(A snippet from the short story 'Your shirt')
There were those wolves — no, they were foxes. I kept calling them wolves — I could never seem to get the name right. I was scared the first time I heard them howl. It sounded like a child crying. But you explained that they were only going through the dust bins searching for scraps. Before long the noises became familiar and I didn’t hear them any more.
Your double glazed window and I grew intimate. Catching glimpses of everything and nothing much. My eyes like the shutter of your Lomo camera behind me. (Both of us taking records, memories for later.) My hands pressed up to the thick pane watching vapor trails. They lined the sky making patterns, crossing out clouds, making maps for birds. They were just pollution you said, but to me they were magic. You said those things in a voice that sounded sing-song. ‘Wa-er’ you’d say missing the ‘t’. And ‘grass,’ with a sharp sounding ‘A’. ‘Ass’ you said. Like the other name for a donkey. Splayed out on your bed, I’d listen to your melody. ‘Just a common twang,’ you’d said it was. But your song made even the dirty words seem beautiful ...
(Thuy Lihn blogged about this piece here and quietly filmed a reading here)
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