Red. There is something about the color Red that has fascinated us very much. It courses through our veins, it paints our Christmas and Lunar New Year it joins with blue and green to forms the many colors that our eyes perceive. And if my memory still serves me correctly, as it should do, my childhood was filled with red, the red of the aforementioned LNY and Moon Festival, as it has pervaded the other subtleties that I struggle to perceive. With that in mind, on the LNY of that year, the year of the Goat, I sat down in the alone-ness of my room and watched Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors: Red. I fell asleep a few time and ordered a pizza.
My friend saw me in the dining hall. He walk to me with a dish of spaghetti and said, “Lunar New Year is coming!” to which I replied, “I don’t celebrate it.” His eye-widened, he flung the dish of spaghetti into the air, which a man behind him caught in a swift moment, not a drop of the tomato sauce dropped into the floor. “Cheers, mate!,” that man said said.
My friend batted not an eye to him, and he bellowed “Are you in-SANE?,” and the last sword was repeated on an infinite loop of “in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? in-SANE? ” and his extruding lower jaws move in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out, the length of his face stretching like a rubber piece.
The jazz man on the radio screeched his alto to the scene, meddling in the god-know-what beyond the high-and-low while twisting and pulling the metal out of its recognizable shape; its tumult was as sweet as honey and heavier than the hammer and out of the friend’s facial muscles it goes. They say reality is in 3D and there are points in space for the this and the that, but God bless if he wasn’t coming out of his own nose holes. “Alright, alright, I love the New Year now!” I hastily exclaimed.
The friend, having achieved his life-goal, couldn’t hold in the tears. The man with the spaghetti dish hugged him from behind, whispering: “Let the tears may never be ever for time nay more be held inside.” The friend nodded. He said goodbye then went to say hello to a passing train with his body mass.
I arrived home tired. My apartment didn’t have a shade of red in it., and that made me sad. So, I took from the non-existent basement three buckets of red paint, three is a lucky number, and onto the four walls of the living room I splashed, while a scantily clad blonde petite was dancing her ballet, going all “La di Da di Do do La di Da di Do….” I was ignoring her for now.
Inside my roommate’s room, he was doing it with his lady. Either he was really good at it, or she was holding a microphone by her mouth. Annoyed, I kicked his door open, ready to go all “Excuse me,” but it was cut short to only a whimpering “Excuse..,” seeing that there were more than two dozens people in his room. “Would you mind?” he shouted, and I closed the door. I sulked on the table. Another roommate came and instantneously freaked out at the paint bucket.
He demeaned me, while I was trying to explain, “The Lunar New Year is coming and that makes me sad.” I put on some eyes-drop and proceeded with my weeping. He grew calm and patted my back, saying, “I understand that, man, but you have to know that this isn’t your apartment.” “What do you mean with that?” I snapped back, “Isn’t this apartment 69?” “No, you fool!” he scolded, “This is apartment 6-9!” “Oh.”
The Unofficial-Vietnamese-Area-Zone hung flags on this day. With the irony exalted on my heart, I walked with my face held high and proud, so much that merely passing by a flag made I went a little Hnnnnnng. At the sandwich shop the lady asked me, “Does the sandwich taste better on this day? “Oh yes my man my sweet ma-ma man at a bite of it all my orifices rejoice and my heart pounds-pounds-pounds on me to let me know that Today Is The Day and knowing that makes me want to buy a second third fourth one oh screw it I will buy the whole store!” No discount was given, unfortunately.
The Year was going to be of the Goat. Already did its spirit imbue me and my four limgs convulse in this strange sensation, which I must exalt by dancing across the hall on all four. Through the joyous air I leaped, my orifices sucking in the sweet taste of the New Year’s molecular particulars restlessly as if they were not filled for a long while, and in fact some of them weren’t; a strange restlessness pulsated through my vein as I was spreading the doctrine of the New Year to these heathens, a bunch of philistine they also were, denying that the New Year even exist. At their faces I hugged, kissed, licked salivated, marinated and rotisserie-ated, while chanting the words of a long lost song that were “La La La La La La La La La…” until they bent down and bled, bled out all the filthy disbelieving, and then raised as true believers of the Goats. And like Goats they marched, crusading through the campus until all was believing.
The campus was put on quarantine. SWATs and their guns were waiting for us inside. We discussed if we should continue occupying the campus, or make a last run at it. Tension hung in the air. That was, until someone had the idea of contacting the Chancellor. The latter was called, and he had to be come back from his twenty-third weekly vacation.
He invited the SWATs to his office and in there they all got baked. And then on the TV he made an announcement: “On this day let there be not violence. On this day let us only rejoice. On this day let us all DRINK BIA SAIGON!” And three trucks of Saigon Beer company smashed through the Campus Center. “Oh bugger, we’re gonna need to build 3 new doors there!,” the Chancellor said, but he just let it go. And thus, on the day of the Year of the Goat, we all shared the joy of Bia Saigon, the on true love that bound us all. The end.
