Wind Chime (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember the smell of smoke that clung to my grandfather and the sound of his breathing. It sounded like he was trying to pull a hurricane through the eye of a needle. He had a missing finger on his right hand.

I remember the spring when I stepped into a bucket of orange paint and left small orange footprints all the way from the front yard to our flat on the second floor and found my big brother. I was crying, but he just laughed at me.

I remember the boiling water from the holes on Iceland and how I shied away from all holes in the ground afterwards.

And I remember the wind chime on the terrace outside the room where my mother stared into space for hours after my father left for China and I never saw him again, and how the wind chime never seemed to sound as musical as they do in films or are described in books.

I remember straying into a dream where I was little red riding hood, and the wolf told me that he was the one who ate my grandfather’s finger.

I remember a smell of lavender in a meadow somewhere on the north island of New Zealand, but my brother says I’ve never been there.