‘It was soon after leaving the train station that I realized how hungry I was. I pulled into a cafeteria-style place frequented by fishermen and construction workers and dished up a spread of scrambled egg, wood-ear mushrooms, and bamboo stalks set atop a canvas of rice. My eyes were automatically drawn to a tattooed back of a darkly-tanned man lined up before me, it showcasing a battle between a dragon and a demigod. I sat down and, amidst the boisterous shuffle of hungry locals, let my thoughts return to Shiao-Yun/Rachael. At that exact moment, she was moving along twin bands of steel running between mountains and sea, the beauty of her life having left but a drop of itself with me. The dream I’d had that morning then returned with prominence, the way its motherly figure had said ‘Love is two people atop a mountain’ stirring at something deep within. It took me back to my eighth grade English class, where our teacher at the time told us a story about a boy and a girl seated on a ledge overlooking the world. It started with the girl, her legs rocking back and forth and fingers threading through each other as her face became hidden behind her fringe. The boy beside her was desperate to know her but knew he never would, the diamond of the girl’s being reflecting light in so many ways he knew he’d forever be blinded to its source. After an age of trying to get a glimpse at what he believed true beauty to be, the boy gave up and ceased to look at her. At that exact moment, the girl turned to face him, and she immediately knew the boy’s eyes had gone to a place she could never know. The same inexpressible sorrow that’d wrought the boy subsequently flooded her, and knowing that she’d never be able to trace the source of his being, she too looked away. As both their eyes came to live for but the nothingness of the world, a single tear – like symmetrical drops of mercury – rolled down each of their cheeks.’
– Nick Hedges, And The Birds Do Sing