Lost Caves

Alice in Wonderland in the Black Holes of the Contemporary City
　　Seas are gradually filled in, villages are successively demolished, cities lose their windows, doors no longer open…
　　Who can find that lost heart?

　　Nine short stories, nine stories about loss. Han Li-chu depicts modern urban fables with a cool and clear pen, where humans and animals are placed on their respective tracks, running, and escaping. Sea-crossers in a land without a sea, a one-eyed bird, a woman biting her own arm, a peddler hugging trees, law enforcement officers chasing a suspect who killed a cat, a rapidly expanding cat, a window painter in a windowless building, a missing person returning every morning, a family that slaughters rabbits, a factory owner who lost everything in a fire... they carry inexplicable pain, face impenetrable doors, wander back and forth in the endgame of fate, imperceptible, unavoidable, and she says, "This will never pass."

　　: The nature of water is that it can never be completely submerged. When one part of the sea is filled in, another part will erupt with more turbulent water. For so many years, people have never seen the seas that have disappeared one by one as clearly as they do now.

　　: They seemed to have suddenly fallen into an unexpected dream, instinctively clutching each other, although they were not sure if the other person was reliable, but being victims left them with no choice.

　　: She left one house and entered another place, her body feeling lighter than ever before, as if constantly discarding her old self and everything. In a frantically spinning state of weightlessness, she found her center.

　　: In the dead of night, all creatures shed their daytime masks. We talked about so many topics that sometimes we forgot our boundaries, which easily gave me the illusion that we were about to become intimate partners, and I was not afraid. After all, it was a cat.

　　: This is not a window facing outwards, but inwards. If you open the window, you might walk deeper into the house.

　　: If someone knocks on the door outside, you can let them stay, or not, but no matter what, do not open the door. Between people, as long as there is at least one door, they can get along or separate safely and soundly.

　　: As soon as she finished the housework, she crawled into a cave made of old bedding. Only there could she reach the world she originally belonged to.

　　: On that perfectly round and flawless moonlit night, grandfather silently stared at the bright and clear glowing object for a long time, then announced to us: "Starting tomorrow, we will cook one rabbit every day, eat it, preferably leaving no bones behind." He said this was the only way to prevent new babies in the family from growing large incisors.

　　: People orderly hung the bedsheets and clothes from the basin on the stair railings, then squatted down with their knees hugged in a spot directly exposed to sunlight, burying their heads between their arms and knees, silent for a long time, without moving. Like a sealed cocoon.