Category: issue 5

The Taoist priest circled the rosewood pedestal that had last held the Cloud Step, absently tapping his lower lip with the bamboo spine of his fan. Master Lee Engseng ran his fingertips over the pale blue silk cushion that had held the teapot, then went down on his haunches to inspect the base of the pedestal.

The music vanished as quickly and mysteriously as it had appeared.

I’d started cooking my first meal in the kitchen, corn soup with egg, when suddenly I felt a light hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and there was the previous owner of my new house, standing right behind me as if she hadn’t died the week before.

The poets over-romanticize the stars. They name them for your gods; proclaim them grand and omniscient. You mortals always elevate what you cannot understand, casting the distant and mysterious as beings worthy of fear or desire. Think: things that go bump in the night, or the blacksmith’s apprentice who smells of cloves and fire and won’t look twice your way.