Bus Stop Between Worlds
words by Gordon Shi, art by Angeline Phan
Through split lips, this 99-cent tea tastes salty,
unlike rolling tears, which, through tortoiseshell
memories, taste sweet. You, a budding philosopher,
knowing Yin through the sugar in the sorrow,
feeling Yang through the iron in the fructose,
wonder if two halves make one whole or
one hole. A fine line you’d cut yourself on,
if careless, and heavens forbid your blood
drips down and irrigates the asphalt, lest
something happy bloom from rock amidst
this gravel sea. This parking lot, this grounded
expanse of sky where the one monolith
breaching the pall of sediment has three glass panes
and a steel canopy overhead, is no home for
lonely vegetation. You pluck at your own
petals wondering why she screamed at you.
Sitting on the wooden bench, you are no longer
stationary. Glass morphs into metal as you
speed along rusty tracks which ghosts built.
The asphalt has swallowed you, and in its
cavernous belly you wish this minecart would
speed up. You haven’t gone far enough if
you can still hear him excavating, back
hunched, as his spine disfigures with each
strike at the abounding deposits of ore. You
don’t want to be there when he depletes the
amethyst, cobalt, precious metals to be his
down payment on your prosperity. When he’s done,
he’ll dig a comfortable grave into the coal. You,
the canary with the desperation of the albatross,
can scream yourself hoarse, but he’ll drift away,
fossilized at the first note of your lullaby.
Closing your eyes to arrest the leaking, you notice
clanking turn to crashing as sulfur and soot
smell more and more like sea salt’s scent.
Your eyelids flutter open and you are met with
rolling waves, gathered clouds like black sheep,
a paradoxical community of pariahs. You
leap to your feet, a knee-jerk reaction the
embattled know too well, and scan your
surroundings for the helm. No luck. This
ship is all hull, no navigation. All Hell
breaks loose as the first cannonball
lacerates your vision, and in your struggle
to pull the fabric of your illusion back together,
you catch a glimpse of yourself kneeling on
the kitchen floor, picking up the china she
dashed against his crooked portrait.
Fuck it, it’s a rocket ship now. You’ll
imagine this bus stop into a vessel for
interplanetary expeditions if that’s what
will get you away from all this. Yes,
the engine is roaring, the fins are splayed,
the exhaust flames emulate the stars as they
leave trails of smoke like the feeble wisps of
incense you burned before his stoic tombstone.
There’s no sound in space. Why can’t you
stop hearing his labored voice imploring you
“Your mom can’t help herself. Have you ever
crossed oceans only to realize you left the memory
of what you were chasing on the other shore?
She’s gone so far for you that nothing feels
familiar. Please be gentle. When I’m gone,
all she’ll have left is your forgiveness.”
You’re sitting before an empty parking lot.
A broken soul in a dead landscape. You’re crying.
Silence and stillness and your shuddering sobs.
Then your phone vibrates. You put it to your ear.
“When will you get home?” you hear her ask
and everything
springs
to life
