Wan Xia

One late Winter afternoon, we were riding home from the Ruins of the Summer Palace. The trees and sky blazed gold and cinnabar. I looked up from my handle bars to her face, and lost my breath. For the first time I could name her color. She held the next-to-the-last-instant of the colors of sunset, wan xia. If I could have ridden my bicycle without watching the road, I would have.

Her voice rang, playful, yet deeper than I knew then. "You think I am beautiful!"

"Yes! Oh god, yes!"

"Let's stop, before you fall over," she giggled.

The swarming street turned private, ours. The gravel crunched as we braked near a tree. In the last rays of the day, she took my hands and looked up at me full on, and I gently kissed the top of her sweet-smelling head.

Excerpted from unpublished manuscript: "Light Was The Wild Card"