My "Happily Ever After"

This is another comic strip loosely inspired by another poem, 天窗 (skylight), by 郑愁予.

It might worth noting that the strip contains the only complete Chinese poem that I wrote, which was especially written as the vehicle of this story. I've written a dozen English poems to date (one of which has been shared in this blog), which is a curious fact because Chinese is my first language, and the one that I think I can safely say I am better at.

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(Note: to read the strip, start from top right, go from right to left; please open it in a separate window or tab to read the inlaid texts more clearly.)

The three lines of verses that open the strip in the top right corner, which I borrowed from "skylight", are roughly translated as below:

Ever since I had the skylight installed
it is like stripping away the frost that covered my body
I am the spring in the northern land that cannot be contained

And the story goes like this:

Panel 1:
"Boring years,
are like gray uniforms that are daily laundered..."

Panel 2:
No, I should change that to "days"...
"Boring days,
are like gray uniforms that are daily laundered..."

Panel 3:
"... gray uniforms... in the closet..."
No... "are circulated in and out of the half-opened closet..."

Panel 4:
"... circulated..."
Circulated, then what?
Ah, I've got it...
"circulating in and out... washed by the ever-flowing time... aging, fading..."

Panel 5:
SMACK!!

Panel 6:
(Young lady) "You have been pacing up and down in front of my house the whole morning, what is your malintent?"

Panel 7:
(Young man) "That hurts! What did you do that for?"

Panel 8:
(Young man) "I was just working out a poem! I wasn't even bothering you!"

Panel 9:
(Young lady) "You were writing a poem?"

Panel 10:
(Young lady) "Hahaha... haha... hahahahaha.... you? A poet? ... hahahaha... hahaha..."

Panel 11:
Hahaha
Hahaha
Hahaha

Panel 12:
Boring days
are like gray uniforms that are daily laundered
circulating in and out of the half-opened closet
helplessly washed by the ever-flowing time;
Before it grows old and fade
pin a flower to its lapel...

The days of the gray uniform with a flower on its lapel
are like the daily laundered
gray uniforms with flowers on their lapels
in the half-opened closet
washed by the ever-flowing time;
Who cares if it fades?
As long as we are happy...

(Old man) "Poached eggs in clear soup again?"
(His wife) "Isn't it your favorite? You even wrote a poem about it..."

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That, to me, is happily ever after. :-)