It was raining rose petals when I reached Keong Saik Road that late afternoon. The red petals turned to blood in my hands. I had to find a place to hide. Fast.

Underneath a shophouse, there was a door with a sign bearing the Chinese word "seven" beside it. The door was open. I ran in.

There was a huge tank of water. Like an aquarium tank for fishes. Very big tank. But there were no fishes. A lady was swimming inside it. Not really swimming. Just suspending inside the tank of water. Looking out of the tank. Looking out at the world. Looking at me.

She was naked. Naked white. Her long hair was black and flowing in the water. Her eyes were black and staring at me. She was white. Pure pure white. And she motioned me to come into the tank.

I hesitated for a while. Not knowing whether I should go in with my clothes on or with my clothes off. I took off my clothes.

The water was piercing chilly. Freezing to my heart. Freezing my heart. And the chill was overwhelming, everywhere, enveloping, suffocating; the fluid hands, the searing cold fingers, scratched, nail scratching, gouged, gouged beneath the skin, cut to the bones, ripped my flesh, my muscles, my tendons, ripping spasms - I, I tried to escape!

I flailed and splashed, and I was drowning. The lady in the water looked at me calmly. Then pulled me to her body. She wrapped her thighs over my waist. And guided me into her warmth. It was the only way to go. Deeper. And deeper.

There was the tide in the tank. The rhythm of the ebbing and the rushing. And we were floating in the tank. The earthquakes. The little earthquakes. Then the rushing again. Quickening. And we were moaning bubbles in the tank. We could not hear a thing. Smell nothing. Floating. Only her. I could only feel her. Feel her warmth. See her. A pure white body. Her round eyes of blackness. Her long hair of blackness. Floating. Moaning. Drowning... dying...

I burst out of the water gasping for air. My feet was totally numb, unable to feel the cold at all. I could still move my hands a little. I struggled to pull myself out of the tank, finally collapsing onto the floor outside.

Shivering, I quickly put on my clothes. Still it did not help. The cold was in me already. The lady in the tank tried to talk to me. But I could not hear her. Her mouth opened and closed. Her hands gesticulated. Eventually, the words appeared on her white body. Chinese words. Calligraphy.

Because there is love, there is pain. I may be dead, but I'm still hurting. On the thousandth night. I'll come back to your side.

I ran out in tears. I ran out in fear. I drove my car to the grave where she was buried. The tiny sapling on the grave had grown to hold a single bud. I pulled the plant out of the soil, and the star from which it was drawing its life from. I thought about how I could destroy the two items, and I swallowed them both.

"The dead has no memory; once forgotten, they are gone."

No one else would know about her death. There was nothing left to mark her grave. I would erase her. Erase her from the world. And I would start running.

I can run. Run. And I have been running. Running from the places that remind me of her. Running from the things that remind me of her. Just looking ahead always, and running. Running. Running till I have nowhere to run from myself. My memories. My dreams.

There is no escape from destiny.

This is the thousandth night.
This is the thousandth night.
This is the thousandth night.

The telephone rings.
I put down my book, Soseki Natsume's Ten Nights of Dream.
The hospital tells me that my sister and her husband are dying.
I arrive too late at the hospital.
The doctor tells me that only the baby is saved.
A nurse carries out the baby.
It is a baby girl.
Her eyes are wide open, but the blackness within are lazy, unmoving.
Her cheeks are rosy.
Her lips are red.

She opens her mouth,
and counts,

"One thousand."