Waiting Hours

And there it was this old man with short white hair and white beard, very skinny and shy, come to the stage, the center court where it was also possible to play handball or badminton or a sport of that sort, and there were also some thousand eyes looking and cheering for him. The second man come to the stage and at once begin to put some paper sheet in the back of the old man, some kind of sticker, without the other notice it. A third man come in scene, very angry, and he stop the second to continuous. With a rough voice he said:" i am the police, stop to do that, it is against the law", and toll him many other rules things.

Many came before and after them to do their representation, their act. Some were trembling, some were laughing and some were very secure of them.

It was the fresh morning of the 1 of May, the workers day, and like everywhere else in the world, except US of course, we were celebrating and cheering this wonderful big day of course in a particular way. The sun was shinning hot when it was the turn of the women. Some of them sing others dance, moving graciously their arms up and down to the front, dancing some traditional Chinese dance. The jury now will have to decide the winners, the ones who will get cigarettes and cookies. the rest the applause of the crowd, the smiles and screams of happiness.

And so after 72 hours from the start of our journey to freedom, am try to get over my sadness, especially for the lost of my loyal sweet friend Tchye, who will have to wait in a room like mine until somebody rescue her and bring her to a love place again.

In the meantime here, two of my local comrades have finally left the group, but just before they go, they offer their support and their generosity in giving to the group, now of four, lots of food, drinks and candy in order to continuous our journey in a better mood.

72 hours of the 720 that will bring me together with another comrade from the land of incense and the sacred elephant, to the precious Freedom.
At the hour 96 one of the great leader of all of the rooms, call us to a meeting in one of the dormitories. After give us instructions and advice for the next long hours, he begin to tell us some amazing stories about our "timeship" and also about many traveller who has gain the precious freedom after spend some long hours in our ship. Our leader, a man of 45 or 50 years of age is a rather skinny, but full of energy with a strong and dry voice, who's warm smile make you feel comfortable and worry at the same time. Also at this hour ,(96), a new comrade come to our group, from another room he was transfer to ours for economics reasons, cause he was able to affort a better stay in the ship. He was a young man with a punky haircut and always jumping and screaming or singing, who later on become a tough and mad leader of the room. Thank to the useful and active comrade who spend the days cleaning and washing our ship from top to down, back and forward, he was able to get some messages from other rooms and sometimes extra cigarrettes or candy or a pen or newspaper for everybody and even give a phone number for the ones that could phone abroad to the family and friends. Unfortunate this advantage was not for a strange traveler like myself and my "laoway"(foreigners) comrades, mainly because the language barrier or some secret rule.

And so, at the hour 168 our room leader left for the world outside, in a rush and a little desperate for the long hours thinking on the time to leave. Some minors problem he begging to create, at the last hours, about our daily life in the room, exasperate by the time. Like, the towells are not in order or the beds were in disorder, Well........

And now four of us remain in the room, waiting for the next guest, but for the meantime our local comrades went down to the merchandise room where they bought enough drinks and cookies for the next long hours.

Somehow in times of confusion and despair, when everything seen so dark and useless, when the reality coming from the outside world remains me that war and hunger, pain and suffering are part of the daily life for many Beings, my mind beggins to create a moment of hope and imagination, to fly into memories like a new born butterfly, to regain again the point of balance betwen living and merely existing. Oh !! how sad and dangerous the world outside can be, how safe and dead this room can look now.

Mr Po came today, at the end of the hour 168, from the faraway wild natural lands of mother nature. He join our group with tears in his eyes, leaving behind family and friends and also the precious freedom, for an adventure in our "timeship".

How can i recall now all the events that happen in the pass long hours. At the hour 336 it will be impossible to remember all those great moments that fill my existent with so much happiness and sadness, so much dreams and visions of what could await for me in the next time to come, visions that sometimes in a way become reality, or sometimes just smoke, like the smoke of the cigarettes that my comrades consume everyday.

But making a recall of everyone of them and certainly know that i will soon forget without a doubt many, the one that happen today it will for sure stay in our memory forever. In this moment our "timeship" and the all space around us, was hit by a huge traveling stone, of dimensions much more bigger than everything we have ever seen before. At this stressful time that last for about a minute, you could see how weak and small we humans are, me and my comrades follow in total despair distorting our faces in a pray for an ending of the course to the imminent death who will take us abruptly away from the "timeship" and from the awaiting freedom. It was just minutes after this event that all the people on board rush to get together once again in the common yard, from every single room of every single floor and all the leaders also came to check the state of the "timeship" worried perhaps of some cracks on the walls that will let lose our precious air. Some others minors stones hit the "timeship" on the following hours, putting again the fear in the eyes of everyone and make us run from up to down, from here to there inside of our ship. We were worry, but suddenly we were also happy to have so much action in our daily routine, in our daily worried about the future, and to meet everybody in such special circumstances. Strangely many of the events that happen before were quickly erase from my mind, but not totally forget just put then in a corner of my head. Also many of then, specially the one that happen today, were in a way predictable, maybe without notice it and without willing it. I recall now the leaving of the young "shanghaiminei", who was call in the middle of the night to leave the ship. Days before i was willing that he could go, even if i knew that he will have to stay another 168 hours with us. I though that how happy we both were in that moment when he left and finally gain the precious freedom and the contact again with his family and friends somewhere in another reality. In moment like that, sad and melancholic though are filling my mind, specially if i think about my sweet friend Tchye who was separate from me in such a fast and brutal way and have to stay somewhere in this big modern ship waiting for one day run free in the nature again. But not!! My though about her are not that ones, my though about her are of the days we spend in the nature meeting all kind of humans and animals, running in the country and by now she have found a nice human who will feed and care for her. And with this sweet memories i went to the land of dreams.

"one good thing about music, when it hit you feel no pain"...The hours pass and our life get closer to the end, the end that will bring an end to the suffering of been in this human body. That is what i learn in those high mountains, up there near the clouds. And when the time come i should have no regrets of my life just a pure joy of liberate myself from suffering.

For the moment i am still in this "timeship" together with the two comrades traveling to our destination in a very slowly and, i could say sometimes, smooth way. From the satellites every hour arrive lots of images of pain and suffering cause by the big stone that hit our "timeship" and how the events that happen before were put together like puzzle that become more clear every hour of the long day.

Now at the hour 408 i have had an important visit from another, very far, time position. It was a very tall and strong looking human who will present my case in from of the leaders of my "timeship" he said. I have never ever see this being before, so i was glad that somebody unknown to my life, was interesting in helping me to gain my precious freedom again. That what i though in that precise moment, things turn to be very different at the end. So, the interrogatory last several minutes with many questions about my contradictory life. Is possible that during all this millions and millions of hours going around to deferent times positions, deferent space and encounter all kind of deferent beings, i went through a transformation, a mutation that somehow appear to be very unusual and strange for such important person like him coming from that faraway time of my childhood. Some very ancient memories, happy ones and sad ones, come to the surface of me, when as a beginner i was wanted to learn to go to other times and space, living all kind of adventures.

At the long hours go by, images of horror, pain and death come from the satellites and numbers is all i can see: 120|7.8|50000.......how i could ever think in the consequence of my acts, of my though, of my wishes in the present moment, only after is when i realize that all this painful and extremely crude story begin to make sense inside my head and together with my heart they get the hits of the events that subsequently happens every day. Tears want to explode out of my eyes in the moment that another special memory come to me, but i hold it and hold it with no intention of giving up this fight. Been stock in some concrete mass is not so funny and does not make any sense to see it in the satellite for a few minutes, but, when is all that you see for many,many hours day and night you could actually feel the images. The concrete, the metal, the walls, the fences, all is making sense now, all that bloody cold inventions.

120 hours after mother nature took her revenge in the human beings, in 7.8 classic movement on the ground, i can't stop thinking in all the events just before, and why i am here in this "timeship" on the way to freedom and why i lost my sweet loyal friend, Tchye, and why i was in the local paper giving some knowledge of myself, and why i was asking everywhere for coins. All this events were so tragically connected one with another that i could never think in the coincidental fact like an alternative. Some of my comrades attributes almost every event to the bad luck, and consequently this drive to depression and despair, the hours seen to be very, very long and a distorted face come to the surface, reflecting the heart anxiety and sadness.

"Everything that humans used,

felt in the floor in a total mass,

destroying every little thing in

his way, but the big electric

iron monsters are still there,

cold and strong monsters

laughing at the poor little

humans that create them.

And they growing in power

and strength becoming more

and more indestructible even

for "pachamama"

This save and dead room is my home now, in this big and lonely "timeship".

That i miss someplace or somebody in the same way that when i am in my own in the middle of nowhere or the way if i will have a happy family in a happy house????

The twilight zone between living and merely existing is where i see many simple things in a wide, very wide screen, is where dreams become reality and faith become the way to be................



"How greatly and terribly everything had change for me when,

through memory of the past alone,

a whistle and the rhythm of a known

step could affect me so deeply and

give me so much pleasure and pain !"


H.H.

(this was writing in a chinese prison in Chengdu city, in may 2008, during 25 days waiting for deportation)