Rice by Dorothee Lang
“And now, step into the water,” the tour guide says, “and plant your bundle of rice.”
The group tour, it had sounded okay at first. At this point, I wish I could skip it.
“Such fun,” someone says.
The guide waits patiently like a droid until all and everyone has planted their bundle of rice. There is neither escape from the ritual, nor from the obvious symbolism: our bundles will grow together from this day on.
We move on, to the next task points. We construct a paper bridge. The droid walks across it. We follow, one after another, like sentences in a story.
We learn to say rice in alternating tongues.
“Reis.”
“Riso.”
“Arroz.”
“Riz.”
“Baikoku,” I add.
No one answers.
When we are finally done, there is a buffet waiting for us. White bowls, filled with steamed, stir-fried, sauteed combinations of rice and other stuff. There are drinks, too, and the usual speeches.
We sit at round tables. I try to play along. I even pretend that I like the jackets we are all wearing now, a liquid green fabric with a pattern of solid white paisleys.
–
Dorothee Lang is a writer, web freelancer, and the editor of BluePrintReview. She lives in Germany, and currently is into skies and microformats. Recent publications include elimae, Nanoism, The, Dogzplot, eclectica, Wheelhouse. Her first story collection, in transit, just arrived crisp + fresh from the printer. For more about her, visit her at blueprint21.de.
© 2010, Metazen. All rights reserved.
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I love the last two sentences best! tx!
Nice one. I agree, the last two sentences are great.
a wondrous piece filled with faded promise. well done.
[...] “Rice” is a piece by Dorothee Lang. It looks like a plain and sparse story when you first read it and then after you finish, it sits with you. It doesn’t digest. You go back and read it again and then where there was once a minimal feel, now new colors and ideas come to mind. You realize it’s a trick. The story is not a puddle but a lake. It’s clean and bright and steaming like a bowl of rice. [...]
thanks for the feedback, and for the interview note!
the story — maybe one clue to it could be that the story core is based on 2 dream fragments. not sure, but i guess it might be the dream symbolism that makes it reverberate.
Dorothee,
I found this one from the reference on fictionaut by Mr. H – glad I did. You paint it like the dream sequences it came from, when freshly awakened. Eerie, other-worldly. Enjoyed much.