SmokeLong Quarterly

Ah Ba says he sees particles drifting, flying everywhere, rains of dust, he says, speckles that land on the back of his hands, “see, see” he tells me, even though he’s blind.

He says, dust balls into blobs that float in his line of vision; he scrambles to follow them, points his fingers at the air, “see, see” he says, for me to get a glimpse of the invisible clouds, and I push away the chair that stands in his way for fear he’ll trip and fall.

He braces himself for the flood of dust falling, falling on his head in the garden where our clothes are drying, “see, see, how the dust has covered the bedsheets” and he paints swirls of dust with his palms in a floral pattern, “see, see what I’m saying” he says, and tells me to shake the drying sheet, the two of us, holding two corners of the bedsheet, shake, shake, shake until sunset.

Dust never sleeps, he says, and he wears a cardboard box on his head when he goes to bed.

“See, see!” he says to Ah Ma who’s livid, and calls him crazy, see how dust collects in his ear, in his nose, how dust is trapped between the closet hinges, how he’s packaged everything he wears in plastic bags, and finally, I touch his arm with the tip of my fingers like dust settling on him, and I tell him, “I see, I see what you see, Ah Ba.”

__________________________

“I See You” won second place in The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest 2024.