesn’t care about her dress, always casual and kind of obsolete, and a little “tasteless.” Who would wear brown thick-framed glasses with six angles in these 80s? Who would wear skirts with black and white horizontal streaks on them? She doesn’t care about clothes any more than people; I don’t think she would be afraid of getting a tan. So how come she always avoids sunshine as long as she could and insists on taking the road from her dorm to here under the daylight? I can’t get a clue! She doesn’t tell me anything about it. Well, it’s five forty-five , I must see her. But why do I have an ominous feeling that I can’t see her today? No, no, we must settle the problems—why did she escape from me as if I’m a senseless, emotionless scarecrow?
One time she asked me how come I could look so carefree, yet, so steadfast to my principle. I told her that I was not as carefree or steadfast as she thought. I just pretended not to look as frail as her. It’s just that the world casts too much burden on us men’s shoulders; we have to protect our family, our society, to defend our nation and the like. They live in their own dreams, their own worlds into which we can’t intrude. They are weird creatures, too mysterious to be accessible, yet sometimes too dear to neglect. Well what has she been doing these days? Lying on the bed? Watching television? Impossible! She never lives idly. She said she “will” be an artist, which I doubt not. She has a mind of her own, though sometimes too headstrong. She knows what she’s got to do next, and knows what to expect. But I haven’t got a hint of why she unaccountably insists on painting almost the same objects? If she does love sunsets, I never saw her gazing upon it. If she does love the ocean, I never heard her wanting to go there. Oh, it struck me that in her picture, on the water, there’s always a ship or vessel sailing on the sea, and flickers of the twilight suffuse hither and thither. But what do all these things mean? Even though I love watching sunsets, I can’t imagine how it can infatuate one’s mind to such a measure.
I hope she could have full trust in me. I will never do her wrong. When she feels secluded, I will be her side, be her haven, and be the dock for her to cast the anchor. I’m willing, but is she?
He groped his pocket, making sure that the wedding ring remained there. It was two minutes to six, he, resolute at heart, somewhat squirmy in posture, rested his eyes on the facade of his girlfriend’s dormitory. He dialed her number on the phone on the outside wall, but no one picked it up. Seeing a girl walking out of the hall, he seized the chance and slipped into the dormitory. Her room number was seven-three-one-eight, toward where he restlessly tottered. Her room was one of only ten single rooms in this building. He knocked lightly on the door. Hearing no answer, he turned the doorknob, well, it was left unlocked. Upon pushing the door open, some beams of dazzling light suffused his face. He was jolted at what spread before him—the curtain being drawn swayed to and fro, the long-shut window being opened wide ushered in a magnificent view of the sun at twilight. Its multihued luster penetrated through the cloudy vapor on the heavy firmament, through the shadowy verandas of far apart buildings, through the numberless shades of trees, through the glistening waves of some remote streams and ponds, through the smothering afternoon air, to every line of his face, to his nostrils, to his eyebrows and to his thirsty tongue. Such was a sight he never saw before, and never would he saw again, he thought. At his foot, a painting mutely lay. He squatted down, looking at the slightly wet canvas.
The parallels between the sunset outside the window and the one which was seized in his hand astounded him—the same mysteriousness, the same remoteness, the same inaccessibility, yet the same adorability, the same charisma. Nonetheless, in the distance on the picture, a boat was sailing on the shimmering surface of the ocean, with its mast standing upright and straight; in the foreground, a forest trail rambled northwest to somewhere indistinguishable and unknown. On the winding trail, he discerned a tall man and a short girl, and the girl borne on his shoulders was watching the burning, crimsoning, quivering sun sinking.
