On the Isle of
Fast-Flowing Waters

SETTING: Ji Liu Dao AS the Isle of Fast Flowing Waters, of Exile, of
                  No Return to the Mother. Before that, a PLACE that must
                  not be named.

CAST:       My father AS EAR. In the dark, AS a generation of ears.

                  Gu Cheng AS the MISTY POET. Let’s not attempt any
                  mythologizing. He will abandon the students, exile his son,
                  murder his lover, and hang himself.

                  Xie Ye AS the LOVER. Like all muses, she becomes one with
                  the GHOST.

                  Xiao Mu Er AS LITTLE WOOD EAR. The exiled son outlasts
                  every story.

                  You, my dear, AS RED CHAMBER DREAM, three hundred
                  years late.

                  “A Generation” AS the POEM, a lone echo, if one listens
                  hard enough.