The Air, My Friend

The column by Jimi Liao, translated…

Because I can’t keep my self all the time, keep maintaining that bright happy smile,

So, I’d made an enormous sculpture, to tell myself: be happy, smile more!

the artwork of Jimi Liao, from UDN.com…

This is just odd, and, it’s so sad to see, that there are still, adults “educating” their own young like this: that they can’t be unhappy, they need to be happy, and you DO realize, how this, is considered as a sort of emotional NEGLECT, right???

East 2

Life & death, encountered, in the walkways of a hospital, translated…

The passage I go through to work every day, I’d learned recently, that it was called “East 2”.

It was straight, passing through the hospital’s main building, on the one end, it’d, gone straight into the hallways of the lobby of the hospital, and on the other, into the E.R., with no twists and turns along the way, and naturally, this became, the quickest route for the medical staff to get to where they need to be. 

The flooring of this hall was the warm colored light yellow tint, with posters filling up the walls, and only a few doors opened here and there, nothing more.

Every single morn, a group of white coated people were, sucked in by “East 2”, and spit out at the other end of it, in the evenings, it was reversed.  Day after day, year, after year.

I’m like all other medical staff members, rarely thinking of why the hallway was designed as such, just felt that it was, convenient.  Several times I’d seen the ambulances parked outside East 2 and the E.R., with the family members all around, hands together, ranting something.  I’d understood, that those were the patients who were terminally ill, who’d decided to go home to die, and I’d, not paid enough attention to them.

Until one day, as I was walking into East 2, as I was about to exit out, there was, a group of people, pushing along the body covered in black cloth, and that was when the real purpose of this passageway was, understood by me.  The funeral systems in Taiwan are quite advanced, quick and efficient, those men who were, well-trained were, pushing along a body on a stretcher, in synchronized motion, silence, and worn those clean, white uniforms, and they’d, passed through East 2 without bringing too much attention to themselves.

I’d only, brushed shoulders with these men, but, I’d glanced over at their shirt, and saw three bold black characters printed on their shirt.

Odd, out of place, or even, a bit, ironic, it’d said,

Fighters of life.

And so, this, is where it all ends, for everybody, we get, carried out, like what these men the writer bumped into at the hospital by, and it makes you realize, just how unnoticeable life actually is…