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May 11th The unstoppable rain cut the trees like razors. The grass and foliage drowned, forcing the earth to crater. Diego felt purified on his first day in Lacandona. The water had a way of silencing. It reminded him of the snow in Boston, where Diego spent five years studying the complexity of spoken language. Like water breaking a dam, he realized, that in order to understand language he needed to expand beyond the spoken word. Listen to what can’t be said. He walked through the jungle’s trails. Like veins, he thought. Diego looked at his map, only to see the droplets erasing his path. He felt the rain on his nose and hands. He was losing hope of finding what he came looking for. About to give up, Diego heard rushing water in the distance. He remembered his map was leading him to a river. With no options left, he followed the sound. He followed the sound for what felt like months. The rain ceased and the sun shone, revealing an orange tent. The shaman, he thought. The smell of burning wood, evidence that someone was there. A women robed in green emerged. She held a vessel with water to put out the fire. As the last of the smoke rose, Diego approached her and tried to say hello. She grabbed his hands, looked at him, and he knew he had arrived. There was no need for words. June 3rd His body was weak, yet the soreness felt rewarding. He had been working with the shaman for a month. Diego had learned how to speak without speaking. He had spent a day with the trees, a night with the stars, and another with the sun. Other days he spent them with himself listening to his thoughts, observing how words drift to ···· June 4th Reflected in the vessel, Diego saw himself. He saw the jungle. The same gaze that had welcomed him said goodbye. It was time to drink what would erase the boundaries of the spoken word. He lifted the cup to his lips. The cold clay merged with his tongue. He inhaled the smell of rain. The first sip felt like a waterfall running down his throat. The liquid hit his stomach, absorbed into his bloodstream. His eyes closed and he fell paralyzed on the ground, losing control of his limbs, the way branches sway when the wind sings. The shaman gently touched his forehead to make sure Diego was following the right trail. She left the tent and vanished into the jungle. Vines wrapped around his body, he felt the pulse of the jungle speaking to him. He surrendered not only his body but his mind in order to understand the language of unspoken truths. June 5th With the first light, Diego opened his eyes. He looked for the shaman, but she was long gone. It took a while for him to get used to his new eyes. He was greeted by the sun, the stars, and the trees. Now, he understood. He was able to speak, but there was no need to. On his hand, he felt a drop of water. He looked up and rain began to fall.

The math teacher talks about the probability questions in his class. “A” looks out the window, the game of poker unfolding on the grass collapsed by the wind. “A” is not sure whether this is a metaphor of something, but in the case without evidence, it’s unable to judge. The essay assignment for this math class is to write an instance that truly exists, to analyze it using probability and to get a logical conclusion verified by science. Here is the instance “A” writes down: This is about a romance that lasted for 700 years. Mina and Ginbo first see each other in an aquarium. This event has a probability of 0.000001% or 100 %, using probability questions to calculate. Mina and Ginbo spend a wonderful night together. Mina only spends that night with Ginbo, then leaves the next morning. There are two reasons that people won’t believe they are true love. 1—Ginbo’s weight is 25.4 times Mina's. 2—Ginbo and Mina have no way to recognize each other. Just by appearances, for the species that have huge differences, most of them may have face blindness on others. So it’s not Ginbo and Mina’s fault. Therefore, for the 100,000,000 humans Ginbo has met, he may recognize all of these humans to be Mina. Also, for the 100,000,000 white whales Mina has met, she may recognize all of these white whales to be Ginbo. This proves that their probability to meet each other is 0.000001% or 100%. They love each other deeply just the same, and while this romance started from the last century, it doesn’t need to wait until the day they meet each other to start. Even after they had met, they may not have recognized each other. They only need to perceive the existence of each other, and keep the whole romance inside their brains. No matter how people question everything, people cannot deny the truth of this 700 year romance on Mina and Ginbo. They are true love. Because of this, scientists can not prove that, without five senses, love can still exist. The math teacher questions the authenticity of this essay, while he thinks there isn’t enough evidence to prove that love actually exists. “A” has to revise this essay. “A” does not revise it, but continues to write. “A” believes that the best way to prove the authenticity is to provide more evidence. If the math teacher thinks this instance has 30% authenticity to believe, and his authenticity of his essay should be more than 90%, 30%+30%+30% equals 90%, which means that “A” has to use another 2 stories which have 30% authenticity as evidence, to make the math teacher believe. “A” writes down the next instance: The protagonist of this instance is a 30-year-old radish. This radish is still alive. He was uprooted from the soil 30 years before, and keeps living in a jar. With the growth of age, he becomes darker, now he is already black. No one can recognize him as that white radish. At the age of 30, the black radish can suddenly talk! You may not know, but the probability of a miracle happening a species can be very high if that species is a miracle species. As a miracle species, you cannot predict the species by yourself, so the probability of a miracle happening is about 100% minus the probability it exists as a miracle. For example, if a miracle species has a probability of 3% to happen, then the probability of a miracle happening it can be 100%-3%. You cannot refuse to believe humans’ judgements are limited, it is only restricted in a certain percentage. After the day that Radish can talk, he keeps talking. He wants to talk about everything he thinks in these 30 years. But there’s only one sentence scientists can understand: “I don’t want to live anymore, please kill me.” It actually proves the probability question when a miracle happens. In order to publicize this conclusion, scientists decide to put this radish which is able to talk into the science museum, then the radish can keep talking in front of the people who come to visit, and continue to live. Then “A” writes the last instance. Instance 3 Toward the common definition of “fly”—to move in or pass through the air with wings. there are a lot of bugs. Fly represents an action itself, but it cannot be restricted by the observers’ identities. We can tell that the wideness of acceptance of the vocabulary “fly” is less than 0.1%, and this number can be smaller unlimitedly. Take coral as an example, for corals living under the deep sea, in their perspective, the fish swimming above them are flying. But for humans, it can be very absurd to say fish can fly, because we cannot stop using ourselves as the observers to define all the behaviors, just like we do not stand in the perspectives of corals. Also for hamsters, humans can fly. For the hamsters we see in a pet shop, they always stay in an opaque box without a lid. When we try to watch those hamsters, we usually bend down or squat down. But in the perspective of hamsters, our bodies are the parts above that box, because hamsters cannot see the lowerparts of our bodies. So from their perspectives, humans can fly, the same as the humans see the birds in the sky. If the same thing happened to birds, there may be some parts under the ground, and if their visible parts are connected to the parts under the ground by some invisible substances, how can we know? To the problem that humans still believe firmly that they themselves cannot fly, it should be re-answered. Scientists are wrong to this point, they ignore the remaining 99.9% evidence gained when widening one’s perspective. “A” hands in the essay with perfect satisfaction, the sun shines brightly outside. The open trial of this essay will be in the math class next Wednesday. “A” won’t know at that moment, but this essay will be imprisoned, in a steel cage, compelled to proceed with its the photosynthesis.

Rarely have I ever seen someone who looks truly rotten. They don’t seem to show up often. Even the most miserable faces have some redeeming qualities. A tattooed cross on a forehead. A smirk. The aging scars from a blow inflicted by an addict with an axe, or, hatchet, to be accurate. These things add flair, a sparkle, though they rarely create networking opportunities. Glimpses tend to be short and lips tight when that type of people walk through the bus or claim a corner on a train car. A moose once climbed on a bus and was treated with more dignity. But, I have to admit, this moose looked better than you. When you showed up at my door with your red shirt I could see that you looked rotten. Your head was nearly scraping the roof above you as you stood lanky, snot dripping out your nose. It seemed like you had spawned out of some slimy pore that had long been forgotten and untended, hidden in the scalp of some Argentinian psychoanalyst with a bright imagination and a thick head of hair. You were projection. And trauma. You were a red shirt, eight feet tall and skin was your face. I haven’t seen, for instance, many faces lacking orifices, that can easily be considered, by our standards, as rotten. It was said that once, in a lush grove, you had stuck your head in a hole you had dug six days ago. The nearby villagers came to see it. A man with a holeless face had stuck his head in a hole on the ground. Excited children ran in circles around your eight feet tall body that sprung out of the ground like a palm tree. Flowers were thrown at your groin and slid sadly down on the ground. When you came back up, your face brown with soot, screams rang out in all directions as the villagers and their children witnessed a rotten face. This was 800 years ago, on the banks of a river. I digress. I saw your eyes covered by a smooth, oily skin, the color of mayonnaise that’s been left out on a scorching sun, flickered with the debris of a carcass that has fallen from a tall cliff. It made my skin crawl, and yours did. A weak web of cartilage covered your mouth and I could hear your attempts to mouth out a call to arms or a hymn. You looked like a worm. But you could move. Your arms grasped the walls. You loomed over me. You mouthed out your dinosaur salutes and although I could not understand them, I heard your sounds. They filled the empty space in my bedroom and bounced off the walls. And you slinked into my door, no more a physical space but resembling water, you passed through it.

sound muffled sight like a cheesecloth caught in a web a tear against the sky (a window) drips down (slips down, slip gown) glass ripping noise-- a stutter cry a shudder a shutter closed to suppress a room of blue¹ a room of feeling a room filled with glue a room where the orange² sun hits the wall and makes a kind of magenta³ color (re-member) how many feathers does it take to mark an empty grave because i grieve the truth* and the past even though they are not dead and drag on [cry, remember, try to remember] the fear of falling always follows even in sleep i dream of someone (a hand) letting go and i dread the inevitable feeling of being dropped, gold⁴ rings passed down a generation does she miss them? i struggle to find (a) room for my memories to resurface red⁵ and change but it’s hard six. 1 ladybugs on the walls, painted and real. learned what bones are. learned what friends are. 2 stuck on a dresser, can’t get down feel on fire. wake up to the sound of a radio. sit on the tub. snuggle in. 3 a lot of jumping. a yellow house. pretending. petting a dog a walk-in closet kissing a boy. 4 the moon. an ipod. pink walls (not mine). not mine not mine not mine. 5 ink stains covered up by christmas trees. stomping. hiding more than usual. seeing the sun more than usual. *as far as i know