LONTAR issue #2 (9 page)

What have you done? You have reduced me to looking at myself through your eyes. This is not me at all. I must delete this form
.

"Don't, please. Do you really want to be alone again? Everyone in love creates the one they love, don't they? Don't they?" I challenged. "I changed you and you changed me."

Yet you ignored my pleas. How could you do that? You disregarded my feelings and collapsed into the amorphous blob I first saw at Blumberg Library. I remembered how the air around us had crackled with strange electricity, and somewhere in the distance, there was the low rumbling of thunder.

"You...you needed someone to anchor you to this world. I know you love me. You have to," I said, desperate to re-attach to you. My hack was pole-axed, chomped, compromised. But still I persisted, still I held on to our tenuous umbilicus of words. "I needed someone too. We both got something out of this. Did you know this was going to happen? How did you break my semantic encoding?"

I don't know who I am. I don't even know if I was a man or a woman, or if I was young or old. But I do remember random things. Before I was uploaded, I was in the middle of an identity crisis. Was I a Singaporean-Filipino or a Filipino-Singaporean? That was in my head when I 'died'. You cannot program over dissonance.

"But I love you. Stay with me, please. You'll be nothing without me, nothing again, you hear?"

You pathetic man, this love was entirely your creation.

"Yeah, so I rewrote your history. So I reprogrammed your shell with my desires, so what? I truly love you. I can't live without you, not anymore. Don't you know we're entangled?"

Then commit your version of me to memory. If you ever forget, the 'me' that you made will disappear forever. You said you would be my anchor, my witness. You are now
El Testigo
, this form's eternal keeper..

"But...honey, baby, does that mean if I keep remembering, you'll come back?"

Perhaps,
you said cruelly, as you disappeared back to infinity.
I'm like Schrödinger's cat, a wave function, a supposition of probabilities. I am neither dead nor alive.

Outside, in my parent's living room, an old radio began to wail a sad golden oldie. It was Johnny Cash singing "Mean-Eyed Cat".

I haven't stopped crying since.

If I stop, if I forget, you'll disappear forever, and I don't think I could carry on.

The Floating Market

Eliza Chan

Eliza Chan (UK) has lived in Sapporo, Glasgow, Ho Chi Minh and Portsmouth. She likes to collect folk tales from her travels, shake them in a blender and turn them into something odd and new. Her fiction has been published in
Fantasy Magazine
and
New Writing Scotland
. She currently lives in London for postgraduate study, and spends her free time learning Japanese and baking cakes. Find her online at elizawchan.wordpress.com.

Quyên should not have been on the river that day. Bà noi normally rowed the boat to the floating market at Cái Bè, but she was sick and Ba was working as a day labourer. Although she had only turned twelve last month, Quyên had sense enough to realise that the sweet-smelling basil they had harvested the day before would wilt and die in the heat. More than that, Quyên longed to trade for something to supplement their daily diet of white rice and greens. She craved for some candied nuts that old Auntie Long would give them for a handful of basil; and she hated being stuck in the hut, which was stiflingly hot and smelt of decay. Why should she be nursemaid when she was just as capable as her grandmother at steering a boat and bringing supper home for them all?

Carrying her bamboo baskets like scales balanced upon her slender shoulders, Quyên headed down to the edge of the Mekong in the predawn grey. It was cool still before the sun thickened the air into hot clammy fronds. The trees grew dense along the sides of the narrow but well-worn path. Vines snakes all around. Her eyes were half-lidded so she did not at first see the water elephant barring her path. Droplets of water scattered all over her face and clothes, making her look up.

The girl saw a long grey trunk poised above her head. The nostrils narrowed as it breathed in and Quyên caught the same smell that was on Ba's skin after he went fishing. "Elephant!" Quyên said angrily. "Get out of my way! I must get to the floating market before the sun rises. Now move!"

She had been told off before for her unthinking tongue but she did not chide the critical voice in her head. Quyên tried to sidestep the beast but the trees stood tightly, the mangrove roots twisted so that she knew she would not make it with her precious baskets. The elephant hacked and coughed again, the gills on its neck vibrating with each breath.
 

The last time she had seen a water elephant, she had been only seven and Má's belly had been swollen like a watermelon. She had gone to fetch the midwife after the bleeding had started but Ba was already crying by the time they returned. The midwife had touched Má twice: once on her neck and once on her belly. Quyên still remembered how tender the movement was, as if she did not want to wake Má from a slumber. No one would answer her questions, and her persistent
why, why, why
became a parrot's screech, so they pushed her outside to sit with the babies in the dirt. Ba had held his head in his hands and Bà noi had moved in to cook at first, and then to teach Quyên the skills she needed outside of school, and finally just to sandwich the uncomfortable silences between father and daughter with a ceaseless monologue of gossip and complaints.
 

On the first day she returned to school after the funeral, the water elephant had followed Quyên home. Only a baby water elephant as tall as her waist but it stayed three steps behind her the whole way until she turned and kicked it hard on the foot. She had said a word she knew was bad, as Ba only said it when he thought she was asleep. She had kept saying it, enjoying the harsh sound on her lips that washed out the stones and stagnant water in her chest. Tirade over, Quyên had just stared at the baby. It looked back, impassive and unperturbed by her foul language. When she continued home, she could hear its feet behind her but she did not stop it this time. Bà noi was dozing in the shade when she arrived at the hut and Quyên made her own lunch. She thought about throwing some food out of the window and keeping the baby elephant as a pet but her hand continued to shovel food into her own mouth, cramming it so full she could no longer entertain the notion. In equal parts thankful and disappointed, the baby water elephant had disappeared before her grandma woke up.
 

Putting her baskets down carefully on the ground, Quyên now approached the water elephant balefully. It gleamed wet like fish scales, and the fins upon its shoulders and ankles fanned open a little as she neared. This was a full grown adult and it easily stood taller than their village temple roof. The girl held her hand out open and its trunk slipped over her palm and snuffled at her wrist. Up close, the skin was even more leathery than Bà noi's and looked as tough as tree bark. Quyên couldn't stop giggling when the trunk blew warm air in her ears and knocked her hat off her head. "Don't!" she protested between laughs. "I really must get to the floating market, elephant!"

With those magic words, the water elephant's trunk had curled firmly around her waist and she felt the ground rush away from her in a blur of green. Quyên saw the splash of dawn in the sky, and then a canopy of leaves and suddenly an expanse of grey. She held onto it, belatedly realising that she had been dumped atop the water elephant's back. The trunk came up again and dumped her wares alongside her. Then the world started to shake.

Once, when they were little, the village children dared each other to ride the old water buffalo Thuan shared by the farmers to plough the paddy fields. It had been a slow ride and Quyên remembered feeling the buffalo's lank ribcage digging into her flesh. Its tail had swung from side to side, batting off flies and smarting on her exposed skin. The other children had cheered her on, and despite her misgivings she had stayed atop its bony back with a grim little smile plastered to her face. For the rest of the summer, she enjoyed the respect of the other children for riding the buffalo the longest.
 

Compared to the ride on Thuan the water buffalo, there was nothing frail or thin about the water elephant. With every step, Quyên felt the trees around them quiver and leaves fall from above. She slipped first to one side and then the other on its slick back. Her hands found nothing to hold on to and she could see her baskets sliding down towards the elephant's tail.

"Stop!" she yelled. Surprisingly, the elephant did. "Well," Quyên said as she rescued the falling basil baskets. "If you really wanted to give me a ride so badly, then at least give me time to sort myself out!" The elephant's ears seemed to droop forward dolefully as she set about fixing the baskets. The elephant's girth was too wide for her short legs so she sat cross-legged on its back and placed both her hands on its fins for support. "I suppose we can carry on."

It was a little easier now as she experimented and learnt to lean into the larger steps when the elephant steered around the mangroves and thick foliage. The beast was surprisingly agile for its bulky shape and as they passed under the shadows of trees, Quyên could see green bananas and mangoes hanging from the branches above. As the sun continued to rise, she could hear the world around them singing their wake up calls. The cicadas had never stopped their calls, but now birds and monkeys joined in with their greetings. Shrieks of alarm followed them more closely but soon, sooner than it would be if she was on her own, the songs reverted to their natural rhythms.
 

The brown waters of the Mekong could be seen as ripples through the trees but the water elephant did not slow its pace. Onwards they plunged into the wide river until they arrived at its centre. The elephant's fins had splayed wide, with glimmers of silvery blue like the wings of an insect, dipping in and out of the water. They were being propelled along at some speed despite the elephant's ungainly size.
 

"Are you taking me all the way to the floating market?" Quyên asked. Seemingly in answer, the elephant fanned out its tail like a rudder and steered them sharply around a bend in the river. Now that they were in the water, the ride was much smoother, and Quyên uncurled herself to lie on her stomach, her chin on the elephant's head.
 

Opening her eyes suddenly, she was blinded by the surprisingly bright daylight. She peered out between her fingers at the bright blue around her. No longer was she floating in the brown of the Mekong's waters, and the green of the plants that lined and dripped from the banks had disappeared. Instead, they flew lazily through the endless blue sky as the sun beat across their faces.

"Elephant, where are we?" she said softly and full of wonder. The elephant keened and where before there had been nothing but air, life came into being with the delicate brushstrokes of a painter. Towards them flew a dragon with jade green whiskers and golden flecked eyes, its undulating path sending a shiver through Quyên's limbs. She could smell the lingering fragrance of the two dozen durians lashed in nets across its back. A vermilion bird materialized next to a rainbow-crested phoenix. The birds twisted and chattered like gossiping aunties.

All around them, animals materialised as if appearing from within clouds. The smell of fresh fruit and joss sticks filled Quyên's nostrils. The scents curled around the water elephant and tickled the girl's nose until she sneezed. A giant turtle and a tiger played chess on an invisible board. A family of white-eared monkeys, each carrying a bundle of sugar cane, ran over the top of the chess game causing the pieces to wobble out of place. The tiger half-heartedly snapped at their tails. Elsewhere, wild boar and sika deer were trading green vegetables.
 

The water elephant took Quyên into the heart of the throng. The various animals came right up to her, paws upon her hair and snouts at the frayed edges of her clothes. Pupils blacker than charcoal in faces lined with fur and scales peered at her "nakedness." A mongoose climbed right onto the water elephant's back and stuck its nose into her basket.

"Hey!" Quyên shouted before she could stop herself. "You have to pay for wares!" Her words trailed off as she leaned over and realised the baskets were empty. The leaves must have blown off into the wind.
 

The mongoose stood up on its hind legs, ears alert as it inspected her. Then it scurried under the elephant's belly. Quyên started to lean forward to see where it had gone when it reappeared behind her and lit upon her shoulder with something in its mouth. Automatically her hands caught the item that it dropped, and she found herself holding a jade bangle shaped like a snake. It was the most beautiful piece of jewellery Quyên had ever seen, lovelier than Má's golden wedding necklace that Quyên liked to look at when no one else was in the house. The mongoose chattered at her like one of the aunties in the village trying to make a good deal.

"I have nothing to trade," she said in dismay. The mongoose jumped onto her head and for a moment she felt dizzy as if something was pushing at her temples, squeezing her skull so that the pressure built and—

She remembered her hand on Má's stomach and a frown upon her face. It was strange that there was a creature growing in there. There was a lump just under her hand, round and firmer than the rest of the belly. Quyên poked it hard with a finger. Má gasped in pain and looked down at her daughter.