Rice
(for kevind.  qaparHa' =)



     In his next-to-a-garbage-dump apartment, barely a
room collided with a stove and a toilet; there was 
no heating.  It was only after the indention 
of his cancerous body on the bed
faded that I knew what he'd meant when he
had said, "The rice will strengthen you."
     His drawers held stacks of rice bags and dried
chicken soup.  I stayed in his room to learn, hoping to
relive his meaning.  Before the week was up, I had 
searched the room, like a hungry dog, for crackers, fruit, candy,
meat -- anything else, though I knew there was only rice in
the drawer and some grains on the floor from
yesterday's feast.
     The endless searching stopped after the first
few months, but I still felt the cold.  In his absence, 
his snow had stayed.
     "How do you live?" I'd asked once as he 
lay, feebly stirring the dollar stars hanging above
on strings with a stick.     "You get used to it," he said.
Without money."     I felt irritated, seeing his wastefulness. 
"I would use every cent for food."     He said, "I do.  That's
what change is for.  But the dollars are good for making
stars and snowflakes."
     That summer, despite the 80° weather, his room was
cold as a tomb.  "Let me take you outside," I said.  "Stay 
much longer, and you'll keep, like a slab of beef in
the meat-locker."
     He smiled, and said, "Did you know, that if you eat
enough rice, little by little, each grain gives life to 
part of your body?  Not only energetically, but spiritually.
The rice will weave into your soul, and like me, the
cold won't bother you, no, the hard shell keeps it
out."
     I touched his shrunken face.  His cheek was stuck
to the bone, like a cadaver.  "Please, Kevin," I said, "let
me take you away from this place, i'll rent another place, 
let me--"
     He said, "You don't understand."
     "Kevin..."     "Besides," he said, "I'd still 
set the temperature like it is now, and eat my 
rice."     "I wouldn't let you!"  "You don't know what it's like,
being poor.  You know extravagance, and money made from
a percentage of your labor's worth.  You know nothing
about rice; you don't want to."
     I fell silent.  I didn't understand, but I 
kissed his cheek, and left.
     In August, when the leaves fell and 
sounded like crumpled paper bags, Kevin passed 
away.  He left the door ajar, and when they 
found his body, it was covered with leaves, as was the 
floor.  Before he'd gone, Kevin had strewn, on the ground, paper
snowflakes and rice.



     --jennifer crystal chien