Train Wrecks

[Leafstorm]

Sometimes when I’m walking through the city I like to pretend that I’m staggering away from a train wreck. Or I don’t have to pretend, because it feels like I really am. If anyone asks me “Are you okay?” I reply “Don’t worry about me! Help them!”, and I gesture toward the piled-up burning train cars. It doesn’t always work, though. Some days it seems like everyone is staggering away form their train wrecks, and no one pays any attention to me.

I confided this to Li Fu, a poet, herbalist, and friend of mine, as we played a game of Go on the grass in the park, near the Miró sculpture of either a cat, a woman, a bird, or all of these.

“Hm,” replied Li Fu when I told him about my occasional staggering.

He rolled and clicked his stones in the palm of his hand, stroking his whispy gray beard with his other hand, contemplating his chains and his liberties. Eleven minutes later he placed a white stone on the grid and spoke.

“In those days, in that country where I traveled, there were frequent train wrecks. Because of indolence, or superstition, or fear, the trains were often simply abandoned, with cargo, livestock, and sometimes even passengers left to fend for themselves.

“Once I came upon such a train while traveling with two companions: an old pygmy hog, and a young springbok. Each day I removed from my medicine bag a small tin and dabbed pungent balm onto the pygmy hog’s hind legs, which enabled her to trek along with us. The springbok liked to leap ahead and then wait for us while munching bamboo leaves and bright orange poppy blossoms.”

Li Fu sighed. I could tell this story was going to be different from his usual accounts of how he survived the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

“There had been a third traveling companion: a giant horse spider – a spider with the head of a horse. Rising up on his long, bandy legs, with his black mane tossed by the breeze, this spider was as tall and proud as a stallion. Sadly, he was taken by a water gorilla. Poised and concealed behind a curtain of cattails, the water gorilla’s thick hairy arms shot out and grabbed the horse spider’s legs in a twig-snapping grip. Gorilla and spider then disappeared silently below the algae-covered surface of the pond. I said a prayer and wished the spider’s soul an auspicious reincarnation.”

He paused to contemplate a butterfly that alighted on a branch above us. For a moment I thought he was going to start talking about the butterfly, but he continued his story.

“The springbok, the pygmy hog, and I made our way through the poppy-spotted bamboo grove that seemed to stretch on as far as the train. I was thinking that perhaps the bamboo grove intended to swallow up the train and become its shroud.

“We stopped beside an open boxcar to rest, eat almonds and bananas, and drink chrysanthemum tea. ‘Cirque Ancien’ was painted in elegant, faded letters on the side of the car. As we ate, my companions and I watched the performers: ghosts of acrobats, clowns, lion tamers, horse riders, magicians, dragons, centaurs, and moon rabbits, all flying, bouncing, tossing, and catching each other, and now and then taking bows. The springbok and I applauded, while the pygmy hog, because of her infirmity, whistled exuberantly.

“After we had started walking again,” said Li Fu, after capturing two of my stones, “the springbok came bounding back and told me that there was a boxcar up ahead with its doors open on both sides. He told me that he could see what lie on the other side of the train: a sunny veldt with long grass and trees with wide canopies that provided cool shade.

“I understood that my restless companion wanted to go to this place and live there. When I reminded him that lions were likely to be there as well, the springbok only leaped defiantly in a circle around me. I hugged the springbok and wished him happiness and useful knowledge.”

I placed a black stone to make a diamond around a white one, which I removed from the grid.

“Both the bamboo grove,” continued Li Fu, “and the abandoned train ended abruptly, without a caboose, and the pygmy hog and I found ourselves in a place that was only blue above and orange below. The pygmy hog clambered up onto a flat rock with an ocean of poppy blossoms lapping at its shore. She told me that she wanted no more ointment on her legs, that this was where her journey ended. I nodded, gave her a long draught of tea, and kissed her on the forehead.”

The black stone I’d recently placed was surrounded by three whites. By placing a white stone on the spot where I’d just removed one, Li Fu could have taken my stone. He didn’t.

“It is the ko rule,” he said, noticing my curious look. “If I were to take your stone it would return the game to the position it was in before your last move. You could then do the same, and we would commence an unending repetition – a ko fight. It is the labyrinth within Wéiqí, the game of surrounding.”

“In other words, no way for either of us to increase our territory or reduce the other’s.”

Li Fu nodded. “At times one must sacrifice a stone and move on, away from the train wreck.”

“How did your journey end?” I asked him.

“Soon after I left the train I could see a village in the distance. I headed in that direction by walking the train tracks, as they reminded me of friends and paths traveled.”

In silence we both contemplated the game board – parallel lines covered with patterns of black and white.

“Who were they?”

Li Fu’s gaze was fixed on the board. He shrugged. “Animals in an animal story.”

“Aren’t we all,” I commented. I glanced up and saw that he was focused on the game board; too much concentration wrinkled his weary brow, and his eyes were moist. I wanted to un-ask my question, and for him to forget.

I casually filled one of two “eyes” in a group of my stones, rendering the group “dead”.

Without hesitation Li Fu dropped a white stone into my dead group, glanced at me curiously, then deftly swept my black stones off the board and replaced them with white ones. He let out a giggle and clapped his hands. He had won.

We both jumped up and pretended we were staggering away from train wrecks – twisting, turning, and stumbling until we fell laughing into the blossom-studded grass and gazed silently up at the cloudless blue sky.