“Suppose a puppy stranded in the arctic for its whole
life,” I asked you then. “Would you give it a blanket
knowing that the wind will blow the blanket away only
after a day;
knowing that the puppy will feel warmth that once and
just that once,
knowing that it will spend every day of its subsequent
years looking back at that day longing to feel the
warmth again,
or would you rather not hand over the blanket,
rather it not to have ever known what warmth was?”
You flicked a clump of natto beans onto the table,
gazing past me as you answered,
I forgot.
All I remembered was that you only heard what I had
asked, not what I had said.
---
The other day I was heading to town (for that design
documentary we kept saying we would watch but
never did) on the train – too hungry to read the book I
had with me, and with the earphones at home –
mindlessly scrolling through Instagram: scrolling past
issue
issue 01
01 | zaw
| Chen
lin Yi
htoo
An