Island

c c     Island     d d

     A drop of cold rain brought me back to the moment. I found myself sitting in front of an insectary, lost in memory.

      Twenty days ago, it was also rainy.

      I was in the car with Meg, my advisor. When the car got onto the narrow muddy road between the red pines, she put her hand in front of my eyes.

     “Don’t look now.”

     “Why?”

     “We are coming to your summer dream house!” She sounded so excited.

      One minute later she removed her hand. “Here we are. The three bear cabin!”

      “My summer house…” I murmured while I opened the door.

      The first moment when I got out of the car, I was surrounded by a black cloud of mosquitoes. There was no time to appreciate the woods or anything around. We retreated to the house as quickly as possible. 

      The house was very nice. In fact it was like the one in my childhood dreams. Everything was made of wood. The walls are made of whole logs. I don’t know what kind of wood that was. It looks dark. I heard that American chestnut is the best one to make cabin but I didn’t know whether there was any left since the invasion of a bad fungi together with the Chinese chestnut. There was a fireplace with a chimney passing through the second floor and going out. On the chair there was a warm afghan.

      It was getting late before I started to unpack my things. Meg had to leave. She gave me a big hug, and disappeared behind the door. I felt I was her child, not biologically but mentally. The farewell made me sad. Seven years ago when the bus carried me away from home to the real, I wasn’t sad. Months ago when I boarded on the plane to fly across the ocean, I wasn’t sad. I did not even feel anything close to “want to cry” while the man sitting behind me on the plane was covered in tears. I was embarrassed for a little while for my emotionlessness. But now there was something when Meg was leaving. 

      Before she stared the car, I felt an impetus to rush out for a moment. I felt there were so many questions that I hadn’t asked but I could not think of any at that moment. A second or two’s hesitate, she drove out of my sight. A surge of hollowness attacked my chest, eating up my mind until I fell asleep on the bed.  

      The next morning when I woke up, the shaft of morning light shine into my room through the blue curtain. The dust in the air looked like many busy bees. I open the window. It was chill outside. The sky was still pale, like a fish’s belly.

      I didn’t talk to Andrew and Natalie, my field assistants at the breakfast. Frankly I didn’t know what to say. This transition was too sudden. It takes ten years in China for one to have an assistant. And more importantly, I probably knew less in the field than them. 

      We went out to the field after breakfast. I thought it ought to be awkward, going out without really knowing where to start, and two assistants who were waiting for orders. I still didn’t say anything, just started collecting any damselfly I saw. They followed me. I only knew I have to start. It dose not matter on what.

      So I was there on the island.

      It was an island of time, away from past and future. The ocean was called “now”.

     It was an island of mind, away from confidence and support. The ocean was called “doit”.