A Story that Kills Dreams

By Ryan Carter

We were riding beside one another, cutting off traffic. He said, “I want to cut off a piece of your cheek and keep it in my pocket. I can carry it with me.”

He said, “I want to cut off one of your lips and keep it with me.”

I said, “Would you pull out my eyelashes?” He said, “What is the meaning of eyelash?”

I said, “After you pulled out all my eyelashes, you could blow dust in my face? You could tie me up in a chair, and throw dust through a fan, into my face?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Would you enjoy pulling out my fingernails with pliers?”

He said, “Yes, of course.”

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Hitotoki – Shanghai Zhongxue Guojibu

by Ryan Carter

June 12-13, 2010

I’d like to say it was a test of their ability to deal with genderbending, premeditated, but really no such plan came to my head. I was looking at Renata’s nails lacquered green and needed something to break up the monotony of a seven-day week, mostly for them, because into this week we also had to cram nearly everything. Angel Liu had drifted to the front row and I asked her, for me, casually, “what color nail polish would you have?”  She looked down hard for a minute and then she defiantly as she always does- for here is a woman with a backbone through which you cannot pass your hand, and maybe the only one in her class-” dark pink”, she says. Tomorrow I’ll paint them for you, she says. Continue reading…