Narrated by Dafydd McKimm
Illustration by Sue Babcock
breezes pick up and the soft sound of rubbing paper, reminds tingting of the scratchy way her ah-ma folds paper cranes when she’s lonely globes dangle in the street against the night sky, plunging the darkness with bioluminescence she fishes out a sweet, sticky dumpling from her soup, it’s warm and thick going down as soothing as hot fudge on a cold sundae made of black sesame paste lantern riddles written on thin paper sleeves challenge the children next to her, happily they shout out answers only one of them is correct tingting’s teacher walks on tippy-toes, smiles with mascara eyes in her hands, a bright red lantern pear-shaped and dotted with plum blossoms tassels trace phantom calligraphy in the wind, they scrawl into the night her unsaid aspirations the substance that underlies all her loftiest dreams
BIO: D.A. Xiaolin Spires steps into portals and reappears in sites such as Hawai’i, NY, various parts of Asia and elsewhere, with her keyboard appendage attached. Besides Liquid Imagination, her work appears or is forthcoming in publications such as Clarkesworld, Analog, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Nature, Terraform, Grievous Angel, Fireside, Galaxy’s Edge, StarShipSofa, Andromeda Spaceways (Year’s Best Issue), Factor Four, Diabolical Plots, Pantheon, Outlook Springs, ROBOT DINOSAURS, Mithila Review, LONTAR, Reckoning, Issues in Earth Science, Liminality, Star*Line, Polu Texni, Argot, Eye to the Telescope, Little Blue Marble, Story Seed Vault, and anthologies of the strange and beautiful: Ride the Star Wind, Sharp and Sugar Tooth, Future Visions, Deep Signal, Battling in All Her Finery, and Broad Knowledge. She can be found on her website daxiaolinspires.wordpress.com and on Twitter @spireswriter.
NARRATOR BIO: Dafydd McKimm is a British speculative fiction writer who now lives in Taipei, Taiwan. He tweets occasionally @Dafyddmckimm.