WHEN I CAME TO, I was lying on a bench under an arbor, it was late in the day, and the first things I noticed were the wet-and-dry smell of water that had been sprinkled over the baked earth and the musk of my brand-new leather glove, which they’d put under my head for a pillow. Then there was this dull pain in my temple. I guess I must have said something. I don’t really remember. Only later did a buddy of mine who’d been looking after me get around to telling. That what I apparently said was, That’s okay, brush off the dirt and you can still eat it.

Now, where did that come from? To this day, I have no idea. I guess I was dreaming, probably about lunch. But two decades later the phrase is still there, kicking around in my head.

That’s okay, brush off the dirt and you can still eat it.

With these words, I find myself thinking about my ongoing existence as a human being and the path that lies ahead of me. Though of course these thoughts lead to but one place—death. Imagining death is, at least for me, an awfully hazy proposition. And death, for some reason, reminds me of the Chinese.

2.

THERE WAS AN ELEMENTARY school for Chinese up the hill from the harbor (forgive me, I’ve completely forgotten the name of the school, so I’ll just call it “the Chinese elementary school”), and I had to go there to take a standard aptitude test. Out of several test locations, the Chinese elementary school was the farthest away, and I was the only one in my class assigned there. A clerical mix-up, maybe? Everybody else was sent somewhere closer.

Chinese elementary school?

I asked everyone I knew if they knew anything about this Chinese elementary school. No one knew a thing, except that it was half an hour away by train. Now, back then I didn’t do much in the way of exploring, hardly ever rode around to places by myself, so for me this might as well have been the end of the earth.

The Chinese elementary school at the edge of the world.

SUNDAY MORNING two weeks later found me in a dark funk as I sharpened a dozen pencils, then packed my lunch and classroom slippers into my plastic schoolbag, as prescribed. It was a sunny day, maybe a little too warm for autumn, but my mother made me wear a sweater anyway. I boarded the train all by myself and stood by the door the whole way, looking out the window. I didn’t want to miss the stop.