June 26, 2007 Ghosts are not those headless or bleeding creatures that would spring out of no where to spook you, neither were they going to vaporize into the shapeless and gooey monsters in the starlight. Ghosts reside in your mind and everyone has some. If you claim a total absence of ghosts, you are either lying or a no-brainer, because ghosts are like human memories – you just can’t efface them. They keep on accumulating until you are dead or become a vegetable. Like memories, not all ghosts are horrendous. Sometimes, they are not bad at all. The prom night, a bunch of roses on St. Valentine’s Day, the kiss from mom and dad, your final ascent to nomenklatura and even the first shit-storm after your constipation hit a whopper could all be counted in as ghosts. But there are those grotesque ghosts, the ghosts that haunt you all the way through your life. It could be a juicy-as-a-peach gossip on you or a bad hair style that brought about a ripple effect ruining your career. For Jeffrey McReynolds, the gruesome ghost was his late grandma. Again, it wasn’t about how an arthritis-stricken old lady paced creakily along a corridor or how a bloating corpse slowly swung her left leg out of the bathtub’s brim and tailed you to the door whose knob was stuck firmly. It was more on the spiritual level. Jeffrey’s grandma made a clone of herself in Jeffrey’s flesh. This was even more terrifying in that the ghost for Jeffrey was blood running in his body, plasma stored in his cells and tissues, and piths sealed in the bones. “So, Andy’s idle hand is on his left knee.” Jeffrey said, “Big deal?” Jeffrey’s eyes remained on the dish in front of him, a non-smile on the face and there was a trace of provocation in his voice. Seated next to Jeffrey, Andy looked flummoxed enough to be awkward, for his fast-processing brains couldn’t produce any plausible answer for his best friend’s out-of-the-blue comment. What’s worse, he didn’t even know who Jeffrey was talking to and what he would be referring to. (So, I’ve been keeping my idle hand below the table since Stone Age. Big deal?) Andy’s eyes were fumbling for clues around the square dining table. Facing him were Jeffrey’s parents whose eyes looked as blurred as his own. Then to his left, he found Jeffrey calm like the sea before a storm. Jeffrey’s grandparents sat face to face across the table, each dominating one side. He moved his eyes to grandpa next to Jeffrey and got nothing; the old man was sipping wine from a little cup. His pupils were focusing on the nectar, not in the least interested in the loaded commentary. Feeling a chill down his spine, Andy unwillingly turned to his immediate left where Jeffrey’s grandma was sitting. Andy tried his best to avoid making any noise from turning his head because for that moment, the entire dining room was quiet as a graveyard. But finally, Andy got a good shot of the old women. She was smiling her trademark beatific smile, like some sort of Buddha. But Andy felt inexplicably sick, because too many ingredients were kneaded into that smile – sarcasm, compromise, indifference and mostly annoyingly, fear. There was fear in the smile. It was the fear of a magician whose tricks went ballistic in front of a large audience. It was the fear of a double agent who got prosecution from both sides. It was more like the fear of a king who had just had his kingdom overwhelmed. Andy gave up. He couldn’t understand and he didn’t need to understand. Jeffrey was his best friend, but he was not stupid enough to pry every piece of information. He knew everyone has a restricted zone in his brains and that could be real ugly when deciphered. July 5, 2007 Sultry weather equals butterflies in the stomach and ants in pants, for it reminds you of those tragedies that had also happened in weather of the same kind. Jeffrey McReynolds was mulling over why his girlfriend had deserted him, but again, fruitless and clueless. So he text-messaged all his sadness and bewilderment to his pal Wendy Lombard, who also happened to work in Shanghai. Jeffrey lamented, “ It ’ s been two Ice Ages since I last had an iota of loving and being loved in heart. I feel real bad. I am not sure if my ability to love is lost or sealed in paraffin. I had my dinner in a greasy spoon near my leased condo. On average day, I would have a bowl of noodles and that could feed me to the neck. But today, the old favorite plus a new bowl of jiaozi didn ’ t make their way up to the middle of my esophagus. Of course, my stomach still felt puffed. It seemed I was trying to fight fire with fire. ” Wendy ’ s replies were brief, all of them within one sentence. She said, “ Love doesn ’ t come into existence by simply thinking about it. ” Jeffrey agreed, “ Right, but I still haven ’ t found the right girl, or maybe haven ’ t bumped into her. ” Wendy ’ s concise reply arrived again, “ Of course, man. If you found true love as easily as you found a summer mosquito in the grass, love would be worthless. ” The conciseness and provocation were more than Jeffrey could bear, but he was tinged by Wendy ’ s optimism. Still, he replied, “ It is real tiresome to live in this world. ” Wendy immediately rejoined, “ Right! This is human being. Such bad feelings come in snatches. I bet you won ’ t be bitching like this tomorrow morning. ” Jeffrey had to say mea culpa, but he was feeling better. Finally, he wrote this to Wendy: It is fortunate that the blue days of yours and mine are not overlapped. It is like two friends shitting side by side. Pooh, pooh! Jeffrey shitted cats and dogs. Kitties and puppies splashed really ugly, to all over the flush toilet, the ring, Jeffrey ’ s butts and parts of his pants. Jeffrey tilted his head and winced, “ You see? Shitting could be nasty! ” Wendy smiled and waved his remark off. Seconds later, ding, ding! Wendy made a neat bomb that sank into the toilet like stone. It was the sound of a shell casing clicking on a marble floor in church. It was the neatness of a professional diver. Then she remarked, “ See? Shitting could be aesthetic like this! ” Jeffrey felt it bliss to have a friend like Wendy Lombard. If she had pooh-poohed like what Jeffrey had done, life was indeed hopeless.