Ten Fables by An Gang
- A Fable
My son suddenly turns into a tiger. The tiger is thin and tall, looks very energetic. The tiger is nestling on my right side and it’s looking up at me when I see it. Don’t know when my son has got on the back of the tiger, asks me to sit behind him and go shopping in the store with him. We get to the store, but he can’t find what he wants to buy. He says to me, “Dad, you take me home!” After saying it, he disappears. I ride the tiger home by myself.
- Nameless and Sexy Creature
This is a scene with no time, no past, no present or future: a defeated team of people are hurrying along a stream on the edge of the city under the moonlight; a girl in jeans is lying on her belly on an inflatable float bag and floating along the stream, and I’m just on the bank behind her. The girl’s slightly curved butt looks very sexy. Green water plants are everywhere in the stream. I rush along the stream bank and try to catch up with her so that to strike up a conversation. She seems to have known this and looks back at me indifferently. I see her face is a horse face, but its color is the same as a human face, white, delicate, and smooth.
- The Drowned
We just walked out of the lake when I looked back and saw her floating face down like a drowned person in the lakeshore ditch full of mugworts. Her puffed-up white jacket was very striking. I was nervous, rushed over and grabbed her clothes to lift her up. She felt like empty and didn’t cost me any effort. She slightly coughed and then began to vomit non-stop, spitting out many green seaweed-like stuff. At this moment, there was someone else standing behind me that I was familiar with, but now I can’t remember who she was. This person didn’t even look at her for a second.
- Spring is Here, Let’s Plant a Child
In the spring when everything revives, I see a young couple who look like my neighbors in the grass next to a path in the garden. They’ve put their son, who’s just turned one year old, into a rectangular hole they’ve just dug in the grass. When I see them, they’ve already filled it with earth and are jumping and stepping on it. Seeing me passing by, the female pants and says to me: “Going out for a trip, so we hide him. He’ll grow taller when we come back.”
The woman still wants to say something to me, but the man says to her, “Hurry up, we’ll have to water him after we compact the earth!”
I walk past them, look back five or six meters away, see them holding hands like a pair of children jumping happily on their son’s new home.
- Shadows and the Sun
I am fading away when the sunlight passes through me. Now I have no body, the sun is shining on my shadow, which is getting lighter. My shadow has blocked the sun, and my son’s shadow is getting darker. But my son asks me not to block him, he says that he wants to sunbathe.
- Two Wives
I have two wives, one tall, one short. They look exactly the same, wear the same clothes, too. The short wife comes to me first, followed by the tall wife who steps on the shadow of the short one. The short wife says to me: I am your wife; I look at her eyes, think she is my wife; the tall wife looks at me without saying anything; I also look at her and think she is my wife.
- The Door of Heaven is Made of Wood
In the twilight, I’m following my dad, and it seems like we are on our way to heaven. Dad is carrying a door on his shoulder, and it has a brass frame with an inlay of red patterned wood, very delicate.
We are crossing the small river of our hometown.
But I don’t know what happened, suddenly all that’s left of the door is the brass frame only. The wooden board of the door are somehow turned into a pile of wood strips, as if they were just chopped down with an axe by someone. But there is no one around.
I think it’s okay to throw these wood strips away. As I’m thinking, my dad says to me: “Quickly pick up these wood strips. We’re taking them with us.” And he says, “These things are all from heaven, we can’t just throw them away!”
- I Couldn’t Clearly Tell Our Relationship
She was sleeping on a single bed next to me.
In the hazy morning light I saw her pressing her bleeding tooth with the forefinger, and almost subconsciously, my tooth started to bleed, too. I secretly rejoiced, also pressed my bleeding tooth with my forefinger. When I looked at her, she was also looking at me, and I said, “What a coincidence, we both have a bleeding tooth.”
She smiled at me, and I felt sweet inside. Her smile was so charming.
I quickly rolled over and got up from bed, went to the washroom. And then, like in a station waiting hall, I went to two washrooms in a row but both were occupied. Only when I went to the third one, there was no one inside. In the washroom, I looked in the mirror while washed the blood from my teeth with a handful of water. I felt sweet in my heart – just like the same accidental thing that happened to two lovers at the same time would be given a magical meaning.
But I still couldn’t clearly tell our relationship.
- A Rose
In the twilight on the roadside, I encounter a naked, fair-skinned and headless teenage girl. It feels like her head was just cut off by someone, and red waves are fountaining upward from her white neck. When I look at her, her sleek and fleshy body turns toward me, and then dances provocatively at me, without any sadness at all. So, I don’t feel sad, either.
- An Injured Elephant
My wife and I are strolling in a large shopping mall, and lots of people are there. When walking through the arched corridor in the middle, I see a herd of wild boars walking in front of us. I tell my wife that wild boars are social animals, even an elephant dares not provoke a herd of wild boars. As I’m speaking, I see an elephant walking diagonally into the herd, but it’s immediately driven away by the wild boars. When I point it out to my wife, the elephant limps out of the herd as if it’s been injured.
Alien Buddha Press 