Charlson Ong > Quotes

“Weeping is reserved for those who stay. They weep and the earth weeps with them, the anguish drowned in a sea of shared grief. The exile cries alone, his voice sailing across eons unheeded, until, hitting the ghost of some dead galaxy, it is thrown back to haunt him.”
― Charlson Ong, Men of the East and Other Stories

“And that was how we flew into the vast blue, into the exploding sun, looking for a heart-shaped island circled by a massive dragon, where an Electric Woman opened glass boxes to turn back the hands of time.”
― Charlson Ong, Of That Other Country We Now Speak and Other Stories

“I tell no lies. Lies are the devil's nightsongs. The devil sees all. He sits in a corner chewing on the marrow of aborted fetuses. I can smell him at night, the odor of burnt carcasses and manure. When he breathes heavily, when he is in fear, black smoke rises from his crown which makes you retch blood. He leaves behind marks of his hoofs and claws, soot from hell that no amount of washing can clean. Although sometimes they appear as an infant's footprints which make you so happy.”
― Charlson Ong, Of That Other Country We Now Speak and Other Stories

“As a child, she often willed her skin to become paper-yellow, red, green-and her tiny bones to become sticks. She had yearned for a strong, crafty hand to weld her into a butterfly kite and to set her free.”
― Charlson Ong, Of That Other Country We Now Speak and Other Stories

“It was the season Ching Ming--clearness and brightness—when spirits returned from the netherworld, essences of all sorts abounded and filial sons journeyed home to their ancestral shrines to pay homage. The Wang widow, Siao lan, whose husband died on their wedding night, was on her third and final year of mourning. Her weeping-singing rent asunder the twilight calm, "O master, thou are cruel. O father, curse the day of my birth. Fate is a playful warlock. One day the fresh young bride, tomorrow, an empty-bowl widow.”
― Charlson Ong, Woman of Am-kaw and Other Stories

“In the land of my girlhood, there were many kites. There was one for each of us. We flew them to our heart’s delight. We flew them till they bound our feet, till they bound our hearts with kite strings. The kites are forever tethered to our hearts though we can no longer see them. Wherever we go, they remain in our sky. No knife, no scissors can ever sever our hearts from our kites.”
― Charlson Ong, Of That Other Country We Now Speak and Other Stories

“The decisions he penned were often staid and always short. Adjectives, like wild birds, had to be wiped off the face of the earth.”
― Charlson Ong, Conversion & Other Fictions

“…the scent of incense reaches me. I think of looking back, but the fear of putrefaction suddenly grabs me, and I move on. Finally, at the end of the road, I stop and turn to admire the Roman-columned funeral home. In the distance, I see the bent figure stoking the flame and the thin line of smoke reaching high up towards the sky. A red kite cuts across its path and something tells me Sophie's enjoying this all somehow. The scent of burnt paper reaches me, and I know Grandmother is burning them for me too.
(Mismanagement of Grief)”
― Charlson Ong, Conversion & Other Fictions