Saving Fish From Drowning Read Online Free Page B

the life span. “But should I die sooner than later,” I jokingly said, “then this ”—and I patted the enormous funerary box—“this magnificent vessel to the afterworld, the Cadillac of coffins, is what I wish to be buried in, and with the top raised at my funeral so that all can admire the interior artistry as well. . . .”
    After I died, more than a few from that tea-tasting soiree recalled my quirky remark. What I said as a witticism was described as
    “prescient,” tantamount to a “last wish that must be honored,” et cetera, ad nauseam. And so I was made to lie in that shipwrecked coffin, not , fortunately, with the shriveled parts of the eunuch. The ivory-rimmed box with the ghoulish relics disappeared, as did the container with the bones of the eunuch’s beloved Tibetan spaniel—
    although why anyone would want to steal those sad contents as souvenirs is beyond my imagination.
    The museum staff in charge of conservation and restoration did a minor bit of spit and polish, though no repair of chips or cracks.
    Such is their attitude about maintaining authenticity. A Chinese preservationist would have made it look as good as new, and painted it a nice, bright lacquer red and shiny gold. Because the coffin was rather deep, the bottom was filled with styrofoam in the shape of edamame pods, and over that went a layer of velvet— beige polyester , it was most dreadful. That was how I came to be exhibited in the museum auditorium, lying in a large black-lacquered coffin carved with celestial animals and the name of its intended tenant, who no doubt would seek me out with an eviction notice shaking in his hand.
    Had I seriously been making arrangements for a premature death, I would have asked to be cremated like the Buddhist high monks, poof, gone, without attachment to the body. As for a suitable receptacle for my remains, no single urn would have sufficed. I would have chosen nine boxes of different and delicate proportions, all from The Immortals, say, a meander-patterned box from the Southern Song 1 0
    S A V I N G F I S H F R O M D R O W N I N G
    dynasty, a round tao yuanming for collecting chrysanthemum flowers, and—my absolute favorite, which I had overpriced on purpose—
    a simple Ming brush box made of black-lacquered leather. I used to open it, inhale, and feel the poetry streaming over my face.
    The nine well-chosen boxes would have been arranged on a table during the reading of my will, three rows across, three down, like the three tosses of I Ching coins—both random and meaningful. Nine friends, equally chosen with thought from the best of society, would each have been asked to select a box with a portion of my ashes. Per my request, they were to take me along on a trip to a lovely place—no sedentary fireplace mantels or Steinway piano tops for me—where they might scatter my ashes but keep the box as a memento. The boxes, being museum quality, would have increased in worth over the years, and made people remember me “with growing appreciation.”
    Ah- ha , they would laugh upon reading that part. Thus, my ashes would have taken a more lighthearted and peripatetic course, and I could have avoided that abhorrent spectacle of an open coffin.
    But there we all were, me included, waiting our turn to view the macabre.
    One by one, these friends, acquaintances, and strangers from the different times of my shortened life stood by the casket to say farewell, adieu, zai jen . Many people, I could tell, were curious to see what the morticians had done to cover up the mortal wound. “Oh my God!” I heard them whisper noisily to one another. To be honest, I, too, was shocked to see how outlandishly they had prepared me for my debut with death. A shiny silver scarf was wrapped into a puffy bow around my lacerated neck. I looked like a turkey with aluminum foil, about to be put in the oven. Even worse, Bennie Trueba y Cela, the docent who grieved for me the most—that is to say, with the greatest