I was waiting for bus 198 at the bus stop across the road when I noticed the florist, who was then occupying the apartment directly above mine on the fourth floor, walking about the foyer of our apartment building with a wooden box cradled in his arms. I suppose walking wouldn’t be the right word for me to use here because the florist wasn’t walking so much as he was pacing. So, let me correct myself. The florist was pacing. He was pacing back and forth behind the glass doors of the apartment building across the road as though he couldn’t make up his mind about something. I stepped slightly to the left, away from the glare of the sunlight, and squinted at the restless figure in the apartment building. He was now staring up at the large notice board on the wall as though there was some news he’d been waiting for but having found nothing of interest up there, he’d then turned around and walked towards the reception desk in the opposite direction. I watched him pace like that between the notice board and the reception desk for a few minutes longer before feeling my eyelids grow heavier. A bus, not bus 198, pulled up at the bus stop then and jolted me awake. The long, triangular vehicle was obscuring my view of the apartment building and I blushed (for I’d always been shy in the presence of others) as the bus doors swished wide open. The bus driver turned his head around to make sure that I wasn’t boarding and waited as an old woman carrying a rattan basket, two students with piles of books in their arms, a mother holding the hand of her child, a man on the phone and another man on the phone stepped off the bus before driving away.

The bus left a cloud of dust behind it as it drove off down the road. I blinked, willing the tears and dirt in my eyes away, and searched desperately for the florist behind the glass doors of the apartment building. I peered to the right and the left of the foyer, but he was no longer there. Where had he gone? I tried looking for him by the two weeping figs planted on each side of the building and the twelve floors of open-air corridors at the front of the building but there was nobody around. I sat down on the short bench by the bus stop and told myself that he must’ve made his way back up to his own apartment. Maybe he’d gone a long time ago or maybe he was never there in the foyer of the apartment building to begin with. I could’ve made the whole thing up, imagined it all in my own mind, who knows?

I’m so glad to have caught you in time.

I turned to my right and suddenly saw the florist, who was still cradling the same wooden box in his arms, standing there next to me. There was an overhead bridge a little further down the road, so I suppose he must’ve walked out of the building, made his way down the road and then crossed the bridge over to this side.

To be quite honest with you, the florist began without so much as a greeting and sat down about eight or nine inches away from me on the bench, I have a favour to ask of you.

A favour? I repeated, sounding much too wary for my own liking.

By then, I’ve been living in the apartment building for three years but in all of those years, I’d never exchanged more than a few polite sentences with the florist whenever I ran into him in the building. I always said hello to him if our paths were to cross and he’d always follow it up with a polite question. What do you think of the weather we’re having today? Have you noticed the bird’s nest up in the weeping fig on the right side of the building? What have you been doing today? Have you read this book? Do you know where I can find myself some thin wooden boards? They were all nonsensical questions as far as I was concerned but it was those questions that kept us at a distance from each other. The florist was only a neighbour, and a very remote one at that since he wasn’t even living where I was living on the third floor, so I hadn’t known what to make of this unexpected request from him.

It won’t be too much trouble for you, I promise, he said and waved a hand in the air dismissively. I just need you to take this box away from me and to bring it with you to the lake.

I glanced down at the wooden box in his arms and paused. This wasn’t the type of favour I expected from him. Besides, how did he know I was going to visit the lake today? I never mentioned anything about waiting for bus 198, which was the only bus in this city that followed a circular route round the lake, and even if I did … but that was impossible. The florist wasn’t even a friend of mine so why would I ever mention any of my plans to him? I decided then to ask him about the wooden box and the things inside it. If he wanted me to take it away from him, I should at least know what I was getting myself into.

Inside the box? He asked and gave the wooden box a shake. Muffled thuds could be heard reverberating out through the inside of the box. But I don’t know what’s inside it, he admitted, because it was already locked when I first found it behind the flower shop.

And why do I have to bring it all the way to the lake with me? I asked with a glance down the road. Bus 198 was two minutes late arriving.

Because you have to drown it in the middle of the lake, he said. Look here. Do you see these four auspicious clouds carved onto the lid? It means there’s somebody out there who still believes in the arrival of the gods from the heavens and so it has to be drowned.

I frowned. Nothing that the florist said made any sense to me, but I knew better than to question him further. He was the type of person who spoke only in riddles, as though he had no other means of communicating his thoughts out loud, and everything he did was like a mystery to me. The relentless pacing, the sudden disappearance, the objects he discovered behind the flower shop where he worked. Sometimes, I would even hear him dropping something like marbles onto the floorboards of the apartment above me at half past three in the morning. And now, there was this bizarre fixation with the auspicious clouds. I wondered, for a brief moment, whether this fixation of his had anything to do with the stories that people often associated with the clouds. Because in these stories, the auspicious clouds were always the first to descend from the heavens and after them, a god, goddess or deity would usually follow in their wake. Maybe this was what he’d meant when he said there were still people who believe in the arrival of the gods from the heavens. But what any of this had to do with drowning the wooden box in the middle of the lake was not clear to me. I was pondering the matter over in my mind when I noticed a girl carrying a knitted bag running towards the bus stop from the opposite side of the road. I followed the direction of her gaze and saw bus 198 arriving at last. It was six minutes late. Without thinking, I grabbed the wooden box out of the florist’s arms and got back up on my feet quickly.

Thank you, I heard him say from somewhere behind me. I was standing at the edge of the pavement, waiting impatiently for bus 198 to pull to a stop, and didn’t once turn back as I stepped on board. There were already three people seated in the bus when I got on. A man wearing a bright blue blouse with pictures of tiny swallows printed all over it, a woman with her hair tied in a tight ponytail and an older man at the back reading a book about dream psychology. I stopped, feeling myself blush again. Where should I sit? I didn’t want to be sitting too close to anybody else.

Excuse me, somebody behind me was saying.

I turned around and mumbled an apology to the girl with the knitted bag. Bus 198 was already moving forwards, leaving the bus stop where the florist was now standing by himself. I put one foot in front of the other shakily, refusing to make eye contact with the other passengers as I walked down the narrow aisle and lowered myself onto the seat behind the woman with the tight ponytail. She was bent over in her seat and I could see her scribbling something onto a notepad. Numbers. The pages of her notepad were filled with numbers. Feeling a little less embarrassed than I did before when I was standing at the front of the bus aisle, I took in a deep breath and turned my head towards the window next to me. Scenes of the city whirled past as though they were being swept up by a strong wind. I crossed my arms over the wooden box and was about to close my eyes when bus 198 slowed to a halt. I craned my neck forwards, wondering what the cause for the holdup was. As it turned out, it was only the traffic lights.

A woman ringing the bells of her bicycle was cycling past my window and as I watched her go, I wondered whether she was the one holding the key to the wooden box. And so what if she was? Should I lean my head out of the window and shout for her? I glanced down at the wooden box sitting on my lap and asked it for help silently. I wanted to know what its secrets were and why the florist had wanted to drown it but only those four auspicious cloud carvings stared back at me, hypnotizing me with their swirly patterns. Soon, I was drifting away with those clouds, floating higher and higher and higher till nothing was left of the world but a vast expanse of sky. There were clouds surrounding me on all sides and they were tickling me as they drifted past, so I laughed. But the sound of my laughter released me from my flight and sent me crashing down onto a field of cattail grass where I landed gently on my back. How did this happen? Slowly, I came up to a seat and began searching through this place for a sign of where I was. But there was nothing here other than the lotus pond a few feet to my left and the brown stone lantern standing next to it. Could this be somebody’s garden? I lifted my head up and saw those four auspicious clouds floating above me. So I hadn’t landed in somebody’s garden, after all. I was inside the wooden box. Strange, I was thinking about the key to the wooden box only a few seconds ago and here I was inside the wooden box. But there was something abnormal about this place, about the inside of the wooden box. Everything was too silent, too still here.

Do you want me to tell you a story I overheard once through a dream of mine? I spoke out loud and listened to the sound of my voice as it traveled across the space in the wooden box. Still, nothing moved. Not even the water in the lotus pond stirred. It was as though I didn’t exist anymore.

It’s a story about the Fodina sumatrensis moth born on the night of a lunar eclipse beneath the Dome of Heaven, I continued and this time, I thought I saw one of the auspicious clouds above me move slightly to the left. Encouraged, I spoke louder. Should you listen to its story, you’ll discover it to be a tragedy because the story of the Fodina sumatrensis moth ends with the gods revoking it of its gift of immortality.

I paused, not knowing whether to continue with my narration. What if I was only speaking to myself? What if nobody was listening to me? I decided to try again. If you’re out there listening, I shouted even though I had no idea who it was I was addressing, then let it be known that the expulsion of the Fodina sumatrensis moth from Heaven has its roots in the unexpected appearance of a mysterious dark red moon gate beneath the Dome. If you were to ask the gods, goddesses and deities of Heaven when this moon gate first made its appearance, they would tell you that it all took place a few hundred years ago when the chrysanthemum deity was watering the chrysanthemum flowers by the foot of the Aquamarine Mountain. She was pouring bowls of water onto the flowers, singing to them as she did so, when the dark red moon gate emerged right before her in the middle of the field. But the chrysanthemum deity, like all the other creatures of Heaven, merely nodded her head at the moon gate and accepted its presence there beneath the Dome as though it was the most natural thing to do. Ever since then, the moon gate has been traveling everywhere that it pleased, greeting all the gods, goddesses and deities living in the heavenly sphere. And so the eternal days, months and years of Heaven passed by peacefully until one afternoon, after having drunk its fill of water by a clear stream, the Fodina sumatrensis moth discovered the dark red moon gate wedged between two tall, drooping willow trees. Surprised, it had stared at the gate, mesmerized by its circular opening and the cloudy, murky world lying beyond it.

Hello, Rock, the Fodina sumatrensis moth said, addressing the glowing pebble at the bottom of the stream. What lies beyond the dark red moon gate over there?

The glow of the glowing pebble dimmed at the moth’s question. There lies beyond the dark red moon gate a journey that is irreversible, it said.

What is a journey that is irreversible? The Fodina sumatrensis moth asked.

I don’t know for I’ve never undertaken such a journey myself before, the glowing pebble said, but maybe the willow trees guarding the moon gate will know.

At this, the Fodina sumatrensis moth spread its wings and flew towards the willow trees by the moon gate. It hovered hesitantly before the branches of the willow tree on the right before landing on one.

Hello, Moth, said the two willow trees.

Hello, Willow Trees, the Fodina sumatrensis moth said and folded its dark black wings together. I want to know what lies beyond the moon gate, if you can tell me.

Beyond the moon gate lies a journey that is irreversible, said the two willow trees.

The rock at the bottom of the stream told me so too. But what is a journey that is irreversible?

The two willow trees shook their branches as though they found the Fodina sumatrensis moth’s question distasteful. If you go through this gate, they said, you may risk losing your way back here because there are clouds everywhere in that other world.

What kind of clouds are they?

The kinds that make it hard to see, the willow trees explained. So if you’re not careful, you may never see this gate again once you’re over there.

After that, the Fodina sumatrensis moth spent three days and two nights looking at the cloudy, murky world behind the circular opening of the dark red moon gate. It wondered about the trees, rocks, flowers, insects, deities, rivers and mountains that existed over there and it asked itself whether such mysteries were worth leaving home for. The willow trees and the glowing pebble disagreed, saying that nothing was worth leaving the world beneath the Dome of Heaven for. The Fodina sumatrensis moth, on the other hand, couldn’t be so sure. It wanted to know what the world in that cloudy place looked like and it could feel the pull of the unknown through its little antennas. And so by the fourth day, the Fodina sumatrensis moth spread its wings for the last time in Heaven and disappeared right through the circular opening between the two willow trees. Ever since then, the Wheel of Incarnation has not stopped turning, turning, turning, turning, turning …

Lake stop! This is the lake stop! Anybody getting off here?

The four auspicious clouds above me were fading slowly, their swirly outlines turning gradually from black to grey and then to white. What was happening? Did they not like the story of the Fodina sumatrensis moth? I blinked and could hear a loud swishing noise in the air.

I repeat, this is the lake stop!

I lifted my head up from the wooden box and jumped. Somehow, I’d been thrown out of the cattail grass field back into bus 198.

Anybody getting off here? The bus driver repeated and was looking straight at me as though he knew this was my stop.

I nodded my head at him and slid off the plastic seat. Yes, me, I said quietly. This is my stop.

The clock hanging above the notice board in the foyer of the apartment building told me that it was now 20:13 in the night and for a moment, I’d stood there staring at the notice board, wondering what it was that had caught the attention of the florist this afternoon. Was it the notice about the cleaning company? Or was it the small palm-reading advertisement pinned to the bottom left corner? I continued searching for a few minutes longer but having found nothing of interest pinned up there, I’d turned around and then walked up the flight of stairs at the side of the building.

A waning gibbous moon was glowing bright in the night sky and I recalled one of my neighbours, the one living in apartment 3C, talking to me about the moon falling under the constellation of the sea goat tonight. She’d said that it meant something, that the sea goat was connected to the planet Saturn and so we should all be very careful of the things we’d done in the past. But I was in such a rush that day and couldn’t stop to ask her where she’d come up with such an idea. It was all very funny to me then and so I found myself thinking of her as I continued climbing the stairs. But no amount of thinking or pondering could stop me from noticing it because it was everywhere around me, that near-imperceptible ticking in the air. I pushed the emergency exit door on the third landing open and walked down the long stretch of corridor towards apartment 3A. This was it, this was the place where I lived. I pressed a few numbers on the keypad attached to the door and stepped into the apartment without anyone noticing. Back in the living room, the hands of the clock were pointed to the hour 20:44, but time wasn’t important to me anymore. It was so trivial compared to the vastness of our existence here in this ever-expanding universe. So carefully, I unhooked the clock from the nail where it hung and placed it beneath my pillow. The sound of the turning wheel accompanied me that night as I, the Fodina sumatrensis moth living through its fifth thousand and twenty-first incarnation in this world, fell into a long, endless sleep.

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