Page 35

From the Reforged pencil of Louise Sun

Monica—

Can you feel the false starts too?

How long it takes me to write these words?

The weight of each one?

How much each word does

not want to be wrong, the way all of my other words have been?

The thing is that I

I’m really sorry for how

Let me back up.

You know that stories are important to me.

I really think that people are not made of atoms.

We are made of stories.

And I’ve

spent so long looking for mine, in America and in Shanghai.

And then I met you.

You were remarkable to me, from the very beginning.

You were hesitant and unsure of everything and yet you had a firm history.

Of helping your grandparents.

No matter what.

I wanted that.

I wanted that so badly.

But my relationship to my own family, to my own history, what little I know of it,

is difficult, to say the least.

You must be wondering how I got my hands on one of your family’s pencils.

The truth is, after Thanksgiving, I was feeling so lost and confused and nothing was helping—not talking with my advisor, my therapist, my teammates.

I knew the only thing that would make me feel better was if I could somehow convince you to forgive me.

Or perhaps speak to your grandmother, get on my knees and beg her to forgive me.

But you said you needed time, and I had no way to get in touch with your grandmother.

So I turned to the one other person I thought might be able to help me.

I still had her contact on my phone.

I messaged and asked if I could call her.

To my relief, she said yes.

We hadn’t talked since the summer.

But that day, we video chatted.

Her eyes squinted the whole time, and she held the phone

so close to her face I could only see the top half of her head, the brows furrowed, staring into the bright screen.

Without any introduction, I told her everything.

Your first message to me.

How we met and I gave you her pencil.

How even

from that first encounter I wanted to know you more, yet I felt you pushing me away.

How we still became close, how I told

you about my project and you, in turn, told me about yours.

How you gushed about your grandparents in a way that made me ache

for all I did not have.

How you invited me to your home and brought me to your grandfather’s old classroom, how I almost kissed

you right then because you got me in a way no one else ever has.

But I didn’t.

And then I messed everything up.

Like I always knew I would.

Because in that moment, in that classroom, only

the two of us, the thought that stopped me was how would I ever be able to live with myself if I broke your heart?

I guess more than any romantic partner or friend, I wanted most in the world to know that I belonged somewhere, to know my place in history so I could navigate a path through the chaos of the world we live in.

You have that—you know who you are and that you can do anything you put your mind to.

I wanted that so badly.

I thought you could help me get there, that your grandparents’ story might help me better understand myself and who I’m supposed to be now.

That if I gathered enough stories, I could make that into my own, that I could create a map of the chaos around me, and something might make sense.

And I knew I would give anything for that, maybe even you.

I told Meng all of this while looking at her scrunched-up forehead.

At some point I started to cry, and she said, I kid you

not—

“Oh, stop crying.”

So I did, ashamed.

She rubbed her forehead, as if mulling something over.

“Why did you call me?” she asked finally.

I almost hung up then, afraid I was wasting her time, that I had angered yet another one of your family members.

Eventually,

I came to an answer.

“Why did you tell me about Reforging?” I asked.

It felt so long ago that we were eating noodles together, and I was telling

her what I wanted to do with archiving, and she told me to be careful, and I asked what made her say that, and she invited

me home with her, and shared this great secret.

She sighed.

“Because you were so much like us. Because I thought you would understand the dangers.” She paused.

“But it sounds like you

were no better than we were.”

I was crushed.

“How do I ask for forgiveness?” I asked.

It must have been a question she has pondered many times herself.

Her answer was quick and without hesitation.

“You get on your knees and you spill your heart out.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“Then you must move on. You have to remove yourself from their story.”

I swallowed.

“How do I spill my heart out?”

That was when she told me to send her my address and hung up.

Two weeks later, I received a small box in the mail, no letter

or anything accompanying it.

A customs form was taped to the top, from Shanghai.

Inside was, of course, this pencil.

After I spoke to Meng, I felt calmer, like I could take on the world again.

I even talked to my brother, the one who had the

affair.

I guess we both realized we were losers and finally had something in common.

He suggested I take the next semester

off.

Is this something that’s trending?

He didn’t know anything about you.

But after he suggested it, it felt right.

He said

he’d help convince our parents.

He even said he’d loan me money if I didn’t have enough saved from my campus library job (which

I definitely do not).

I still have some research funds from last year, though, so I’ve decided—I’m going to take the next semester and go to Shanghai.

I won’t bother Meng again, not unless she wants to see me.

In fact, I don’t think I’ll bother anyone.

I need to spend some

time examining my own life before I can begin trying to archive that of others.

I’ve given up on the grant I was telling you about.

I thought if I had some big name and big money behind my work, my parents

might be okay with me and my choices, that they might even be proud of me, talk about me the way they do my brothers.

But

it’s okay.

I’ll find my own path.

Something you said offhandedly once really stuck with me.

You told me how data is stored in servers, but how that data is

owned by these big tech companies.

So if they find you’ve violated a rule, they can go and delete your data, or at least make

it inaccessible to you.

Or if you haven’t used your account for a while, they may just delete it.

And how even though our

generation has more data saved than any other, we may actually leave the least behind.

That terrified me.

I thought I needed that data, needed it to give myself a sense of reality.

But then you laughed.

“Do you know the actual best way to preserve data? If all humans were wiped out and eons passed, what data would survive and be interpretable?”

And I did know the answer to that one.

“That carved on rocks,” I answered.

And you laughed again, even though I thought it should have terrified you, to have your work in all its technical glory deemed

less useful than a carving on a rock, the most primitive of all technology.

“It’s incredible the lengths we go to try to make meaning of the world,” you said in wonder.

“To try to make a story out of

it all.”

I didn’t get it at the time.

Now I think I do.

In a world so full of hate and war, violence and betrayal, how can our stories

not be all tragedies?

But if there’s truly no pattern, if our stories will be lost, no matter how hard we try to preserve

them, then the only thing that really matters is the people in our lives, and how we treat them in this moment in time.

That weekend I spent in Cambridge with you was one of the happiest of my life.

I want to keep talking to you.

I want to reframe your story and to have you reframe mine.

I want you to always know how incredible

you are.

I want to be the one to tell you.

I want to be entwined in your story, a critical seam of the binding.

I want to

hold you together even when you think you are alone.

I want to be the fourth player at your mahjong table.

If you’ll have me.

Until then, I’ll be in Shanghai, figuring myself out.

If you happen to be in Shanghai, too

Well

I hope to see you soon.

Love always,

L