Short Story

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            Karma

Once upon a time, there lived astudent named Kong Lu. He was engaged to be married. However, his soon-to-bewife left him for another man just days before the day of the wedding.

            Itdestroyed Lu when he found out, so much so that he fell gravely ill in bed. Nothinganyone said, or did helped. Doctors came from all around to try to cure him, buthe remained bed ridden. It was obvious to everyone that Lu didn’t have muchlonger to live.

            Around thistime, a traveling monk passed through town seeking food and shelter. He’d beenturn down by five houses before arriving at the Kong household. It’d been along journey for him. The Kong family respectfully took the monk in and offeredhim steamed buns and hot tea, and also a bed to sleep in for the night. Duringdinner, the monk learned of Lu’s situation from his mother. He decided he wouldstay and help.

The monk approached the bed-riddenstudent, and pulled out a mirror from his robe. The monk asked the student tolook into the mirror. What the student saw in the mirror was a tumultuousocean. There was something on the beach. It was a woman’s body, lying there. Awoman no one knew. Poor woman, thought Lu.

Just then, a man walked past thewoman’s body, shook his head in disgust, and went on his way.  A little later, a second man walked by thewoman on the beach. He stopped for a moment, took off his jacket, covered herbody out of respect, and went on his way.

A third man walked by the body andstopped. He knelt by the deceased and prayed for her. He then dug a grave, andburied her body. He carved a headstone and placed it at her grave. Every year,on the same day, the man would bring food and burn incense as offering for her ather gravesite.

The scenery in the mirror changed.Now the student saw his fiancée, on her wedding day. Her red wedding veil waslifted by another man. It was the man she left Lu for. This image made Lu angryand sad. He didn’t understand what it all meant.

The monk explained, “The dead womanon the beach was the woman you almost married, in her previous life. You werethe second person who walked by, the one who covered her dead body with yourclothes. It was very kind of you to do so. The love she shared with you in thislife was her way of repaying you for your kindness in the previous life. In theend, however, she owed a great debt to the man who buried her body, and caredfor her gravesite year after year, all for a total stranger. She will spend therest of her life with that man in this lifetime.”

“Her soul decided on these coursesof action prior to her being born. Everything is decided before we arrive inour physical bodies. Such is karma. And when one understands karma, there canbe no suffering, because one knows there’s a purpose behind every action, andreaction. Debts are constantly repaid, and love constantly shared. It’s abeautiful web of life we weave. So cherish what you have, and the people wholove you. Be kind to all, because karma is at work.”

The student didn’t say a word. Heunderstood. When he woke up the next day, he was well again. He got out of bedand went to see his parents. He cried and told them that he was grateful forhaving them in his life. Lu never felt happier.

The monk told the family it wastime for him to depart. The family steamed warm buns for him to take on theroad, as he had a long journey ahead of him.

Lu thanked the monk for saving hislife.

“No, thank you,” said the monk.

A surprised Lu asked, “Thank me?What for?”

“You see my son, I had a dream lastnight. In that dream, I saw myself in another life. In that life, you providedme with food and shelter in my time of dire need, when you had so little foryourself. So I thank you. And I’m once again indebted to you, and your familyfor your generosity. For providing food and shelter when no one else would, sothat I can continue my mission of spreading the teachings of Buddha. It is adebt I hope I can repay next time around.” With that said, the monk smiled, andcontinued on his journey.

A story someone emailed me in Chinese. I translated it into English and then added to it.

Currently listening: Alive-SaDingDing
Currently feeling: content

Question of the Day

Here's my question.

They've been lost on this mysterious island for months... They're stranded, with a limited food supply. They're working and  hiking all around the island all the time. We've all watched the show survivor, those people can barely keep weight being famished all the time. So why the hell is Hurley still so God Damned fat?

Someone, for fuck's sake, please let me know.

Currently watching: Lost

A Coward By Any Other Name Would Smell As Cowardly

"What's in a name?"
-Shakespeare

I worked at Cherry Blossom, Top100 Chinese Restaurant in the USA for Mother's Day this past weekend. It was quite busy, as it historically is on all Mother's Days. At around 8:00 business died down. I ordered a plate of Triple Delight. That's poultry, steak, and giant South-Pacific seawater prawns stir-fried in a delicious chef's specialty sauce sauteed Shichuan style. After I consumed this most delicious meal with a steamy side of white rice and Chinese mustard packets, I ate apple slices. While I was eating said slices of apple, I saw something so frightening at the time that it made me jump, just a little.

There I sat at a table, facing the entrance to the store. As the heavy winds blew against the trees outside, I thought about the recent tornadoes that have hit so close to home. I wondered what it would be like to see a tornado in real life. I wondered whether I could ride a tornado like a rodeo bull all the way to the top, then be thrown out to the outer banks where the rodeo clown and I would land safely on the sunny, sandy beach. Where thereafter we would make sweet, passionate love on the beach. And of course the rodeo clown is a hot female underneath all that ridiculous getup, much to my surprise.

I sat fantasizing with my legs crossed, left over right, as real men often do. I wore a pair of Rainbow Sandals, as all who consider themselves real men also do. I shook my feet; it's something I personally do, and something only a manly man can do.

That's when I caught something moving under the table. It was so shocking that it made me jump a little--just a little. I cannot stress that fact enough. It was only a minor jump.  It's similar to the feeling you get when someone sneaks up behind you and you don't know they're there, but they are, and by the time you realize they're there, you've already jumped like a coward. What you're scared of you don't really know. It's a surprise, and life is full of surprises, however insignificant it may be. This was one of those insignificant moments, something I'll probably forget by tomorrow.

So here's what happened. I looked under the table and it scared the shit out of me for a split second. Only a split second! It was the heel flap of my flip-flop. I caught sight of it and I jumped a little. My leg was crossed in just the right angle where I my eyes would catch the flap as my feet shook up and down. My reaction was, "OMG what the fuck is that?! Oh, it's only the flap of my flip-flop." The flap was moving due to my shaking leg. Obviously to no fault of my own as it is part of the human autonomic nervous system, akin to breathing or beating of hearts. I looked around to make sure no one saw what happened. The restaurant was empty and my dad was busy with restaurant stuff behind the counter. Good, I thought, no one would ever know.

On thesurface of things, it would appear that I'm a spineless coward simply because Ijumped at the sight of my flip flop, but you weren't there. No outsiders can really judge this situation from their eyes. They may not even be able to do so looking at it through my eyes. But unless you're me looking a the situation through my eyes, you can't possibly understand. Nobody understands me. I facedit on my own, by myself, in Cherry Blossom, while eating apple slices nonetheless! I nearly droppedthat shit--but I didn't! That's more than I can say for anyone else. I'm sure there's a scientific study that would back me up on this, but I've got more pertinent things to allot my time with than to explain to people why I'm not a coward.

I do want to iterate something. I'm no coward. In fact, I can state at least an instance or two where my bravery was tried, and undoubtedly triumphed over my fears, instances where I stared fear straight in the eyes and chose not to run away. Instead I slowly backpedaled away in an unobtrusive manner, while maintaining my intense glare at Fear. In fact! There might have even been a look of Fear in Fear's eyes itself! Now that I think about it, I'm almost certain there was.

But enough about some insignificant event of my boring life. We oughtn't dwell on the past. What's done is done. Let's move on. The sun rises everyday, and the road ahead and all that jazz.

---
On another note, the night previous I had a dream. I can't recall specifics of content but I do remember one crucial detail. The infamous Tony Lee said something to me in the dream that made me so angry I wanted to sock him in the jaw. I can't recall precisely what he said, but I can tell you something about how it affected my emotional state--had Tony Lee been present in the room when I awoke, I would've uppercutted him in the gut... The nerves of that guy, pissing me off like that not only in real life, but in my dream!...the son of a bitch...

Currently listening: Enya

Standardly

Words are wonderful. You string them together into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and on so and on forth. The greatest thing is! You can arrange it however want you, or create nuwords if deemed necito. Of course there are standards, but standards are non sequitor. Punctuation is another story. Personally I find punctuation offensiveand it often slows me down, but as with any love/hate relationship,they are quite essential, particularly for cadence.

So I'm working on a press release for a saw right now, and I'm trying to condense condense condense. I had already completed a release for another publication with about 300 words, but for this particular release, the word limit is 50-75 words. I'm down to 90 words at the moment, and ran into a couple of fun words/word arrangements that I thought I'd share.

The first one had to do with the title of this entry, the word "standardly". The following is the sentence.

1. 'The SH-500M comes standardly equipped with a powerful 3HP motor...'

Normally, if something comes 'equipped' with something, it is already standard unless stated otherwise. However, I wanted to stress the point that such a powerful motor is the 'standard' with this particular line of saws. The only thing wrong with this arrangement is that standardly is not a word, however I'm tempted to use it regardless.

Here were some other choices

2. 'The SH-500M comes equipped with a standard, powerful 3HP motor...'

I did not care for this arrangement because it's 14 words, the other arrangement was only 9 words. Also this second arrangement doesn't flow as well, the comma slows the read. It's too weak sauce.

3. 'A powerful 3HP motor comes standard with the SH-500M...'

The trouble with this sentence is that it lacks the word 'equipped'. Equip is a hard word, much like 'powerful', and our saws are about strength and honor.

4. 'The SH-500M comes equipped with a powerful 3HP motor...'

As much as it panged me to do it, I had to get rid of the word standardly. Academia would not allow.

I felt much better later on when I encountered a chance to use the phrase 'precise accuracy'. Actually, I had a hard time deciding between that phrase, and 'accurate precision'. Then I had to figure out whether either of those would be accepted, or whether our company would become the laughing stock of the saw industry for using such a phrase.

'...allows the operator to cut at any angle between90° and 30° with precise accuracy.'

I don't know why I became so excited at the sight of 'precise accuracy', it sure as Hell beats '...with precision and accuracy'.

Finally, a little alliteration...

'The large infeed andoutfeed table gives operators more room to maneuver material...'

Alliteration aside, there may be a major flaw with this sentence. My boss wanted me to include information about the saw's large infeed and outfeed table. I haven't a clue what an infeed/outfeed table is, so the stated ability of it giving operators more room to maneuver material may turn out completely false. But really, who's going to analyze every little detail? This is much like the "NO MSG" label on the menu at my parents' Chinese Restaurant. It may or may not be true, and I'm not saying it's not true, but it just sounds so much better.

On a sidenote: Last night I dreamt I was at work, and found out that our company used to employ six more employees, but they had to fired due to lack of business. This was true in the dream but not in real life. In the dream, I was at work and looking at headshots of these past workers. Many of them were strippers prior to working for our company. I thought it an interesting fact and wondered why they would hire me, a non-stipper for this administrative position. Later I was dunked in a a tub filled with warm, dirty water.

On a sidenote of my sidenote: I looked up the significance of dreaming about work here and discovered that "The dream may also be telling you that you need to "get back to work".  Perhaps you have been slacking and need to pick up the pace." Good advice, perhaps I'll follow it next week, as I've been working too hard this week. God, I hope my bosses never read my blog.

Currently listening: Tom Jones- Sex Bomb
Currently feeling: amused