Even though it is her second trip up the Balik Pulau hill, Sanhui still turns into the wrong lane. She does not understand why her father chose to live so high above, in the middle of nowhere. But she made a promise to visit him at least three times a year. After twists and turns, she finally reaches Lotus Garden, where the buildings are adorned in earthy tones and overhanging gable roofs. The sunlight falls on the shoulder of a large golden Guanyin Pusa statue, which meditates on top of a gi...| The Bookends Review
“See you tomorrow,” says Grandpa Julien, as his fake daughter drops us at the door for our usual weekend visit. He waves as she skitters down the steps. The stinkers. I sling my backpack hard into Julien’s messy living room and stomp into the house. He looks the same as always with his rumpled velveteen jacket and a wild geranium in his snow-white hair. Mom and Julien pretend he’s our grandfather. He is really our father. Mom was really just a model for his paintings. They’re not r...| The Bookends Review
I used to be jealous of the rising tide, for it could never leaveJust lap at jagged teeth and spray its foam upon your sleeveMy blindness felt the seagulls flee, their mocking heard no moreYet still the tide, it rose in time, to crash on rocky shoresI know why the kestrel races, on the hunt for freckled facesIn the beaches, ports, and harbors, raving for its saving gracesIn the alleyways, for forty days, I heard them cawIn the burning trees, I heard their pleas, their throats so rawI swore th...| The Bookends Review
That damn commercial. It kept airing in between game shows, its sentimentality breaking up the raucous flow of applause and flashing lights and cartoonish contestants. A little girl calling her grandmother on an iPhone and telling her about a sunflower she drew at school while the grandmother looked out the window at the lone sunflower in her yard and smiled. After about its 50th airing, Lottie powered on her father’s old desktop computer and ordered an iPhone on Amazon. She hadn’t made a...| The Bookends Review
Did I feel reformed? I can’t say. But, as I watched those heavy, black gates dizzyingly sweeping to a close, one thing was certain – I never wanted to see them again. That day, with the last rays of the sun, a period of my life ended that I wished never to relive or recall again. The railway station was teeming with people, fortunately for me. After all, where could a person hope to attract least attention if not in a crowd? Nonetheless, there must have been somethi...| The Bookends Review