玉瞻阁

我的旧作，曾经三次拿去评奖，都没得奖。大家看一下吧。

The protagonist must play


Frank, like usual, made him a cup of instant coffee in this early morning, add some liquor into the cup, then brought the coffee to his bed room. He sat in front of his laptop, sipped the coffee, and turned on the computer. Then he sipped the coffee waiting for the computer to start, sitting there, and thinking. The computer was ready, he went on checked his email and browed the Internet immediately.

Frank is a young man, 31 years old, with a couple of year experiences working in the high technology field in the Silicon Valley. He is an engineer.

Frank has a round face, rigid and dull with a curve line around his cheek and his chin. He is beard so you can see his black beard around his chin. He is a Chinese man, and he is known hard to his colleagues and his friends.
He is ready to go to work in his small technology company.

“Look at this, it seems some distortion.” Frank’s boss handed Frank a chart.

“Could it be the root cause of the abnormality of our mirrors, maybe it caused the mirrors to drift.” Frank said to his boss.

“Might be,” his boss said with a cautious tone. Then he added, “could you take a look at it? Find what caused it.”

“O.K., I will look at it. It might be the heat of the mirror, doesn’t look like electrical noises.” Frank said.

“Do it.” His boss said.

Frank took the project and went back to his cubicle. It was the first time he took projects like that, and it meant his boss trusted him and treated him as an industrial physicist.

Frank had an undergraduate degree from Physics in a university in Montreal, Canada, where his family locates. Frank married one year ago and would like to move his wife to North America from China.

The Northern California has very good spring season, it filled with smooth spring breeze under the sun. The trees are green after the warm winter has passed, and even in the winter, trees are green in this place. The cherry was ready to blossom, looking at the flowers, you would never have dreamed that you are in the Heaven. Heaven, Frank thought, might I go to Heaven when I die. Frank is a Christian.


Frank’s company was not sponsoring him for the H1 working visa for him to work in the US. He worked under TN visa, the NAFTA, the term stands for North America Free Trade Agreement signed by US, Canada and Mexico. He is very mad at the company and last time when he talked to the HR manager about the visa, she was trying to confuse his and never said yes to agree to sponsor his H1 Visa. That means he could not immigrate to US and continue to work in the country.

Frank played an important role in his company now. The project he took, the distortion in the chart is a sign he was going to play the key role. He is a staff engineer. He was working in the project, tried to fit the data to a Bessel Function of some order. The data, the abnormality of their mirror looked like a Bessel of certain order.

Before he found the root cause of the drift of the mirrors, the reality made Frank to decide to go back to Canada to sponsor his wife to immigrate to the country. He was sure about the immigration process, she was going because he is a Canadian citizen. Frank resigned his job and flied back to Canada. His American life has ended.

In this early spring season, Canada was still covered with snow.
After coming back to Canada, Frank was busy looking for a job and sponsoring his wife’s immigration visa.

Canada is a great country, the number two in the world on size of the land, just after Russia. It is also a G7 country, the Great Seven Industrial Nations. The living standard and condition in Canada is ranked very high in the world.
Frank lived in Montreal with his parents. Montreal is also a great place to live, but it is a both French and English city. Frank doesn’t know any French, and he decided to learn it. He took the lesson hosted by the immigration departments in Montreal, and he was ready.

Cherry, Frank’s wedded wife came to Canada from China after about one year of her immigration process, and Frank was very happy.

The economy went very terrible in the years after Frank left the US. Even before he was working there, it had signs of recession, the stock market crashed in early 2001. Then it was a couple of years of global recession. Not only in the US and Canada, the economy was bad everywhere in the globe.

Cherry had a lot of resentment for Frank and decided to leave him after about one year arrival in Canada. And Frank thought, it was because he did not find a job with steady income that he had to work in some Chinese restaurants for delivery work and kitchen works. After Cherry left him, Frank tried to write in English and also Chinese, poetry, stories and prose, anything since he was very interested in English literature back in his college years. He did it for fulfillment after he received his welfare and disability checks, he now had free time, and he also tried to publish his work to sell books for money. Frank had successful experiences as an engineer and he would like to succeed again as a writer. He could not stand failure. That will make him very low in spirit and as a person. He was never able to find an engineering job again here in Canada, also he thought about going back to US after Cherry left him, imminently, but he could not locate a position. He was in great despair.

Frank suffered from depression and psychozephenia, even back to his school years. His family had history of the diseases in his grand mother’s side, and there were some family members died of mental illnesses. That is why he applied for welfare and disability. He got the checks and now he could stay a while to write his stories and also prose and poetry. Frank loved poetry.

It was the spring season here in Montreal island, late April. The early spring breeze and the affection of it in the warm air were very smooth. Smell the spring, they always say. And when you smell it, the warmth and the sweetness in the air made you faint. The trees were green, and people across the island came out to start to play on the ground. Frank standing in front of the university library, took out his
Player’s cigarette, and smoked. The gray concrete of the building is rigid and standing still. The first floor glass window is shiny like an mirror so you can see the people and the sights reflecting from it. The birds are chirping on the trees beside the side walk. In a little while, Frank finished his cigarette, and he flicked the cigarette butt on the bicycle path in front of the building.

Frank’s writing works are due to that he had enough time after he was unemployed, and he did them for fulfillment. He found writing and reading enjoyable experiences, prominently. He tried to send his works to some literary magazines and publishers, but he was unable to get them to hold their attention, he had to publish them himself. He also paid money he saved to critics and asked them to look at his books and give opinions, but he never got very positive opinions from them.

Frank found literary critics are especially hard to writers. He thought writers write to punch the public, but the critics write to punch the writers. Literary criticism is a special field of works in writing, and they often are very critical and hard to writers, especially when the writer’s works are self-published. After Frank spent a lot of money in his publishing and critics, he sort of wanted to quit his writing career absurdly that he maintained for quite a couple of years. No money, no rewards or literary awards had been issued under his name. e
HeH He was kind of tired. But he did not quit, he thought he can write well enough to get the public’s attention, so he continued writing. He even thought of become a full time professional writer and make a living on writing his English and Chinese works.

Now Frank is here, distressed for living well, obsessed, unsatisfied, poor and misfortunate. These made him disease worse significantly. Frank was obsessed of many things, literary critics, reading, women and the public. These obsessions may due to the fact he is ill, or may it due to the fact that he is poor and unsatisfied. He used to work very well in California, but now he thought the industry here in Canada has abandoned him and left him along in this cold realistic world of Canada. Even though he never had a steady profession here in Canada after his university graduation, Canada also failed him. When he was trying to look for a job and send his resumes to companies, he never got positive feedbacks, sometimes, he was fortunate enough to get an interview, but it seemed to him that managers and directors were not paying attention. Frank needed to make a living and pay tax, without like his current situation here that he never need to pay tax in his annual tax filing.

Frank has political afflictions, and he is a left wing Liberal extremist here in Canada. He even dreamed of an imperialism China, and he knows many Chinese have the thoughts, if not vision. He also knows that no Chinese will liberate against Chinese Communists, even though Chinese Communists are evil. No Chinese will stand up and face Chinese Communists’ machine guns.
Frank was obsessed with women, that he thought someday he would find a girl and get married again, under the condition his current situation became better. He is obsessed with beautiful girls’ colored fingernail polishes when he saw them on the bus or on the subway. He thought girls’ wearing beautiful fingernail polishes are very **, all the colors, black, purple, green and pink, anything **. And he thought girls don’t have colorful fingernail polishes are stupid. Also Frank is obsessed with women earring. A pair of nice earring on a beautiful woman makes him aroused. One day, he saw a beautiful black girl wearing very ** outfit and a pair of killing earrings on the subway, so he left the seat beside the girl earlier, and he went to stand in front of the subway door. While standing with the running subway, he thought that he was being very stupid. Later on he understood the earrings are female sex symbols, and it is the transcendence of the female sex onto the earrings. Frank is a man.

“What is your name?” Frank asked the female bartender in a local bar.

“Lily, what is yours?” The bartender responded with a smile.

“Frank, my name is Frank.” Frank answered her urgently.

Lily saw Frank was an interesting guy, and said to him, “where are you from?
Frank.”

“China.” Frank said.

A customer stepped into the bar, and Lily went busy hosting him. Their conversation stopped.

Frank thought that he was from China had nothing wrong, even though they do jeopardize Chinese, so he wished to continue his talk with Lily. But it seemed Lily was busy and forgot about him. They never talked again. Lily is a pretty enough girl.

Life was boring and dull, Frank thought seamlessly. He was very obsessed with his life. He knew life has no promises and God has no promises.
He now even found reading in English was boring and dull, and he turned himself to more Chinese reading. He found it a pretty good medicine. Chinese is his mother tongue. Frank composes very good Chinese poetry, but he never had his Chinese poetry published. He is in Canada, and it seemed hard for him to publish overseas in China.


Frank was also obsessed with religion, he used to be a good Christian with a good faith. Now he thought Christianity and God were wrong, and even he thought God does not exist, otherwise, He would not let him suffering from all these in his life along. He would try to help him and gave him some hope. He found himself impossible. He turned himself into Buddhism learning and practicing. He did not find God satisfied him, but he found the concepts of truth, beauty and kindness of Buddhism satisfied him. In Buddhism, you only need to practice, someday you may become a Buddha after you reach a certain state. This had given him hope.
Life is like a double chain, chained Frank up, so he will never find it easier. Frank was obsessed with life now. Only his writings made Frank sure he exists, sufficiently. Sometimes in the winter season, the snow flake outside the windows made Frank sure he exists when he look at the dancing snow flake in the sky. He thought they are beautiful. Frank knows that his life sentences are his diseases, even though his doctor said he is recovering, he knows he is still suffering from them.
One day, Frank saw the restaurant manager, Dan was looking at a bottle of wine in the restaurant beside the bar. He was looking at the year, label and the alcoholic percentage. A couple of days passed, Frank saw Dan on the street downtown. So he greeted him and they had hand shake.
“Not working today, Dan.” Frank said.
“Today I am off.” Dan recognized him and said.
Then Frank said “Goodbye” to Dan. Dan said “Goodbye” to Frank. And they went on their own ways.
Life was boring, and dull, Frank thought. Maybe there are writings, arts, books and music with him, He still found it boring and obsessed. Living as a bypassing being is a very dull experience to Frank. He was only forty years old, and there will be a long way to go in his life. He lost his passion to life sooner, from the way in his poetry that he adored life imminently and thought he is the one to bring life around. His obsession made his life like fires burning him, he was not only bored, but also desired more and more. He did not know the obsessive desire and even the excessive desires for knowledge were sins in Christianity. But he is not Christian anymore, he now practice Buddhism, mainly.

Frank had a couple of website selling things to customers, this and that, new one and used ones, and he features Canadian flag as his store logo. He is not guilty for utilizing the Canadian flag for his logo, for taking advantage of Canada. Advantages, we humans take advantages all the time, he thought, “We optimize the nature, learn from it, and merge to a tougher result for out better livings.” He had such understanding. And He thinks flag is a flag, people are people and business is business. The reality in his life makes sure that he needs to make some money for his living, flag or not.
He thought the flag is not a cynical logo, at least. Frank hates cynicism. Even he thought someday he would sell flags over the Internet, Canadian flag, American flag, Chinese flag, British flag, countries he had affiliation with.

When Frank was sorry for his life, he remembered his Northern California experience which made him regretted. He regretted quitting his decent job and coming back to Canada to sponsor his wife. He might have stayed for longer and have found a different job which they sponsor him a H1 Visa, so he could stay in America. But now it was too late, they forgot him, the industry, seamlessly. He had to suffer, and continuing suffering until the very end of it. Also he had to write about his life, his suffering, his obsession, his misfortune for people to read. He was sorry but he had to urgently.

Frank tried to sell his books to readers without significant success. He tried to talk to local bookstores but they said they have quota for books they can stack on the shelf. Now Frank mainly had to sell them on the Internet. He continued his writing career and tried publishing more works, mainly by himself. But the results were terrible, that for seasons and seasons, seasonal reports said zero books had boon sold. That was the reality and no one could change that. The reality was, no paycheck.
Life has been very terrible to Frank.e would not let him suffer

Frank walked on an empty street at night, along, turned around the corner and stepped into the University main building. He was side listening to this Modern Fiction lecture in the university this winter season, and he was not paying the tuition fee. He did not have money to pay.
It was approaching Christmas, and the streets were decorated with colorful lights. Frank was sitting in the classroom and thought, he deserves a better life.

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