Ax Handle, and: The Wolf and the Chinese Pug, and: Beast of Burden

Ax Handle

Grandmother comes to Mei Ling in a dream. There is a mosquito on my nose. It spins around my head and it bites me on the tip of my nose, over and over again. You might think that it is a trifle. But it shall buzz in my ear and annoy me to all eternity. Do you know how it feels to be annoyed to all eternity? It’s like your Auntie Wu’s high-pitched voice buzzing at your ear about real estate and junk bonds . . . that’s what it’s like. You were my favorite peapod. Remember, I used to carry you on my back and sing you ancient lullabies. When you had that long fever, I cradled you up and down Cat Street. Remember how I yelled at the prostitutes, “My Mei Ling is going to be somebody; she’s going to America!” And they yelled back, “Look at her, sickly, coughing, she’s rat turd; she’ll amount to nothing!” And remember, I picked up a big piece of kohlrabi from my bag and hurled it and knocked the pimp out, put him in a coma? Remember that? They dared to upset a proud grandmother! Please, little Mei Ling, take your merciful ax and kill this mosquito, so that I can rest in peace.

So Mei Ling throws the ax and it spins three perfect revolutions, bisecting the mosquito while still buzzing on her grandmother’s nose. Her grandmother praises her accuracy. It was I who taught you to be focused; and her apparition slithers back into the dark earth and is quelled for ten thousand years.

The next day, Mei Ling’s dead husband appears in her dream. Look, Mei Ling, this aggravating maggot. It squirms and writhes and it crawls in and out of my nostrils and eyeholes. It is giving me a headache. It will not give me peace. Can you imagine having an eternal itch that you can’t scratch. . . . Right now, it is resting on my nose, taking a short respite, I suppose. Please take your merciful ax and remove it for me. Remember, love-a-dove, how we used to watch tv together. And Seinfeld, my favorite show. You hated it but sat with me anyway and said, “They’re such meaningless, ridiculous, self-centered fools,” and continued to read poetry. Remember, how sweet it was. I would watch tv and laugh out loud; you would wear earphones and listen to endless Schubert and read poetry. Each sitting on our respective side of the couch. . . . Those were the days of marital harmony, weren’t they? Hunnybunny, don’t you remember how smooth and lovely it was?

Mei Ling ponders for a moment, then throws the axe; it turns two revolutions and clips off her dead husband’s head. He yells (well, the head on the ground yells), You stupid bitch, now my ghost will roam the underworld, headless and unrepentant for ten thousand years!

So goes the story about using the ax to make the ax handle. Staring at the original design for too long might make you crazy: the model too close at hand. And that unforgiving muse, who believes that she can shave the fine distinctions between she who really loves you with unconditional maternal clarity, who shared her last grain of rice with you in the refugee boat, who fanned you all night long with an old Life magazine to keep your brain from boiling in the killer Hong Kong heat; who, in her eighty-second year, waited patiently outside the exam room with an open bottle of Coke and three tiny mooncakes to celebrate your acing your lsats . . . and he who is just going on the existential ride in the hay, cheats on you six to seven times with young bimbos, and expects you not to hold a grudge into his grave. . . . Well, the muse takes care of her own, doesn’t she? She keeps her soapstone in an oily leather pouch.

The Wolf and the Chinese Pug

One day the wolf...