Five Spice Street

The more I said, the more spirited my wife became. Just when we were about to reach the place that was our objective, she jumped up and threw me to the ground. She said she wanted to experience this herself. She didn’t want me to seize the initiative. At this, my joy was ruined. I lost self-control. I performed the damned one-minute thing as if dead. The color drained from my face, and I was sweating all over. I couldn’t believe what had just happened to me! Women: what the hell are they? Where do they get such great strength? Why hadn’t I figured out ahead of time all that was going to happen and prepared for it? Why did I give her my trust from the bottom of my heart? Friends, I curse those one-minute quickies. I wish to become an ascetic forever. I will. Only through this will I have any hope, because I’ve already become a joke, I’ve already been nearly destroyed.

After the incident of the ten miles, someone behind me was actually furtively happy, wanting to see me make a spectacle of myself. My wife and her confederates privately judged me to be ‘‘a kiss- ass,’’ who kissed Madam X’s ass, a public enemy of the entire Five Spice Street community. Some days when I was dizzy in the morning and didn’t get up, they also crowded into my room, squatted at the foot of the bed, and declared that they needed to observe me and see ‘‘what acrobatics I performed under the covers.’’ I didn’t dare move. Unluckily, bedbugs also joined in the fun. All I could do was clench my teeth. Had I really been brought down? No. I had to turn my bad luck into momentum and struggle to demonstrate my existence to the world. On the third day after I had completely lost faith in the morals of these times, I began to pull myself together. I climbed to the roof of our thatched cottage and sat there cross-legged. I worked on summarizing all the lessons I’d learned in my lifetime. This included a new description of the high stage of sexual joy. I sat up there quietly, facing the firmament. Below were all the busy living things. I felt truly detached. I could hardly hear the sounds of the world. My thinking progressed steadily toward a high philosophical level. Days went by-both sunny days and rainy days. I’d become fossilized on the roof of the thatched cottage, or I had become a white-haired, omniscient old philosopher. I merged into the great universe and embraced the whole world. Humankind became adorable, even though their ways of having sexual intercourse were so absurd.

One day, in a gentle mood, while immersed in abstract thought and with a slight smile on my face, I felt unbearable pain in the soles of my feet. I almost fainted. My thoughts were interrupted. I heard loud shouting from below. With my wife in the lead, a group of people were jabbing me with sharpened bamboo poles. They were shouting, ‘‘Bring this pile of horseshit down from the roof.’’ They also said, ‘‘The smelly fart from the roof has gotten into the cooking pot.’’ The fart ‘‘was the smell of the public enemy of Five Spice Street’s people.’’ Their shouting grew louder and louder. It was impossible to defend against their assault. My neck, chest, and ass were hit several times. My blood streamed down. Seeing this, my wife and her followers were so frightened they threw the bamboo poles away and ran off. I heard them talking to each other and disclaiming responsibility. The disturbance had ended, and once more philosophical thoughts occupied my mind. I felt that I had become steadier than ever. A gigantic consciousness of self-confidence was obscurely nascent. Who was I? What was my mission? Why was I sitting alone on the roof while people all over the world were playing out the drama of life below me? After forty-nine days, or maybe sixty-four days (I had long since lost any sense of time), I finally came down from the roof, bringing with me a crystal-clear mind. When I walked into the dark room, all the elites present were filled with deep esteem: they shook with anxiety at each step I took.