‘Books for Dogs’,

1.

He was looking out of the window onto his calm, residential street, sipping a cup of coffee, when he heard shouting. A shaggy pack of dogs tore past his house, knocking over a banana stall and narrowly missing a small child. Behind them followed two men, yelling and cursing. The dogs kept on running, as if on a mission. Each one was clutching a book in its jaws. The men gave up, dropped back, and looked at each other, angry at first, then perplexed.

2.

Soon such sights became common, and he was unable to remain a bystander.

The first time the dogs managed to break into his flat they grabbed some books from a pile by his shoe stand. He was in, but as his boyfriend had called to say he couldn’t come over he was busy pleasuring himself. So they made off with three paperbacks.

But the dogs became bolder. Even if he locked his windows they would jump through them, and take off with any books they could reach. Once, when he and his boyfriend were asleep, they took Win Oo’s Beauty’s Hate. His boyfriend chased after them, but the dogs were too fast.

Soon, aside from four or five books that he salvaged and kept in his fridge, the dogs had run off with his entire collection.

The last straw was when they barged in and snatched Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore from his hands as he was reading it, in broad daylight.

Enraged, he went to the Municipal Office to petition for eradication of these dogs. A huge crowd had already lined up outside the office. He queued a while, then went home, frustrated.

3.

His publisher delivered him the next installment of strange goings on. “As you might expect, we’re having to respond to the dog situation.”

“You mean, lock up more books?”, he asked.

His publisher was not potbellied and greasy-faced like other publishers, but was a well-built and good-looking young man, whose defined cheekbones were a key reason why he did not switch.

“That’s proving futile. I’m talking about a more proactive response. Writing in the way the dogs like.”

“What the….?” He felt sure the publisher must be joking. Never, in his life, had he heard of dogs reading, still less demanding certain types of books.

 “Orders are skyrocketing”. The publisher continued, straight-faced. “We can’t print enough.”

“Really?”

“You should know that all my regular writers have now switched to writing dog’s literature. I’m letting you know so that you, too, have a chance to change.”

“What - write books for dogs?”

His publisher’s eyes glinted. “You know your last book about the guy who became a ghost after falling off a rickshaw?”

“Corpse Carrying Rickshaw.”

“Well, its sales have decreased by 50% in a week.”

He clenched his teeth. He knew full well that, in this market, if orders drop by that much, it is a danger signal to publishers, who always try to keep track of what readers want. He’d already seen trends for comedy, romance and horror. Whatever the audience was in the mood for, writers had to satisfy. But he had not anticipated dog fiction. He had no idea what the genre even required.

“Can you show me some samples?”

“Sure.” Five books came out of the publisher’s bag, all covered with pictures of lolling canine tongues and paw prints.

“Even the covers are rabid!”

“Maybe to you, but they’re selling. Look, just read these and write me something along those lines but with your own twist of originality. I’ll call you in two weeks to collect.”

Two weeks was tight. He considered refusing.

“I’ll give you an advance now. 2,000,000 kyats. Okay?”

There was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

4.

Soon the only books to be found on bookshop shelves were dog fiction books. Bestsellers all had titles like A Call from the Hill of Bones, Only Bone Bearers Allowed, and No Bone More Sweet.

Despite now writing them himself, he still found dog stories revolting to read. He couldn’t bear to finish one. Word on the street was that most other human readers didn’t like them either, but they were too scared to protest. He wished he could go back to writing what he wanted.

But he had to eat, didn’t he? Plus, his boyfriend was only attracted to him because he was a famous writer. So he would have to reconcile himself to writing dog stories until further notice. He started thinking about his next title. Beef on a leash?

It was nearly three o’clock. His boyfriend was coming later. He decided he’d better start making him a beef stew from his new doggy delights cookbook.

Myay Hmone Lwin

index on censorship: What's the taboo?

Autumn 2015

Doors

No one would believe such a thing – not unless they had been through the same thing themselves. Newlywed time. The most blissful and eventful time. Oh, to wake with your lover, after a lifetime of nights spent alone! Look. The veins on her cheeks. How exquisite. He touched them gently, so gently. Like touching a soap bubble.

Contentment. This was it. And to think all his mornings would be like this. Soft lips. Curling eyelashes. He was looking at a face at rest, at ease. Who would ever have thought he’d end up marrying such a flawless woman?

Having drunk in his wife’s beauty, he got up quietly. The new door was still a bit jammed. He pushed with some force, and it opened with a squeal. He glanced at his wife, fearing the noise might have awakened her. Good. Her eyelids were closed.

He went into the bathroom and took half an hour to finish. The bathroom door was jammed as well. A little force. No effect. More force. Still nothing. He pushed harder, opening it with a bang.

He was sweating from the effort. He made a mental note to send someone from the office to grease the door. If not, his wife might be upset when she got up and the door was stuck. This day - wasn’t it a day worth remembering for the rest of their lives? On such a day, he couldn’t afford to have his wife upset for any reason.

He didn’t want to spend the day sitting in the office, doing numbers. He couldn’t avoid going in, though, because the meeting with the foreign partner could have a decisive impact on the company. He didn’t want to take a single step out of his house.

From his luxury sedan he allowed himself a backward glance. The house was surrounded by an unusually high compound wall, and couldn’t be seen clearly. He had had the wall raised to twice the normal height for security, for those times when his wife would be left alone in the house, so the building was invisible. Not satisfied with just a wall, he had topped it with two rolls of German-made barbed wire, over a layer of glass shards. A pair of Dobermans, ready to attack at the mere whiff of human scent, completed the security system.

But the grandest part of the wall was the main gate. Specially ordered and imported, it could only be opened with a touchpad code. No door handles. Just the doorframe. For him, the door opened easily thanks to a remote in the car. While thinking about the main gate, he remembered his squeaky room door. Even if oiled properly, those doors would become difficult to with time. He made a note to write up a foreign-import order for them as well.

Arriving at the office, he was greeted by the staff with a round of applause. The manager brought in a big fragrant bouquet with a card that said, “Congratulations!” Pleased with himself, in the best of moods, he announced that there would be bonuses at the end of the month, and extra leave. An even louder explosion of applause than the one that greeted him.

A better morning could not be expected. He was happy and his staff was happy. Not for long, unfortunately. He started to open the door to his office – and met resistance. In full view of his employees, he struggled to get the door open. Nothing. He pushed harder. Still nothing. He turned the lock again. The door did not give.

“Tauk!”  He gnashed his teeth, frustrated. Gone was his composure. Gone was the merry office mood.  Silence. The manager and staff rushed to lend assistance with the door, getting it to open at last.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he threw himself into his swivel chair, leaned back and closed his eyes. And fell asleep. How long he was out of it he didn’t know. It was the phone that woke him with its insistent ring.  He reached out. Picked up the receiver. Held it to his ear.

“Arrrgh ...”

Blood spurted from the hand holding the phone. It wasn’t the phone that caused the bleeding. It was broken glass. He felt the shock of pain in his buttocks and looked down. What he was sitting on was not a sofa but a chair filled with glass shards.

He ran out of the room. Worse things were afoot on the other side of the door. The entire surface of the floor was strewn with iron cables. Caught knee-deep in the coils, he was unable to take a step in any direction. His feet hurt suddenly, and felt welt. Blood, he figured. There was nothing he could do about it right now. He must get out of the room, and fast.

When he finally broke free of the cables, he found the door to his office locked. Again. Only after pushing with his all his might, smearing blood on the frame all the while, was he able to get it open. He gaped at what had been his office until just a moment ago. He forgot the cuts and wounds in his hand and feet. He must be seeing things. In the place of his staff were beasts with snouts: foxes, wolves, seals, even. A tiger! Good lord. A tiger too, it looked like. A pack of savage beasts – how many he couldn’t tell, he couldn’t count – ready to tear him to pieces. Their teeth were bared, saliva dripped from their jaws.

What now? Hurry, hurry. But where to? Behind him was a room filled with broken glass and steel cables; in front of him were beasts ready to pounce. Which way to choose?

Eyes squeezed shut, jaws set, he braced himself and ran the gauntlet, sprinting past the beasts, out into the street. He knew this view, this road: it was his daily route connecting home to office. Being downtown, it was a busy road day and night. But not a single car or pedestrian could be seen at the moment.

The beasts showed up soon enough, though. He heard their growls, their snarls, their loud panting.  Then he saw them as they rounded the bend behind him, swaying on two feet. Walking. Upright - like humans. He needed to stop, to examine his badly lacerated hands and feet. But not yet. The beasts were on his tail. Blood dripping, he ran.

The gravel road was long and straight, the sun merciless. The tar on the road was sticky from the heat. The imprint he left from his feet held little runnels of blood.  His hands throbbed with pain, salted by the sweat in his palms. Onward he rushed, worried now about his bride. He couldn’t bear to imagine what might have befallen her. Crazed with apprehension, he ran without stopping, until he reached the corner of his road and could finally see his high compound wall. Broken glass and iron wires glistened in the sun.

The damned door! He realized he didn’t have the remote control with him.  No problem; he had the code. He punched in numbers on the keypad. Nothing happened. He tried again, taking care to key in the right numbers. The door did not move. What on earth was wrong? The code he had was the right one. He was sure of it.  The number sequence was a combination of their birthdates, hers and his. No, he was right. Only something wasn’t working. He punched in some random numbers, just in case. The beasts were not far behind. Climb the wall. That was all that was left to him. Heaving himself up with every ounce of strength in his limbs, he scaled the remaining height like a bug, an insect struggling to gain traction. Only, now that he was climbing he regretted building such a high wall. Never mind … once he was inside the compound, he would be safe. Safe and sheltered in the green ...

The steel cables he’d had imported and the broken glass he’d ordered installed were piercing him all over; his arms and legs were slick with blood. But he had done it! He reached the top roll of the iron wires, leaned over, lost his balance, and fallen – into his blessed compound.

He tried to stand but couldn’t. Shooting pains in his feet made him stumble, and fall on his face. His feet might be broken. So what? He could forget about the pain and the injuries,  and rest now. He was in his own domain, safe at last. No chance of the beasts getting in. Such was his relief, he felt something like drowsiness come over him.

The Dobermans. He’d almost forgotten about them.  How would they recognise their master, covered as he was with blood and grime - the very master who had carefully selected and purchased them from the breeder? His strength had left him; there was nowhere to run to. “HELPPPPP!” he screamed. And screamed.

How can one explain such things to people with no such experience? Newlywed time. The most blissful and eventful time. Oh, to wake with your lover after a lifetime of nights alone! Look. He gently lifted the bed sheet “Arrrrrrr…”

What was this … this thing that had taken the place of his wife? A shrivelled crone in an open coffin. No mistake. Skin like badly cured parchment: deep creases, liver blotches, overlarge moles and warts.  Hair as white as a horse’s mane.  

Help me. What just happened?

He glanced at the door. Closed.

Myay Hmone Lwin

 Edited by Wendy Law-Yone

Paper Plane

“Aung, stop throwing down the paper planes from the above.”

What harm does a paper plane inflict on the environment. No air pollution. No fuel consumption. No noise. No injury even if hit by it. Only just a waste of paper. Just a piece of rubbish.

His thought boiled as he sat at his usual seat on the ledge of the corner of the building. He was also angry. “Why are they making these restrictions even to this?” The more he thought, the angrier he became.

In this country, throwing paper planes was the only outlet he had.

o o o o o o o o

Aung Min was one of the lowest level workers at the construction site of the-would-be highest building in this country. His colleagues were all Myanmar and their supervisor was a foreigner who had some knowledge of Myanmar language.

Restricted. For them, they felt restricted in a country where the religious background was different from their own. There was no fun for them. Except for the workplace and their boarding place, he had been to nowhere in a country where there were many places for the entertainment. Though the wind was breezing at 36^th floor where he was working, he felt suffocated.

Look. Congested buildings. Congesting cars. Congesting people. Disgusting wherever you look. Smokes rising.

o o o o o o o o

While having lunch at his corner seat of the building, he looked at a faraway place where smoke was continuously rising.

“Oh”

He put the lunch box down. After rubbing his eyes, he looked again carefully. No mistake. There was no smoke. That was sure. There were no tall buildings. In their place are green fields, lakes, sparsely built houses, white washed pagoda.

“This.. this”

That was his village. The strong wind was touching his face.

“Huu..”

He took a deep breath and then exhaled. That was the fresh and soothing air. Only this view could brighten his views and lightened his ever heavy mind. But it did not last long.

“Hey, they are calling for line-up. Get up.”

That day, though he did not had a full lunch, it was worth it.  How long he had been away from such air and such view.

o o o o o o o o

Since he arrived in this country, he had to work not like a human being but like a motor, nonstop. No room for brooding. If you brood and make mistakes, the fine was huge.

No rest at night even. He had to go to factories and warehouses to look for any overtime work. With all these works, he is still in debt to the agency. He even thought in disgust that because he sold two cows for the expense to come here that he had to work this hard bearing the workload of two cows.

Now, he had his getaway. At lunchtime, he went to the corner of 36^th floor. He did not know why but he could see his village scenes from there. Whatever, it was not bad even in fantasy. So beautiful.

“Oh”

Now only he remembered. He could see his village scene like this as, almost all days, he used to climb the tallest tree at the village and sat at the top to look the whole village from above.  Same as it was now.

Paper plane.

At the same time, he remembered throwing the paper planes from the tree top. He looked for a paper and folded it into a paper plane.

“Foo…”

He blew twice into the tail end of the plane and threw it with all his might. Fly. Fly to the farthest.

o o o o o o o o

How far can a paper plane go? Who can definitely say that this paper plane with right wind current will not reach his village?

When he was young, he had found one of his paper planes he had thrown from the tree top in a far away forest while accompanying his father to the forest. Now, where he was throwing the plane was not from a tree top but from a higher place of 36^th floor of a building. It could reach his village if there was right wind current. He had seen in the map he had frequently looked at that his country and this country were not far.

Later when he threw the paper planes, he did not just threw them but wrote down short notes about his feelings. “Miss my village”. “Want to go back home”. Such things. Sometimes “The appetite is not good.” “The manager scolded me”.

Every time he threw these paper planes, he felt that his anger, tiredness and homesickness all vanished completely and he felt refreshed.

o o o o o o o o

 “Aung, stop throwing down the paper planes from the above.”

The voice of the manager was echoing in his ears. He felt angry too.

“Why they want to forbid such things?” The more he thought, the angrier he became. In this country, throwing paper planes was the only outlet he had.

Yes, the getaway was the paper plane. Why should I listen to the commands of those guys? I threw the paper planes. So what?

He angrily threw down a paper plane. It was floating in the air, to the left, to the right. It did not fall down out of view for a long time. He watched it satisfactorily till it went out of view. How come? Why should he listen to them?

“It is not that we fear them. Since we live under their command, we must follow their rules.”

Ko Myo Gyi, the eldest among his colleagues, warned him.

“Jobs are becoming scarce. Make sure that you do not cross them. There are many Bangladeshis and Filipinos queuing to take our place. They (the owners) won’t care much for daily wagers like us.”

Though Ko Myo Gyi cautioned with good intention, he did not take heed. He threw the paper planes at lunch breaks. He even wrote on a paper plane that the manager had forbidden him from throwing paper planes.

Whenever Ko Myo Gyi saw him throwing paper planes, he warned him. Later as his words had no effect, Ko Myo Gyi let him be.

It did not last long. He was dismissed for playing around during duty hours. He did not feel sorry. Nor angry. He had his paper planes for his solace. Whenever he felt sad, angry or downhearted, he went up a tall building and threw paper planes and it had refreshed his body and mind.

He had not found a new job yet. As Ko Myo Gyi said, there were scarce job opportunities in this country. There was influx of many foreign workers from other countries as well as Myanmar. He did not care. He economized with the money what is left of his savings. Some of his former colleagues treated him with meals sometimes. Some bought his paper planes for a petty sum and asked him to write their feelings and throw the planes for them.

As long as he could throw his paper planes, he was satisfied and did not care where he was or how his condition had become.

o o o o o o o o

I had heard about him for quite some time. As there were many Myanmar workers here, though we might not meet each other in person, we heard the news. You would hear ear full of news like his strange case.

When I met him in person, I was surprised. He was same age as mine. Strong and fit. He talked as a normal person. Softly. Only that his pockets and his backpack were full of paper planes.

Even I bought one paper plane from him paying him some coins. As usual, he asked me to write down notes on the paper plane. It did not count much to me but I wrote some notes anyway.

He pushed my paper plane into his bag and, pointing to me the tallest building which was on its last final touch, he told me that once that building was finished, he would throw paper planes of all Myanmar workers here, including me, from the tallest point on that building. The funny thing was he said he would send my paper plane to my family.

o o o o o o o o

“It all happened with his parents passing away one after the other shortly. His dismissal was also not as usual. His site manager kept his passport so he became overstay as well as jobless. It all accumulated and he became like this. We look after him so that he won’t be unfed.”

It was not funny. I felt truly sorry after listening to my friend’s account of Aung Min’s background. But I could not be feeling sorry for long as usual for people in this country. Once I got back to work, I forgot everything. Later, I did not think about Aung Min at all. I had my own worries.

o o o o o o o o

The construction of the tallest building in this country was completed three months after meeting with Aung Min. The building was amazingly beautiful. It could be seen from anywhere. It was lighted at night and the opening ceremony was grand. We the workers were given half day leave. If we wanted to take pride, we could because Myanmar workers also contributed to the construction of this historic building.

It was not long that the sad bad news came out among our Myanmar workers. That a Myanmar fell down from that tallest building. Instant death. One strange thing was that paper planes were scattered around his body. I knew who he was.

“Oh”

As I was thinking about him, my heart missed a beat. His words. His words about sending our messages with paper planes to our families once this building was completed.

“My God”

As he promised, has he gone to carry our paper planes to …

o o o o o o o o

Say suppose a paper plane from nowhere landed near you. Please don’t ignore it. It might carry messages from your relatives from faraway places.

Open it and read it.

Translated to English by WMH

                                        A Fish Jumped Out of the Spoon

I am enjoying the squash soup, savoring the last mouthful or two, when a fish lands on my spoon. A live fish, no less - and spouting words of wisdom. Honestly, it says; there’s no such thing as fish too dumb to distinguish between a fake worm and a live worm. It’s just that only the brave fish are prepared to bite the bait. Coward fish skulk in deep waters, burrowing into mud to hide from humans.  Rare is the fish that survives the hook, reaching the table live and whole. A legend, dare I call a specimen like myself. Generations of fish will bow to such legends.

Could I imagine, asks the fish on my spoon, the way blood gushes out of the gullet of fish brave enough to bite the bait?  Could I possibly imagine what it feels like? Yet how easily frightened we are, we spoon-wiedling lovers of fish. It never fails to astonish the fish kingdom. We, the adventurous, the risk-taking species, eat the flesh of other creatures. Yet we panic when a morsel of meat gets caught in a crack between our teeth. Then we go at it with a toothpick like crazy. Hilarious, really.

If only we humans could be brave, says the fish on my spoon. Brave enough to puncture our gullets and spew blood for the sake of a mere bite of food.

Now just go ahead and chew me up, says the fish in parting. After spitting out my bones, of course.

So saying, it jumps out of the spoon and into my mouth.

Now, why can’t I bring myself to wash that spoon?

Myay Hmone Lwin

edited by Wendy Law-Yone