*NIP* A Single Grain of Rice

Part 1

"You have put this off for long enough."

"Mother, please, I-"

"There are no more excuses! The woman frowns on those who are later in years, and-"

"She frowns on everyone..." I mutter. Mother's face turns pink with anger.

"You will be going, and that is final." She turns and leaves the room, and I sink down on the floor, my face in my hands. How am I ever supposed to do this? I don't want to be married. It ties you down to one place, and besides, I'm not like the other girls. I turn, and a glint catches my eye. A metal pot shows the reflection of a girl with broad shoulders, thin and pale lips, almond-shaped eyes dark as a moonless night, the soft black hair in a curtain around my face and down my back. I frown at my reflection, rubbing my small nose, and continue to study the tanned complexion, long and clumsy legs, small chest area, and rough hands from years of outdoor work. I look away from the mirrored image, and I stand up with a deep intake of breath. There are many more problems to face than the body I've lived with for nearly seventeen years. As my father would say, that is a problem out of my control, and one should not waste time on the problems of others, or something equally wise and unintelligable.

Out the door, through the small herb garden Grandmother keeps, past the pond, and up the hill I walk, until I reach the small pavilion at the top of the rise. I pause before entering, gazing at the city. I can see the roofs of the buildings, curved to ward off malicious spirits, and small colored dots I know to be people, moving around. i can just make out the marketplace, with colorful awnings over anything from exotic fruits to farm animals. Everyone always looks so purposeful in the city, happy with their jobs and families and destinies. I wonder briefly if I'll ever feel that contentment, or if I'll be forced to remain as I am now, discontent, ungrateful, and full of hopes that I myself can't clearly define. I clear my thoughts as best i can. My discontentment is all the more reason to step inside the small building on the hill. I mount the remaining steps, and step inside the dark room. My eyes adjust to the gleaming, perfectly polished tombstones of the ancestors of the Fa family, the small bronze tray of incense above my head, decorated with a small dragon, for luck. Lighting the incense, I bow before the eldest ancestor, whose tombstone reads

Fa Wei, the Great.

and several small lines below it telling of his deeds in war and his extreme debt for establishing a farm. How sad, to go through life, just to end up here, with a short paragraph telling about being a farmer, your greatest failures and triumphs. Fa Wei's story continued, and his farming helps the Fa family to become more prosperous (and thus change his name), but from reading his stone, you'd think he was a failure. I briefly consider my own tombstone. What will it say? Fa Mulan, wife and mother? I want more from life! I want to have done something more something others could remember me for, to be a Great ancestor, not merely another invisible woman. My forehead on the cold stone, I mumble to the ground and any ancestors listening, 

"Please, let me not die unknown to my descendants. Let me live, really live, before I die." There's no response. No voices, no earthquake, no magical changes in my feelings. I rise from the floor, bow to the many words carved in the stones, and walk back into the sunlight, desperately hoping that I could leave my heart as it is back in that room.