A Calligrapher

I’ve never imagined this kind of misery could happen in my life. Who believes in ‘eternal love’ on the earth? We, who have well known the weakest parts of each other, argued every day and night, hurt one another, and torn up the memories of our golden era.

The most painful thing was that he was the man whom I used to love, adore and desire once. We wanted each other with stormy passion and shared the honey-sweet days. I still remember his gorgeous smiles clearly. Every single piece of furniture in our apartment had stains of our happiest period. The reality was, we had to shred all of them.

Who needed to smash who and what? Though I didn’t have any idea, still, we had no choice but to repeat the same conversation every time.

Divorcing was not only about two of us. At least, it wasn’t for us. Our family and friends were all involved. Their judgments, curiosities, and ignorance. I couldn’t stand being stabbed by their eyes, and finally, ran away from the country.

I flew to Shanghai, then took a fifty hours train, and got on the bus. I was stiffly sitting in a narrow seat to nurse my bleeding wounds, heading to a small village where there was a well-known lake in China. As the exotic landscape was running off to backwards, I assured myself physically moving further away from all of the complication.

I found a small guesthouse located just by the lake which was sleepy calm between the mountains. I saw the pale light reflected by the lake surface coming into a rectangle room with a clean sheet and decided to stay there.

The guesthouse was so quiet that I had a feeling that there was no one but me staying in. But, when I was standing on the balcony in the morning, surprisingly, an old man came out from the neighboured room.

“Hello” He friendly said to me with his smile. He said he was a calligrapher and asked me where I had come from. I answered, “I came from Japan.” “I haven’t been to Japan, but I suppose it’s a beautiful place.” He said as if he was talking about heaven. I wanted to say, “I just escaped from that beautiful country,” but I didn’t, I swallowed my words instead.

I didn’t feel comfortable with the silence after that, so I walked down to the lakeside. I escaped from the documents, people, and arguments, but I have to go back sooner or later. As long as I’m wasting my time like this, the procedure is hanging on, and no way to move on. While I was walking around the lake under the blue sky, I asked myself, “I know I must go back, but when?”

Next morning, the man appeared on the balcony again. I asked him how long he was going to stay. He said, “I don’t know…’cause I don’t have to know.” He was smiling like a Budda. He seemed to be travelling alone as I was. “There is something I want to show you.” He went back into his room and came out soon. It was a piece of paper, a calligraphy. There were two Chinese letters on the horizontally long paper:

寧静 (Ning Jing)

It means tranquil and to be calm. Those letters looked as peaceful as the water in the lake. “Take it, please.” I looked at his smiling face and bumped into his confident eyes. I felt my unpleasant waves were getting calm down. He had read through what I needed. There were just two letters, but it meant more than that for me. No matter how horrible the storm is, one day, it will quiet down.

“Thank you so much.” I took the paper, carefully folded it, and held it to my chest. And the next day, I left the lakeside for my country, heading to my new life.

This story was translated and revised by HANA, from the original post: