I lose sleep during the night. It is raining all the time. Since we arrived here I haven’t slept for one second. I think it is because I can’t get used to the quietness here. The quietness is so strong that it is almost unbearable noisy. It is so quiet everywhere that I hear all kinds of noises. I even can hear moss growing.

While I am lying on the bed with you, in this strange stone house, I know the rain is covering the woods, and the sea is tossing, ceaseless, in a not very far distance. The moon seduces the wave and the tide is moving like crazy. The rain drops on the ceiling above our bed, on the pond outside of the house, on the stinging nettles by the window. The whole world is raining. The whole world is drowning. There is no single place can remain dry, not even an inch.

The next morning, the rain becomes lighter, and the wind is less strong. We come down to the sitting room, having hot coffees with breakfast by the fire. It is safe and warm inside. Outside is gloomy. That is the word. But you don’t agree. I say I don’t want to go out anymore. I swear. You laugh at me. You say you love this kind of weather. You say that is what you love about the nature. Nature is powerful, and this power is beautiful.

“Shall we go to the lighthouse?” you ask.

“Lighthouse? Virginia Woolf’s lighthouse?” I remember the book you gave to me.

“No, this one is more beautiful.”

“Where is it?”

“Come with me.” You stand up.

We borrow an umbrella from the old lady who owns B &B, leaving the fireplace and head to the nature again. My boots are still wet from yesterday’s mud. It is a pair of city boots, losing shape here. They don’t belong to this place. I should buy a pair of rubber boots, and a raincoat.

It is a long walk, through the woods and farms. After about one and half hours, we see the lighthouse. It is standing at the bottom of the hill. It faces to the sea. There is nothing else around it, not even a sheep. It feels like is built at the end of the world. We walk towards it. The lighthouse becomes closer and bigger. It is tall, thin, erect, like a young man’s penis. It is total solitude.

We sit down by the lighthouse. The seagulls are diving in the water. The waves are deep green. I imagine during the night, in the darkness, the light turns around, wiping off the mountain, the grassland, the path, the beach, the sea. I imagine the light searching, but maybe searching for nothing.

“Is any boat going to the other side of the sea?” I ask.

“Yes, but not today. Not everyday,” you say.

“Shall we ask around when there will be a boat here? So we can take the boat to see the other side.”

“You go if you want. I’d like to stay here,” you answer.

“But there is nothing here,” I say.

The current is quiet. The lighthouse is keeping something secret, a secret which I don’t understand.

The city weakens your energy. But you become alive again in this place. Finding a snake or an earthworm under the grass is more surprising than making art; seeing a dolphin dancing in the sea is more interesting than making art; watching a beam of red flowers turned into a string of beans is more satisfying than making art; listening a bumble bee sucking a bud is more pleasant than making art. I think you are born for nature. Why not stay here? Why force yourself to return London? You should stay, without considering me.

I open my notebook again, looking at my everyday’s study, my everyday’s effort. I see myself trying hard to put more words and sentences into blank pages. I try to learn more vocabularies to be able to communicate. I try to put the whole dictionary in my brain. But in this remote countryside, in this nobody’s wonderland, what’s the point of this? It doesn’t matter if one speaks Chinese or English here; it doesn’t matter if one is mute or deaf. Language is not important anymore. Only the simple physical existence matters in the nature.

November

*

pathology

pathology n. the scientific study of diseases.

You, my English patient, keep feeling ill. I used to lie beside you, whenever you suffered from headache or bodyache. I would just stop what I was doing and come to lie beside you. But after so long, so often you get ill, somehow I run out of patience.

“Honey, I know how to cure your depression: practice yoga every morning, ride your bike every afternoon, and go swimming every evening.”

“Perhaps I just need to find the right medicine.”

“No. I don’t think you can solve it under the medication way. The problem is from your Qi, your energy.”

You lie there, look at the ceiling vaguely: “Every morning I wake up and I feel tired before I’m even out of bed.”

“That’s because your illness is brought from your thoughts. You hate this society so much, and you feel so fed up with this place. You don’t have any disease. You are just like your old van, old, too old, every part of the mechanic fell apart. Remember? Your white van and you, used to be so energetic.”

“I just wish I knew what it was that was wrong with me.”

“You Westerners always want to precisely name illness. But in China, we don’t name all these kind of diseases. Because we think all the illness actually causes from very simple reason. If you want to solve your illness then you must start to calm your whole body, not just taking pills every time.”

“OK, tell me more.” You rise your head from the bed.

“There are three general classes of the causes of illness in Chinese medication. Internal Pathogenic Qi, External Pathogenic Qi, and Trauma. Internal Pathogenic are organ dis-function, External Pathogenic are Qi from outside the body which enter the body, and Trauma is trauma.”

“Trauma is Trauma?”

“I guess Trauma causes Qi and blood to leave the normal currents of flow. And it causes the stagnation of your inner energy. So parts of your body will be suffered from the lack of Qi. That’s why you get tired everyday easily. And that’s why you get headache regularly.”

“How do you know all this?” You stare at me.

“Because I am a Chinese.”

“You mean all Chinese people know about this?”

“I think so.”

“Are you serious? Even the ones who work in the Chinese takeaway on Hackney Road?”

“You can ask them, next time when we pass by,” I say.

“You know, you never tell me things like this.” Now you get up from the bed. You must feel better.

“But you never really ask me. You never really pay attention to my culture. You English once took over Hong Kong, so you probably heard of that we Chinese have 5,000 years of the greatest human civilisation ever existed in the world…Our Chinese invented paper so your Shakespeare can write two thousand years later. Our Chinese invented gunpowder for you English and Americans to bomb Iraq. And our Chinese invented compass for you English to sail and colonise the Asian and Africa.”

You stare at me, no words. Then you leave the bed, and put the kettle on.

“Do you want some tea?” you ask.