Shower of Gold

The man sits alone in the matrix of sun-lit shades. He leans back, lifts his wet brush, and tilts his head. In the brisk, dreamlike atmosphere, he seems casually absorbed in his own world. There is a curious scent lingering in midair, like that of the osmanthus, the same fragrance that lies in the depths of my memory thousands of miles across the seas. But it is not; the osmanthus does not dwell here, only in the thin layer of nostalgia that pervades the air. Today is Mid-Autumn.

The moon will be bright tonight.

The reticent artist has sat here all day. The shadows have brightened and shrunk and elongated again; the sun’s reflection has traced his headscarf and fingertips and canvas and palette.

The tiny yellow flowers tumble forward on the cement. Browning, decaying. They fall from the tree above, but never touch his head; they shuffle down the dim-blue umbrella and interweave with the dust with a silent sigh.

Tat-tat.

They are not osmanthus flowers. But, the smell— so soft, so delicate, lightly hovering but impenetrable— is enough to stir something long-lost in my chest. It smells of the place I loved, of the once fearful child I almost left behind.

The rich afternoon sunshine casts its radiance across my limbs. This is still the world I know. I stand there where the past and future merge.

In the midst of the golden veil, I saw the child again. I saw its tiny figure all curled up in the chair, too tiny to reach the woody table; its legs still dangling over the ground and its body doubling over its lap, on which its chubby little fingers grasped the edge of the canvas with some effort. Peeking through its eyes, I realized just how big the world was. Living in a haze of chaos, as much is unknown to this newly born soul, I couldn’t even trace the path of the sun beyond this dim-blue umbrella. What is time, and what is eternity? What does life look like—and death? Can we ever return to this world I’ve left behind, the one I would one day— call my own?

But now, in this fleeting moment, the child is not in fear. It is immersed in the only world it knows— the world of endless imagination, all condensed under its wet paintbrush.

I watched the sunlight tease apart the child’s black hair, lining each strand with gold. Its pursed little lips and focused gaze pour every ounce of attentiveness into the moment. Only I, set apart from the child’s world, can no longer recognize the shape on the canvas.

And so, I watch the artist, diffusing my lifelong distillation of calmness and patience and serenity into the sole moment I watched him. I feel like I could watch him forever. Like that.

It is afternoon. The sun’s lavish downpour was diluted by a single streak of mid-autumn breeze. He leans back, raised his brush and his petite canvas for the one last time, with much prudence and meticulousness.

Am I seeing a fragment of the past? Or did I just see, unraveling before me, eternity?

On that canvas laid the embryonic shape of a prehistoric creature, one I could barely recognize. But I see it, gently hoisting the secrets of the primeval forms of Life; arcane, incomprehensible, unfolded before us naked…

…In the shower of gold.