Memories of my Grandfather

On Monday I visited my mother’s father, my Gung Gung, to pay my respects.

I don’t actually remember very much about him; I was five when I saw him last and he was buried thirteen years ago. He was a giant for a Chinese man, six feet tall even in his old age, and from stories I believe he was a kind and dignified man, if distant and bound by tradition. My mother tells me that he never held any of his grandchildren that came before me, only rarely held those after, and that I must have been his favorite from the way he indulged me when I came to visit.

I don’t remember this, though, because all adults are giants to five-year-olds and by the earliest I remember my cousins were already (I think) getting too big to hold. More than anything I remember that he smoked quite a lot, what brand I never knew, and that he kept a can of peanuts at his desk. It was always the blue Planters can, honey-roasted to give them that crunchy, candy-like shell. In Hong Kong this is not a small thing; they are not very easy to find. I remember never having them before, but I liked them when he shared, and I buy a can once in a while even today.

That’s all. He was distant to my cousins and my sister doesn’t remember him at all. In fifty years, the best first-hand memories of my Gung Gung will be the blue Planters can of honey-roasted peanuts. In a hundred there will be none at all.

I didn’t have very much to say to him, so I brought a can to leave beside the incense and oranges. That seemed like the only thing to do.

Adrian is disappearing for a little bit.

With a little luck he will leave one more post to tide you over until his return. He says that he will check in periodically but definitely be back by the end of the month. This is not so very long in the grand scheme of things.

In the meantime I will try to make sure to approve all the comments in a timely way, and also to filter out spam as it may arrive.

Thank you,
~Catboy! =^.^=

YaoiCon 2007: One Server’s Thoughts

Earlier this year, one of the Cafes at YaoiCon invited me to be a server. Normally I write Tybalt stories (they don’t take my others) for the YaoiCon Fiction Anthology, but this year it was cancelled. I’ve gotten used to the idea of contributing to YaoiCon and the invitation was no small compliment, so I accepted. This was my first year as a face, as someone physically involved with the programming and at-con events. Writing is a solitary kind of pursuit, and in earlier years my contribution has really ended at least a month before the convention actually started.

This year was very different, and on the whole I don’t think I mind at all. If staff asks me to return I’ll be more than happy to accept. I loved meeting everyone - other servers, constaff, and guests alike. We had some scheduling difficulties and I only formally served one table, but I got to circulate and meet quite a few people. Everyone (servers included) was exhausted and I presume cranky from the two-hour-plus wait, but they were still some of the most friendliest, most wonderfully enthusiastic people I’ve ever met. Their sheer energy carried me through the night, long after I should have staggered off somewhere quiet and collapsed, and I loved every minute of it. Even dead on my feet, I wished I had more time to meet all of them, and then more time to know them better.

I think that’s why I have to stand up and say this now.

To everyone who came to visit us at the Cafe, if any of you are reading this…

Intoxication

N.B. The copy of this story in Envy, the YaoiCon 2006 anthology, contains a number of misprints and editorial errors. I am very sorry for the inconvenience.

Yellow-throated songbirds pecked at the bars of their tiny, gold-wire cage, blinded and too fat to fly, searching in vain for the trays of millet and grapes, oats and figs that someone had taken away that morning. A soft mewling startled them, but they soon forgot it, oblivious to the sleek, golden-skinned cat-prince watching them. Tybalt licked his teeth contemplatively, sprawling in the Roman couch beside the cage. He flicked open the top and plucked out the fattest, laughing quietly at its futile squirming. It amused him for a moment, but soon he grew bored again, and he thrust it, head first, into a glass of brandy.

It didn’t take long. The bird drowned in minutes, its struggles against his hand growing weaker and weaker until they stopped altogether.

“That’s cruel, Tybalt, even for you.” Tybalt’s guest, a gentle sylph of a boy, just barely a man, tried to look away, but the beautiful tragedy entranced him, somehow, and he could not.

“Well, I miss her, and their suffering eases my own.” He plucked the bird’s feathers deliberately, one at a time, tossing them back into the cage. “You wouldn’t deny me that, would you, Methyst?”

Methyst buried his face in his hands, running his fingers back through his short, dirty-blonde hair. “Still her, even now… Tybalt… It’s been seven hundred and fifty years.”

“Seven hundred and forty-nine, two hundred eighty-seven days.”

“Even still.”

You Can’t Go Back to Eden

I know how to find the nexus of the universe.

If you go out walking, through cold, deserted streets, sometime between last call at the bars and last dance at the clubs, you find yourself caught in that hazy middle, between not-quite-yesterday and not-quite-tomorrow, perfectly alone. The rest of the world fades away, until nothing exists except you and your thoughts and the next square of pavement. You can bring a friend sometimes, a close one and certainly never two, and you come out enlightened, somehow, with this zennish sort of acceptance and understanding of each other. You can bring a lover, too, and that’s even better, because it doesn’t matter if the world tries to keep you apart, because the world doesn’t matter, not in there. The darkness wraps around you, like a cocoon, cold and warm, lonely and deliciously intimate, all at once, and for those fleeting hours, all that matters is the way he breathes and the way he talks, the way he fits against you, all long, soft-sheathed muscles and gentle, supple curves, but most of all the sparkle in his eyes, and the way he tries to hide just how much you mean to him, just how much he trusts you with the secrets of his life.

I spent almost every night there, with Nicky, back when I could call him mine. When he left I spent them there, alone, never trusting the girls or boys after him with that delicate, perfect place.

It’s the most beautiful place in the world, a little slice of Eden.

I don’t know if I can find my way back anymore.