'Tanglung'

What was it like, that day? It was late in the evening, I opened the door to the back of the house where we would usually hang up our washing to dry and we stayed there for a good part of our meeting. Out from your bag you took out two boxes of coloured candles. You smiled and asked me for a lighter and I went searching frantically through the whole house for anything I could use to light them. I eventually found a box of matches imprinted with the logo of some Japanese Hotel and it was made to look like it was lacquered. I pushed it open and there were a few left. You were trying to swat away mosquitoes as you worked away at taking out and placing the candles at their various sites before they were set into your designs and I was beginning to think that it was a bad idea after all, but kept it to myself because you had suggested the activity in the first place. Your hands protected the fragile flame as I transferred it from the match to a candle. You were laughing because my hands were shaking a little. You called me old. We went on lighting the other candles one by one, all from that one flame. I can't remember what we talked about then. I think we hardly spoke at all--we were so immersed in the process of lighting the candles, watching the place grow brighter and brighter. The most striking thing was the overwhelming silence of it all. And after everything I couldn't hold you like I used to.

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