As though to fortify me she took the letter out and placed it on the table between us. Its pages were folded, yellowed like old skin, the faint tattoo of aged ink that had seeped onto the blank side visible to me. Just like me, I thought, looking at the letter. The life I had lived was folded, only a blank page exposed to the world, emptiness wrapped round the days of my life; faint traces of it could be discerned, but only if you looked closely, very closely.

In return for surrendering to the throw, you are given the gift of flight,’ he said.

Anger and sorrow walked with me, joining hands with guilt, the three walls of my prison.

The entire structure seems to be melting, losing the memory of its shape.

I realize that there are fragments of my life that I do not want to lose, if only because I still have not found the knot to tie them up with.

The practice of designing gardens had originated in the temples of China, where the work was done by monks. Gardens were created to approximate the idea of a paradise in the afterlife.

The noise of insects sizzled in the air, like fat in a smoking wok.

Duty is a concept created by emperors and generals to deceive us into performing their will. Be wary when duty speaks, for it often masks the voice of others.

Feel your body expanding as you breathe: that is where we live, in the moments between each inhalation and exhalation.

What made it worse was that we could never truly share such burdens with even those closest to us. In the end, the mistakes were our own, the consequences to be borne by us alone.