i met him for the first time seven years a 12 hours on the plane an hour and a half on the train another hour in a taxi and a bus ride would take me to the village's only thoroughfare of which his house was on a branch of his house was next to a road that was built alongside the stream that ran its crooked course from the foothills through past his house to the ocean and he was there hanging on for dear life all my friends are long passed he said and the first time he knew i wasn't staying so he let me go he told me to go but when he knew i would stay he clung like road to river passing into the sea an empty field is full, they say, there's a field where his life was, a wall where his home was, and a patch of ground where nothing grows, not in spring, or fall, or summer but in winter the fields are burned bare to make room for the planting season you should try it what stacking stones and make sure to say your prayers each time you pass so they don't make it all at once what do you mean it's not built in one go no it's not every time you pass you place a stone and wish the same wish and one day it'll come true yes it'll come true after the war, the government started a tree planting campaign to cover the mountain faces that had been scarred and left barren by bullets, shells, and fires, then some forty years later, the government started a land reclamation campaign and filled truck after truck with carvings that are used to fill the space between islands, to turn wave to bushel, to feed the many lives that walk on what used to be water you want to remember so much that you remember anything you want as if that memory was a bag and you throw in the weather, props, and people you until you remember it as you want but you know that it isn't a memory at all but a memory of a story you tell yourself you want to believe the warm framed sunlight and the afternoon you were nurtured you don't remember words or faces only the feeling and sometimes that's enough me and my brother grew up on estranged country and he said this about his brother too that they lived wild running across full rivers drink too much but one day after a long day he didn't want to meet his brother but he did and they drank too much again and as they paid and left his brother gave him a book of poems and in his drunkenness he forgot to take the book with him as he left the taxi walked home and woke up in regret on visits he would tell me about the other people that had come to see him that week: a monk who brought bags of gifts, he said it was because she regretted the way she treated her father when she was younger her father refused to send her to school, she ran away to the temple and didn't look back and some odd years later she was notified that her father passed away she visits at least once a month, her arms full of gifts and others too, he speculated, had similar concerns it was sometime after dusk that i visited him at the hospital promised i would visit him that day and he would remember so i did but i don't remember where i was coming from, except that his bed was on the third floor, a few doors down from the nurses desk that was empty as i walked by the other patients were gone or asleep, i couldn't tell i took a step into the dark and sat down next to his bed i watched him sleep then all of a sudden he grabbed my hand and wailed, his voice and hands shaking i wondered if he was crying as if it was impossible and he opened his eyes and grabbed my hand looking me straight in the eyes with his glistening and said thank god you're here thank god i was waiting for you thank god you're here the river used to brim with fish to it was to the point they would say that you could walk across their silver backs from one bank to the other but that was then, before they filled in the ocean with land that they carved from the mountains, every day they're carving more and filling more in and soon the bay will be gone, covered in fields of brown grain there used to be tigers in these woods back then, sure, there were plenty when you were alive what do you mean when i was alive, y'mean when i was younger yes, sir, sorry, sir, when you were younger pfft i was chased by a tiger once and i still remember it, i was drinking with some friends in town and do you know that road you take to work does your bus go on it the one that runs between the hills past the church yes, that one there weren't lights back then and i was walking back with a walking stick for protection sometimes those wild dogs are nasty or even worse, boars, but i was enjoying the weather, still thinking about the conversation i had with my friend and i hear this growl that made the hairs on my neck stand up and i saw its shadow moving through the trees and then i ran for it back then shoes had those metal cleats and i swear you could see the road catching fire with sparks flying everywhere i've never ran so fast in my life i ran until i felt like i was going to faint and when i got to the front yard my brother, your grandfather, woke up and came out to me 'where have you been all night i was waiting for you' he said and i took off my shirt and he wrung it out, the sweat came out in rivers what will it be for you today, sir the usual and keep the side dishes coming of course and your health my health it's the same or worse at my age there's no such thing as better of course, of course, but you're still so lively even at your age, sir does this look lively to you i can barely walk i'm just counting down the days until i'm gone 234 last time i checked it's remarkable he remembers anything at that age but he remembers everything, he remembers what time you came to visit, how long you stayed for, what you were wearing, what the weather was like and sometimes, honestly, it scares me can't lie to the old man for as long as i had known him, he talked about two topics regularly: what he would do if he won the lotto and his death if he won the lotto, he said, he would build a house for the two of us and he would give half to the people around him maybe 50,000 to the monk for all the gifts she ever brought and 20,000 to the councilman and with the rest he would have his fill of food and drink on days he didn't talk about the lotto, he would talk of his death, he tried to guess how long he had left, marked it on his calendar, counted down and on each birthday, he would mark another arbitrary date but sometimes the count would change suddenly: it's 53 today i think i can make it to spring and he did it was spring when he died but the flowers had not yet bloomed bury me next to my brother, he would say, burn me into ash and bury me with the roots of a magnolia and the birds, he said, would visit, even if no one else did, once or twice a year, the sound of birds would fill the emptiness, he said, and he wouldn't be alone at the mudflats, the tide goes out fast what has existed forever beneath the surface is revealed in minutes hidden rivers and unnamed geographies glimmer briefly before being hidden again by the night it was here he crossed to an island at dusk and stayed till morning unable to cross the shallow waters back home and now where there was water there are fields, every year there are more fields, where dry stalks grow in ignorance near a temple up on a hill there is an unmarked tomb, an unmarked obelisk, the lone abbot doesn't know who or why, only that it's been there as long as he has when i was able i would run up and down these mountains he said and i listened to him say it again and again because i heard what he wanted to say and i didn't want him to hear me thinking the same that if i could i would run up and down these mountains without looking back how do i say that I'm waiting for him to die without saying that i want him to, that being with him feels like being with death, that i love and dread the man so close to his fate, a few days a few miles a few more shared meals, i dread the void and it's weight, i dread presence and loss the same, i wait for him to die, i wait because he doesn't, i wait as he waits, another day i knew i would miss him in the same way you miss seasons when all you feel is cold or hot and you can't help but want what you don't feel which is warmth or silence and it's easy to remember those feelings because they remind you every year but it's not easy to remember how his hands felt or how his eyes looked when he was scared because it's always different and changing and nothing ever looks the same i met him for the first time seven years a 12 hours on the plane an hour and a half on the train another hour in a taxi and a bus ride would take me to the village's only thoroughfare of which his house was on a branch of his house was next to a road that was built alongside the stream that ran its crooked course from the foothills through past his house to the ocean and he was there hanging on for dear life all my friends are long passed he said and the first time he knew i wasn't staying so he let me go he told me to go but when he knew i would stay he clung like road to river passing into the sea an empty field is full, they say, there's a field where his life was, a wall where his home was, and a patch of ground where nothing grows, not in spring, or fall, or summer but in winter the fields are burned bare to make room for the planting season you should try it what stacking stones and make sure to say your prayers each time you pass so they don't make it all at once what do you mean it's not built in one go no it's not every time you pass you place a stone and wish the same wish and one day it'll come true yes it'll come true after the war, the government started a tree planting campaign to cover the mountain faces that had been scarred and left barren by bullets, shells, and fires, then some forty years later, the government started a land reclamation campaign and filled truck after truck with carvings that are used to fill the space between islands, to turn wave to bushel, to feed the many lives that walk on what used to be water you want to remember so much that you remember anything you want as if that memory was a bag and you throw in the weather, props, and people you until you remember it as you want but you know that it isn't a memory at all but a memory of a story you tell yourself you want to believe the warm framed sunlight and the afternoon you were nurtured you don't remember words or faces only the feeling and sometimes that's enough me and my brother grew up on estranged country and he said this about his brother too that they lived wild running across full rivers drink too much but one day after a long day he didn't want to meet his brother but he did and they drank too much again and as they paid and left his brother gave him a book of poems and in his drunkenness he forgot to take the book with him as he left the taxi walked home and woke up in regret on visits he would tell me about the other people that had come to see him that week: a monk who brought bags of gifts, he said it was because she regretted the way she treated her father when she was younger her father refused to send her to school, she ran away to the temple and didn't look back and some odd years later she was notified that her father passed away she visits at least once a month, her arms full of gifts and others too, he speculated, had similar concerns it was sometime after dusk that i visited him at the hospital promised i would visit him that day and he would remember so i did but i don't remember where i was coming from, except that his bed was on the third floor, a few doors down from the nurses desk that was empty as i walked by the other patients were gone or asleep, i couldn't tell i took a step into the dark and sat down next to his bed i watched him sleep then all of a sudden he grabbed my hand and wailed, his voice and hands shaking i wondered if he was crying as if it was impossible and he opened his eyes and grabbed my hand looking me straight in the eyes with his glistening and said thank god you're here thank god i was waiting for you thank god you're here the river used to brim with fish to it was to the point they would say that you could walk across their silver backs from one bank to the other but that was then, before they filled in the ocean with land that they carved from the mountains, every day they're carving more and filling more in and soon the bay will be gone, covered in fields of brown grain there used to be tigers in these woods back then, sure, there were plenty when you were alive what do you mean when i was alive, y'mean when i was younger yes, sir, sorry, sir, when you were younger pfft i was chased by a tiger once and i still remember it, i was drinking with some friends in town and do you know that road you take to work does your bus go on it the one that runs between the hills past the church yes, that one there weren't lights back then and i was walking back with a walking stick for protection sometimes those wild dogs are nasty or even worse, boars, but i was enjoying the weather, still thinking about the conversation i had with my friend and i hear this growl that made the hairs on my neck stand up and i saw its shadow moving through the trees and then i ran for it back then shoes had those metal cleats and i swear you could see the road catching fire with sparks flying everywhere i've never ran so fast in my life i ran until i felt like i was going to faint and when i got to the front yard my brother, your grandfather, woke up and came out to me 'where have you been all night i was waiting for you' he said and i took off my shirt and he wrung it out, the sweat came out in rivers what will it be for you today, sir the usual and keep the side dishes coming of course and your health my health it's the same or worse at my age there's no such thing as better of course, of course, but you're still so lively even at your age, sir does this look lively to you i can barely walk i'm just counting down the days until i'm gone 234 last time i checked it's remarkable he remembers anything at that age but he remembers everything, he remembers what time you came to visit, how long you stayed for, what you were wearing, what the weather was like and sometimes, honestly, it scares me can't lie to the old man for as long as i had known him, he talked about two topics regularly: what he would do if he won the lotto and his death if he won the lotto, he said, he would build a house for the two of us and he would give half to the people around him maybe 50,000 to the monk for all the gifts she ever brought and 20,000 to the councilman and with the rest he would have his fill of food and drink on days he didn't talk about the lotto, he would talk of his death, he tried to guess how long he had left, marked it on his calendar, counted down and on each birthday, he would mark another arbitrary date but sometimes the count would change suddenly: it's 53 today i think i can make it to spring and he did it was spring when he died but the flowers had not yet bloomed bury me next to my brother, he would say, burn me into ash and bury me with the roots of a magnolia and the birds, he said, would visit, even if no one else did, once or twice a year, the sound of birds would fill the emptiness, he said, and he wouldn't be alone at the mudflats, the tide goes out fast what has existed forever beneath the surface is revealed in minutes hidden rivers and unnamed geographies glimmer briefly before being hidden again by the night it was here he crossed to an island at dusk and stayed till morning unable to cross the shallow waters back home and now where there was water there are fields, every year there are more fields, where dry stalks grow in ignorance near a temple up on a hill there is an unmarked tomb, an unmarked obelisk, the lone abbot doesn't know who or why, only that it's been there as long as he has when i was able i would run up and down these mountains he said and i listened to him say it again and again because i heard what he wanted to say and i didn't want him to hear me thinking the same that if i could i would run up and down these mountains without looking back how do i say that I'm waiting for him to die without saying that i want him to, that being with him feels like being with death, that i love and dread the man so close to his fate, a few days a few miles a few more shared meals, i dread the void and it's weight, i dread presence and loss the same, i wait for him to die, i wait because he doesn't, i wait as he waits, another day i knew i would miss him in the same way you miss seasons when all you feel is cold or hot and you can't help but want what you don't feel which is warmth or silence and it's easy to remember those feelings because they remind you every year but it's not easy to remember how his hands felt or how his eyes looked when he was scared because it's always different and changing and nothing ever looks the same