Is this a good first chapter for a memoir?

[miyako73]

I want to express how I started . Thanks.



1

In their childish eagerness to understand, kids around my age, when I was as inquisitive as they were and my questioning, as impertinent as theirs, would ask incessantly to know why birds could fly and unleash a barrage of more silly questions after that while in my taciturn isolation, the moment of a recluse that I found tranquil and relaxing, I would seek to answer my own abstruse curiosity: why I did not have wings.
"They can fly... because of their memory of flight," my tipsy father told my twin brothers, who were a year older than me then and already in first grade, after he downed his third bottle of beer and opened up his fourth using his strong teeth yellow-tarred by years of smoking Marlboro reds.
My father could have been a writer, perhaps a poet, but patience was not one of his virtues. Instant gratification, like drinking his favorite local brand, was more interesting to him. He would rather be in a drunken stupor than lose himself in the dizzying pages of metaphors. Not a good way to enjoy boredom, writing, for him, was a tedious labor, and he thought of it as a punishment only a sadomasochist thinker would gladly do and not mind.
I did not wonder before why I had never gotten even a short letter from him. He would much rather speak with me directly and tell me what he wanted to say without reservation. When I was away for a while or he was somewhere far from me, he would use a phone for a brief talk or send me a cryptic telegram he did not type. Even sending a Hallmark card with just a date above and his signature below was a wasteful effort and too much a bother. I had learned early on not to expect something in the mail on my birthday or on a holiday.
"They can flap and flutter their wings because they can remember." My father tried to simplify what he previously said, thinking this time he would be clear and we could understand, but still, it came out ambiguous and as confusing as before. It was ironic; he believed in learned behavior, yet in front of my brothers, who were pretending that they were interested and listening, he was holding a bottle of alcohol frothing and fuming the bitter smell of hops and malts while my mother and I were preparing the meal, setting the table, and serving the cooked food. Almost a noon ritual, my father's drinking preluded his lunch; beer was his liquid appetizer. He would only start eating after he had lined up at least half a dozen of capless brown bottles--emptied to the last drop--on the messy side of the table
Our long dining table, an heirloom whose chips, cracks, scratches could be traced back to several generations before my father's, complete with nostalgic anecdotes, was made of solid black mahogany, and it looked almost the same as the table in the framed Last Supper hanging on the wall that separated the dirty kitchen from the eating area. Careless and scared, I had always banged my head, bumped my elbows, slammed my knees on its sturdy legs, pointy corners, blady edges when I would quickly hide underneath terrified of my father's heavy steps shaking the stairs and his roaring voice waking us all up every time he would get home from a night out puking-drunk.
Other children had secret gardens; I had my own secret cave. Under the long table, I had felt safe and secure, saving myself again and again from my father's beat-up leather belt. Crawling on all fours in stealth, I would probe the empty chair in front of me, my father's favorite seat; run my fingers on its smooth, dark cherry finish feeling the shiny, almost frictionless, surface; fiddle its carved coils, curls, curlicues; study the varnished wood grains that looked like big eyes staring at me; and wonder if it, too, would become an heirloom someday and tell my story.
"The vastness of the sky is how endless their thoughts are," my father said while looking outside through the window, checking the billowy midday clouds. My brothers looked at him with blank stares while I did the same with delight. I was in awe; my father sounded like a professor exuding an expert's confidence and sense of authority as if he really knew a lot about birds. In my ears, it seemed it was about ornithology, but in my mind, what he said was pure poetry. I could tell my twin brothers were no longer interested, not even to just pretend.
Jung, the one who wanted to become an architect, so he could build my parents a huge palace—very huge, he would confidently promise—could not understand my father's philosophical rhetoric, which he dismissed as another absurd babble only a drunk could utter and comprehend. He just scratched his head, a habit when he was confused and could not say anything, and banged the sides of his plate with his silver utensils for more rice—the beef tamarind stew was scrumptious and hot, and the onioned pork steak, charcoal-broiled, was slightly sweet and succulent.
Jong, the independent-minded between the two, who thought he was too young to decide what he wanted to be in the future—the time when he could freely think for himself, according to him—did not really care about what my father said that also sounded like psychology to him, but for birds. He just wanted to hurry up and finish his lunch, so he could feed his leftover leafy salad to the scarlet-tailed green finch he found almost dead on the ground in the bamboo grove and had been nursing back to health in his bedroom inside the bamboo basket turned upside down under his bed.
Across from my father's seat, I could not force myself to lift my spoon under the mound of rice, nor could I free my fork piercing a slice of meat, trying to decipher what I thought was a beautiful riddle. My mind craved for an elaboration, another poetic line, but I was scared to ask him. His brow and cheeks were profusely sweating and turning rosy pink. Wanting to know more, I turned to my mother and asked why I could not fly.
My mother, usually, would not respond to such idle talk, especially on the dining table and while eating, but without wasting a dismissive sigh, she simply said, "Because you're not a bird."
I was used to her matter-of-fact utterances and her almost bookish way of speaking; she was a strict teacher. What she told me was a nice answer, a brief and lucid one, but I found it hard to appreciate. It was not deep enough. I already knew about angels being inspired creations of a fertile imagination, so I just shut up while trying to make sense of the winged birds that could not fly, understand the pain of the bird with a wounded wing in my brother's makeshift cage, and think about the tragic melting and falling of Icarus' wings.
Unsatisfied, I moved my gaze back to my father. He understood my questioning eyes. After gulping some more beer, his last bottle, and taking his time to burp, he haltingly said, with poignant stops, "Because... because you don't need to explore the sky...... for memories." He thought hard before the last phrase came out.
His silenced me. That afternoon, when I was six, he made me understand about being human. I finally found the sense of living through my father's seemingly incoherent words. Although they were metaphors of an alcoholic man, I clearly understood why I should go on and find life (and all its hard realities) myself. It was not the pain but the memory of being hurt that would make me stronger and purposeful to survive; I had become a poet that day.
A contented grin on my face, I filled my bowl with soup and a chunk of beef marrow loosening from its bone. The soft rice was steaming hot, and it looked beautiful like a miniature white hill on my plate. The lightly burnt skin of pork was perfect. The vegetable salad topped with mango chutney tasted great. I had a wonderful meal better than any Gregorian feast. Even the glass of chilled water was delicious. I was full.
I got up and excused myself from the table without waiting for my mother's milky dessert—iced tiny beans, grated coconut, and candied jackfruit. I went straight to my room, sat in front of my study table, and jotted down my father's idea on my journal: "Birds soar in the sky for memories; I live the moment for it." I did not know much about pronouns and antecedents then.
I stayed in my room almost motionless, and even my breathing was hushed, but my mind was restless and alive. Jung boasted about the perfect sphere he drew on my father's pad of yellow papers lying empty on the iron table in the living room. Outside, by the Avocado tree, Jong played an earnest therapist, teaching the still weak bird how to fly again. My mother stood silent in the kitchen, washing plates, glasses, forks, spoons, pots and pans one by one; thinking about Nell, our eldest brother who ran away two days ago, and waiting for little Eddie, our youngest, to wake up for his late lunch. In the patio, my father swayed himself in the rope hammock, humming an old song about crying and promising not to cry again. The stodgy ambience in the house perturbed me like my recurring dream of déjà vu that almost seemed a nightmare. It felt empty inside.
After belching the gassy feeling in my tummy that still had the tart, spicy taste of my favorite dip of soy sauce, white vinegar, and hot pepper, I laid down on my bed, overwhelming my mind with the serene stillness of the moment. The cool breeze, occasionally, swooped and whistled, moving to the west for the summer sun. On my grandfather's old pendulum clock, it was already two, my siesta time, the time to sleep away the clingy warmth of the bright afternoon.

[miyako73]

Can someone tell me what's wrong with this piece? I would really appreciate. You can be harsh. I just want your opinions.

[Lyn05]

Hi miyako, I'm not sure what a memoir is, so I can't tell you if there's anything wrong with it. Sorry about that.. But in any case, I don't think there's anything wrong with it on its own. I find it rather interesting, actually. :)

[billl]

I thought it was very good, too. The first paragraph (sentence) could be better punctuated, maybe--but after that it all read pretty easily, and it sounded like a person thinking and remembering. If it's a real memoir (I don't know, I would suspect not, based on the names and your name miyako, but anything's possible and your intro sentence suggests it is...), then I guess I shouldn't call them characters--but the people in the memoir all seem pretty real, and several are very interesting and memorable.

I might have missed some word choice stuff, but there wasn't anything too bad, nothing I can remember, that's for sure. Maybe just "In the patio" would usually be "on the patio." Otherwise, it's a great piece of writing.

[Veva]

Well,
for me the style of your writing is too difficult and then it can be tiring for the reader... sometimes simplicity can conjure up more in one's mind ... like Murakami :thumbs_up

[miyako73]

I hope you will tell me if this would be an interesting piece of writing.


2

Fourteen years later, I still defined life as the collection of memories. I still lived the moment, but I also included the past. I still thought about the wings but no longer the birds. I still wanted to fly, but this time, the flight was to explore how I could free the thoughts locked in my mind.

That year was 1994, and it was spring, yet I only saw saffron poppies around. The morning mists of early May reminded me of my grandmother's misty garden—its lush greens, blossoming buds, crystal dewdrops—after the seasonal pour of a Southern monsoon. Slightly foggy, Orange County at six o'clock in the morning looked and felt like the bucolic village where I grew up. I saw, through the tinted car windows, giant boulders of rocks spotting verdant fields, grassy hills dwarfing gray streets, and fenced scenic valleys warning that they were private properties. It seemed like home, a small town in a third-world country, where time ran so slow and people did not really care about getting late. It did not appear to me that I was already in the USA.

It was still kind of dark when we arrived in Los Angeles from Manila, and we just finished our light breakfast—a French pastry, a hot drink, sliced fruits, and chilled orange juice—when the pilot whose morning voice was loud and hoarse alerted us through a microphone that down below was the city we had only seen on posters, calendars, and postcards. From Above, I saw the American West blanketed with bright miniature lights pulsating like stars. It reminded me of Christmas, the loneliest time of the year for me. By the time our plane landed, it was almost dawn. I hoped to see the huge Hollywood sign above Beachwood Drive, the imposing mansions in Beverly Hills, and the sandy beaches of California, but what came into view after we got out of the airport were tall buildings blocking the cloudless sky, freeways snaking everywhere, and landscapes of dull hues and drab concretes disappointing me. It was a cold welcome—in both climate and emotion—that met me.

My family and I had been waiting for this move, our chance to hope and dream again, for almost two decades. We could not wait to get away from the place widely known for garbage mountains, water shanties, and Imelda's shoes. We were so desperate to leave the Philippines that we decided to go ahead and no longer attend my grandmother's burial. She died the week we received the notice from the US embassy about our visas and approved immigration. We could not celebrate. Our supposed big moment was a mix of grief and joy, a strange feeling I have always hated. It only took us a couple of days to pack up and prepare. Nobody from the village sent us off. We just had no time to tell even our family friends that we were leaving. We checked in and, literally, mourned up in the air. My father's heavy heart showed on his gloomy face. His downcast eyes said it all; he was his mother's favorite.

The twelve-hour flight gave me time to meditate and space to introspect. I had heard about soul-searching before, but that was the first time I intensely search what was left of my soul. I was confused. What bothered me was not the impending culture shock—nothing could ever shock me, I thought—but the familiar things I would be leaving behind. I was not good in dealing separation anxieties.

While observing an excited, bouncy gang of four occupying the seats across where I was seated, the friendly faces of my childhood playmates popped up in my head. It felt like I was a kid again. I could hear their voices calling my name, the same voices I would hear when we used to play hide-and-seek in my grandfather's barbed wire-fenced orchard of thorny lemon trees, fruit-bearing papayas, and umbrageous, thick bananas under the dim light of a full moon.

"Kinggggg!" they would yell my name as they checked the trees, the carts, the coves, the holes.

I would hold my breathing or breathed through my mouth, so the dry leaves would not move and make swooshing and rustling sounds; and pinch my nose or cover my face, so I could not smell the rotten fruits and see the fresh droppings of my grandfather's horse.

"Hey! Kinggggg, where are you?" they would shout on top of their lungs as if I would tell them where to find me.

There was no way I would tell them where I was. I already learned my lesson before, when I answered back.

"The game is so over!" They would fool me out of desperation, but I knew when the game would end. I could never miss the sonorous ringing of the old church's bells. A minute of their eerie monotony at eight o'clock reminded everyone to go home quick and pray for the dead.

"Look out! The ghost is behind you!" They would usually scare me when they were in the verge of giving up.

I was scared of ghosts, but the abandoned cabin near the drying creek that they said was haunted was quite a hike. I would not go that far. I was more afraid of snakes, but I had not seen one in the orchard for a long time after my grandfather cut down the century-old banyan tree.

"King, see you tomorrow." That was the usual clue that I could come out now, that they were going, and that I won.

I would press my ear on the ground to listen for steps, tramps, treads, and stomps; check if there were shadows hiding, sneaking, and lurking in the unlit corners; and observe the grasses, the leaves, and the branches if they were moving. Sure that they were gone, I would take off my camouflage of crisscrossing twigs, dry grasses, thin barks, and big leaves sewn and glued on my father's worn-out overalls and come out from the dark disheveled and sweaty, smelling like the organic stench of a dead wood.

"Hey! I'm here!" That was to double-check if they were really gone, so I could take my disguise with me for safekeeping and go home for a warm bath. None of my friends had known about the ploy I learned from my uncle who was in the military until we moved on from our silly kiddy games and switched to some serious ball playing.

"King?" I would usually ask myself as I trudged along the stone paths, alone in the deserted orchard, beaming with a proud grin, while the melon moon above started to hide behind the white puffs in the bluest sky.

I thought, in my journey, I would only miss the place that was hard for me to leave behind. It did never cross my mind before that the sour tang of a squeezed lemon or the sweet scent of a sliced papaya or the vinegary smell of an overripe banana would forever remind me of my childhood, when I did not care much but giggle and laugh.

Since I learned how to walk barefoot on the clay ground until I knew when to run away during my troubled teens, I had kept the same company of friends. We were six in the group of the same age with the same interest: having fun. Lucas, a.daily churchgoer, named by his father, a former Catholic priest, after a saint would lead us into prayer before we could start our adventurous tomfoolery. He had never missed the six o'clock Angelus. Karl, who never got into a fistfight, was the peacemaker of the group who learned the idea of "amicable settlement" from his father, a lawyer who had never won a case. When he was mad or scared, he pissed himself without knowing. Joel, coming from a rich but broken home, was the troublemaker who knew how to brew beer, played thirteen-cards, and rolled tobacco with one hand. He was the one who told me that marijuana was an herb like green tea. Han, who belonged to a military family, was the effeminate jokester of the gang who would monkey around while lip-singing Barbra Streisand with his exaggerated pout. He wore his sister's dress one Halloween and shocked us all with his dainty moves. Then there was Tim, a charcoal maker's son, who had a big nose and hated the smell of a burning wood. Our handyman, he also ran errands for us. I was kind of their leader that nobody really chose. I must have played the part because they called me "King".

When we had spare time, we crowded the beach when its tide surged and swelled high, bringing our battered boards crudely sawed from the big piece of plywood we pulled from an abandoned house and riding the rolling waves reaching the height of the church's tall bell tower. We had been doing it way before we heard about bogie board and surfing. Holding hands, the boards stuck on our chests and held in place by our chins, we would meet the breakers before they dashed into foams. We would warn each other of the sea urchins waiting for our shivering feet in the sand, and looking like synchronized swimmers in a choreographed ducking trick, in unison, we would avoid a stingy jellyfish propelling itself to the shore to dry and die. Usually, we would only go home when the water slumped into complete calm and its tide dropped low exposing the rocks and opened up the sandy mouth of the lagoon nearby that cascaded cold, crystal flows freezing our sunburnt bodies, clearing the white spuming bubbles, and diluting the salt of the sea.

On sunny weekends, we would explore the forests covered with mosses and greens, hunting wild chickens. We knew how to build traps we learned from our boys scouting days. Like soldiers in a formation, we would hike the almost endless winding trail around the half-burnt mountain tilled by nomadic farmers who turned spots of grassy land into black earth. We would pick peanuts, the leftovers of their harvest. Cleared of trees, the flat, meadowy summit looking like a hill was good for kite-flying before the rainy season came and turned it into a landscape of rice paddies. Playing kickball in the soft, sinking mud was more than fun. We could not walk when our legs were buried deep up to our thighs, so we would elbow-crawl like marine recruits in training. We would soak ourselves naked in the waterfalls afterwards as we waited for our clothes to dry on the rocks exposed to the high afternoon sun, and in the hot bubbling spring, we would boil the quail eggs we found in the wild tea bushes. Coming down from the mountain, we would pass by the shady trees where we would take cover from the drizzle. It always rained up there, and we could touch the fogs that turned falling droplets in our hands. It felt like we had the world--ours alone.

The happiest times I had growing up were the moments I spent with my friends. Together, we learned how to swim under the sudsy waves of the Pacific and scaled the rocky peak to see the view of the ocean from the top. Even when we were in our teens, we still had that strong bond although we started doing our own thing and going far away. It must be the thought that we had the same beginning in the same moist ground embracing the prints of our feet that had bound us together. As I tried hard to recall how it was and what life was like when everything was very simple and just all play, it seemed the memories I brought with me were not enough.

They say there is only one same moon wherever you go, but I do not think there is something comparable that can lull my mind from missing the golden reflection in the black lagoon arched by barren coconut trees where we used to have our early morning dive and late afternoon dip.

Not far from me, a baby cried; his loud cry jolted me back to my senses. I smelled and sipped my coffee—it was Colombian. My eyes continued to wander as if I was looking for a long-lost friend. In front of me was a sweet couple who made me instantly remember my special friend who did not know that I was going away. Butterflies revolted in my belly; I missed him so much that I nearly threw up. I could not say if it was a different kind of affection—interrupted and, maybe, forever lost—other than friendship, but, again, I knew nothing about what others might think what I felt. I was twenty years old but still naive when it came to that. I had given up the idea of loving, caring, and getting attached long ago when I buried Doggie, our playful Labrador who died from cassava poisoning. Since then, I had tried to avoid suffering the same feeling of loss and detachment again.

My friend, the special one, was a sensitive painter. I did not want him to see my eyes saying goodbye. It would be embarrassing. He painted my portrait before, but I was smiling. I did not want him to think about what I had in mind every time I watched him in front of his easel. It was not the wet bristles of his brush or the palette of oil paints on his hand that made me smile. That was my secret that he did neither suspect nor know. I just did not want him to misunderstand me.

The last time I saw him was when he was out of fuchsia red. He wanted to paint the portrait of his former girlfriend who left him for the flashy son of a shipping tycoon who bought her a car, but he could not find the right color to use for tinting her cheeks and tingeing her lips. The face he hoped to appear on the white-primed canvas was the innocent one he saw when they first met, when all she wanted was a sincere affection. "Do you think...I can paint her...from memory," he asked me. The hesitation in his voice was sad; he was hurting.

"You can if you still see her eyes when you close yours." I had no idea if he understood me or if what I said made him even lonelier. He did not say anything, not even a nod, a gesture I observed before when he agreed with me or when I said something he liked. I caught him closing his eyes, but he was dusting the easel he pulled from the pile of cut boards and wooden frames.

I wanted to help but I could not think what to do; I knew nothing about counseling a broken-hearted. Instead, I offered to setup the stool, the easel, and the side table. He just glanced at me as he sat down on a screeching rattan chair, facing the sunray-lit wall where he hanged his finished floral and landscape paintings. He did not say thanks, but I knew the look on his face, a grateful one; he was glad I was around.

After I was done setting up, I put the canvas on the easel and told him that everything was all set. Moments later, I prompted him that he could start whenever he was ready. While he was busy doing his own thing in his small, little corner, I picked up the empty pizza boxes on the floor and the crumpled hamburger wrappers on the drafting table. The crashed soda cans he used as ashtrays were all over, and some were turned upside-down, so he could use their dented bottoms for mixing colors. I did not touch the empty water bottles he put aside for oils and thinners. To complete my speed cleaning, I reached a few cobwebs with a broom, swept some messy spots, blew undisturbed dusts off the windows, and took his trash outside. I was not his housekeeper.

I just returned the favor; he took care of me one Christmas eve when I got very sick from drinking too much tequila. How could I forget that night when I was feverish, poisoned, and disoriented? He did not only let me wear his boxers, shirts, and pajamas, he also helped me clean up, shower, and dry myself. Not done yet, he even offered his bed, gave me his softest pillow, and covered me with his wooly blanket. After giving me a pill of Alkazeltzer, he wet a face towel for my burning forehead and placed a bucket beside the lamp on the side table in case I needed to get up and disgorge what was bubbling in my stomach. It was almost past midnight when he retired on the couch, and that was after he heard my snoring. He was not my boyfriend.

When I came back after disposing his garbage, he was still finishing something. From the blue painted-door, I could only see his left shoulder hit by a beam of the setting sun coming from one of the half-opened windows. His inside-out shirt was plain black and faded, and he had worn the same one since we met up for lunch two days before, but he did neither look dirty nor smell.

I was curious to know what had kept him busy since I started tidying up around. I walked towards him, making sure my steps would not bother. I asked if I could see what he was doing; he just showed me what he was holding. Beside him, I watched his hands shake while he was washing and drying the paintbrushes he soaked in a can of turpentine diffusing a smell of varnish that circulated inside his small, cluttered studio. I had never seen him like that before. He never told me that being alone would make him tremble. It was clear that his trembling was that of a scared one.

Losing a muse was tough for him. He tried mixing yellow and cyan, but their red looked crimson, which was not the right color he wanted. Without trying again, he simply gave up. The drive was not there; the woman who inspired him was now gone. At that moment, I understood the tremor in his hands. He was afraid of not being able to paint again, a fear of a lonely painter.

I felt sorry for him, but I fully grasped the pain that might push him into solitary gloom and woeful isolation. He was the one who told me about the suicide, Arshile Gorky, whose impressionist works he admiringly studied and postimpressionist style he wanted to try but had never gotten around to doing it. I knew he was strong; he said so before when a nasty art critic, his professor, lambasted his first exhibit and dismissed it as the work of a lazy artist—although it took him more than a year to finish the twenty exhibited pieces. He easily moved on, accepted the harsh criticism without talking back or explaining himself, and promised never to paint anything abstract again.

It was already dark, and I could smell his neighbor's cooking. I invited him for a quick dinner, thinking it was time for him to turn the lights off, padlock the studio, and go home. His favorite restaurant was a walking distance from his apartment, which was just across the street from his art studio, and he liked their grilled chicken and fish stew. He was not hungry. A red pack on his lap was almost empty. He was staring at the ceiling and counting the smoke rings. His hold of the cigarette between his fingers was tight, and his drag and puff was long almost like a deep sigh. He did not want to be disturbed.

"I have to go," I said, trying to break the gloomy silence permeating the still dusty air that started to bother my throat and sinuses—I forgot I was asthmatic.

He looked at me, stood up, dropped his half-burnt cigarette, stepped on it, smashed it like he would on a cockroach, and walked me out; he was like a robot, lifeless.

We hugged, and I told him, "If it's that painful, paint her with your blood, the only perfect red that exists."

He laughed, but his laughter was incomplete. It was not as loud as the one I heard when I told him a joke, and I did not see his stainless-braced teeth. His eyes would never lie; he just could not laugh.

"Bye." I released my arms, turned around, and left. A few yards away, I looked back to check if he was gone. The old, faltering bulb, hanging from the electric post, glimmered from faint white to bright yellow back-and-forth. The rambunctious children playing nearby were gone. Cars filled the parking lot. The two-lane street was palpably empty. I saw him with a frozen, forlorn face standing still in the frame of the door, feeling alone in the desolate place, battling his depression. As I walked farther and farther, the blue behind him was losing its bright hue and turning darker and darker until it became black. If only I could paint, I would have painted his moment of melancholia, the last time I saw him losing it and looking for something he would never find in the dejected moonless sky of the seemingly hopeless evening.

There is just something about artists, especially the painters, which until now I still cannot unravel. Maybe their sensitivity pulls me towards them. Maybe the fantasy playing wildly in my mind attracts and excites me. Maybe I am just bored that I need to see a chaotic mess of colors, lights, and shadows. It may be because I am a frustrated, failed artist. I just do not know.

What I felt for my special friend was really special. It seemed there was no word for it. Using an adjective or two would sound cheesy and dreamy. One thing I was sure was that it was not malicious or lustful. I would have felt the same had I been born earlier and met Gauguin on the breezy shore somewhere in the seascape of Polynesia.

[miyako73]

After reading the second chapter, do you think this novel is worth finishing?

This is a story about memories and migrations, chances and changes, and depressions and deprivations of a man losing his identity in different times and in different spaces.

The end would be his disillusion. He went back to where he came from to trace his past and enrich his memory again, but everything had changed. He did not find what he had missed. Disillusioned again, he traveled looking for his childhood. He died in Fiji a senile. He drowned in a lagoon arched by coconut trees. It was not the same place of his past, but he had finally found the water where he could be a child again.