“Of Flesh, Of Bone” by Tania Chen in Strange Horizons

I have an endless soft spot for diaspora stories, and this gem is no exception. “Of Flesh, Of Blood” explores death rituals, of traditions centered on the idea of being tied to family, of dying with family, of trauma of past generations being carried forth. Chen navigated the desire to abandon culture and traditions in favor of belonging and assimilation on foreign lands and how assimilation, in the end, is killing a part of the self.

This story illuminates how forgetting for the living, though it might not often seem that way, is easier compared to those who have passed, particularly ghosts and the dead holding on tight to the living world with vengeance—hungry ghosts who feast and fester.

One of my favorite quotes from the story:

“Grief has no rhyme or reason, no logic or formula to work through. His mother is just another ghost now, not because she’s dead but because she is not, having packed her bags and left a few weeks back.”

And another:

“The past is past, the past is dead, the past cannot come back to haunt you.”

Except it can, and it does.

Exhuma (film; 2024)

What a wild movie this is that intertwines the past and present in an urban supernatural horror/thriller that somehow also makes it seem as though the ancient has come to visit the present. This movie explores the commodification of death, where rituals of the past by spiritualists of the present are now for hire, and at a high cost. Specific plots of land that are auspicious and appropriate for burials are also dwindling in number and often extremely expensive to procure. There is the persistent fear of grave robbers for the wealthy.

Exhuma draws on Korean superstitions and traditions and a concept called “Grave’s Call” in which vengeful, ancestral spirits, lingering, with the inability to move forth, return to plague their descendants due to improper burials. Though there are rituals that can be performed to appease spirits, sometimes only cremation may be the only means to rid families of hauntings once and for all.

“Being Time” by Rachel Handley in Possible Worlds and Other Stories

Compared to the previous two, Handley’s “Being Time” offers a very different look into the meaning of “death across time.” In this story, Handley explores the way ghosts do not have anything new to say because they are of the past. They can recall things from when they were living, from their own past, but nothing from the present and future because they themselves do not have a future. Ghosts become beings trapped in an endless loop of telling the same stories to anyone who will listen, and their past living timeline becomes their very identity because they have an inability to change and grow and develop and be impacted by external influences given the way they stand as is, just as they are, the way they always have been, and the way they forever will be.

What I find most interesting about this story is the way Handley compares ghosts to algorithms and the way they draw from the pre-existing, though perhaps even more so limited—the same set of events, memories, experiences, without the machine learning aspect. The story also tackles the idea of time being intangible and space as tangible—of space as breakable, but not time—and what happens if both of these things become sentient.

There is a thing, an idea, I’ve forgotten if it was my mother or someone else, had told me—that the pets we cater to, and spoil, must be someone from our past life to who we owe. But in terms of afterlives, past lives, and reincarnations, that will be another piece.

They say that pets are but a part of the lives of humans, but to the pets themselves, we are their entire lives. For some, when they think of loved ones, this does not only include human loved ones but furry family members. For me, this holds true.

In the fourth grade, I had a hamster, a dwarf hamster to exact, with an average life expectancy of 2-3 years. Hamie had passed at two and a half years after losing his sight and mobility functions. Then there was a series of fishes—Goldie and Angel, goldfishes from Walmart that are said to never last over a week, along with Dragon and Phoenix, beta fishes that accompanied me through my toughest undergraduate moments and after I finished grad school (I was not very creative with the names of pets, dear readers, if you haven’t already noticed.) Those I now still have with me include a turtle named Shelley and three cats—Torch, Owl, and Phantom.

There have been times, when I wanted to bring back dead pets and loved ones, like in Pet Sematary by Stephen King, but I find as I age, that desire has dulled—not because I no longer love them, nor because my memories of them have faded; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.  I find that I speak about death rather stoically, and perhaps it’s because I myself cannot adequately express my emotions—though the opposite is also true, as these feelings might come as uncontrollable outpours with little in between. Below are three stories that explore our relationships to pets and animals, and perhaps these might offer you the emotional experience that I myself cannot quite articulate:

“To a Good Home” by Shelley Lavigne in If There’s Anyone Left

This short flash piece is a brief read that follows an owner and their haunted cat that causes paranormal happenings in the house. Yet, like most pet owners might understand, we’re likely to overlook even the worst of flaws, sometimes even death, in favor of companionship.

“It’s What’s Inside That Counts” by Warren Benedetto in Fantasy Magazine

Though not specifically about pets, it does touch on a fascination with the dead, specifically dead animals rather than humans. The story explores how experiencing death through a screen as a mediator can often be desensitizing and reminds me of the way we experience disasters on the other side of the world through social media and how we must grapple with the reality of these terrors. Benedetto considers the idea of a timepiece in all living things, of our fear of death and wanting to spare others of the same, of cherishing time, knowing that it is finite, and what the death of animals can teach us about our own.

“Sacrifice Rock” and “The Soul-Filled Skulls of Epsie Rees” by Effie Joe Stock in Bleached Reminders: A Gothic Anthology About Bones, Magic, and Grief

This story is wholesome yet sorrowing in the way it unpacks the loneliness of death and the ghosts who keep us company, of how death can be seen as new life when we let go, and of how death can be strangling when we hold onto those we love most too tight. Though the living often feel as though it is the dead who leave us, the story shows how it might also hold true the other way around—and how sometimes the true threat is life, while safety might be found in death. Stock illuminates the beauty in death, of its necessity, along with grief, as lessons in life. For some, ancestors serve as guides, spirits of those who have passed, and for others, it is animals and creatures with instincts and compassion—what some humans have forgotten—that help light our way. At times, magic is in the unseen, and at times, magic can only be felt, just like death, just like life.

I did end up dropping my philosophy courses in the end, solely due to that logic course alone, and I do wish I could have continued those courses, but with the internet these days, I suppose I can on my own. Now, onto the musing!

The Trolley Problem

For those who aren’t familiar, the general premise of the trolley problem is that you are the conductor (or sometimes it is an onlooker who has the power to change the direction of the train) of a train, and the brake is broken. You are given two choices: stay on the track that has five people in your path and end up killing those five people or divert the trolley to the one that only has one person, killing that one person.

Now, do you have an answer?

If you do, hold onto it, and if you don’t, we’ll further complicate it in the next bit.

How might this situation change if the five people are strangers whereas the one person is a loved one? What if the five people are national treasures, or the key to saving entire populations but the one person is a loved one? What if it is a thousand civilians, a million, two million, versus the virtuous leader of a country? A thousand civilians, a million, two million, versus one person who has the cure for cancer?

Now, what if it is not a person on that track but a place, a concept, a situation? What if there must be war in one place for there to be peace in another? In several other places? What if you must wipe an entire culture for the survival of several other cultures. Would you?

Now, what if it is not a person but a creature? Five creatures, one human? A hundred, a thousand creatures and one human? An endangered species and one human? A million creatures and one human?

And sometimes, there might be one more option. With the previous two, you (as the conductor or onlooker) survive regardless. But what if there is a third track? Where you do not have to pick to kill five or one but place yourself on a track that only ends up with you yourself dying? Would you make the sacrifice?

The Falling Tree

There are entire populations that may perhaps believe the reality they live in is in fact the only reality and possibility even when there is the rest of the world in existence, and to us, we may think this foolish, but indeed, do we ourselves not have such sometimes—when someone tells us about something we do not know, whether it is a place, a person, a concept. To us, it had not existed in our world until that moment, and for others, we do not exist in their world until something or someone brings us to those individuals’ attention. And if so, this seems to explain, note that I don’t mean justify, the idea that some people can so easily look away from war, death, disaster, oppression if they are sufficiently removed and privileged enough to do so. Does that mean we should? Does that mean we should swallow guilt and suppress it into inexistence so we can live our lives in comfort? For some, the answer is yes. For others, even if their lives are short, they want to do something other than to turn their back and simply live.

And then what?

Our world often seems like it is in a constant struggle, always setting itself on fire. In some situations, there is strength in number and sometimes, one voice might outweigh us all. Then what? Do we give up? Do we surrender? Do we pretend not to see nor hear the tree that falls in the forest somewhere far away, pretend that it is not broken, cracked, splintering? Pretend that it does not make a sound, pretend that its screams are nonexistent because it is drowned by the distance of trees, waters, lands that separate us? What do we do? What should we do? What can we do when we feel powerless and what do we do when we have power? There is never an easy answer, and more often than not, there isn’t one right one.

I had this conversation with my spouse, and he told me he refuses to choose because it is not something that should be in control. Yet, what if it is? Still, he said he should not be the one with the power to decide the life and death of others. And yet, that is what humans are doing every day, aren’t we? What is worth saving and killing, even if we do not phrase it necessarily in this way.

So, I will leave you with this: If a tree falls and we do not hear it, does it make a sound? If we have never known about this tree, never known that it has fallen, if it does not exist in our minds, would the answer change? If you replace the tree with a person, a place, a nation?

And of course, because this is indeed still Chaos Trifecta, I have three recommendations that tie to everything discussed in this month’s column:

1. The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay (2018)— If you are handed the world’s fate in your hands but you have to decide whether to kill yourself or your loved ones, what would you do?
2. Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds (film; 2017) — What moral/ethical decision should you or should you not be punished for?
3. Okja (film; 2017)— Is it justified for us to sacrifice the lives of animals, to continue the cruelty of livestock farming for the benefit of humans?

Nestlings by Nat Cassidy

This is an extremely dark book that questions morality and who has the right to decide life and death, and how it often falls into the hands of the powerful and wealthy—how the rich are predators who prey on the needs of those less fortunate. Cassidy sheds light on the monsters, vampires, and predators in our lives that wear human faces and live and feed off our pain.

Sometimes those monsters are ourselves.

Cassidy explores the messy and contradictory nature and meaning of motherhood, the heroism, the antagonism of the same. Most of all, this book holds every possible fear I’ve ever had about parenthood.

My favorite quotes from the book:

“A building is just a house. She is a home”

“. . . there is no moving on. Only moving forward.” (From the afterword)

“Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim

Right when this piece came out, I knew it was going to be one that made its rounds with both readers and writers alike, particularly when it comes to the current state of the world. Kim criticizes the way society often functions on sacrifices, how breaking one thing might mean fixing another, how every solution always comes with consequences, and the ethics of choices.

This story draws on philosophical concepts I, myself, have brewed long and hard about and yet still have come no closer to an appropriate answer for, in particular, it brings me to the theory of utilitarianism—where the supposedly “right” action is one that benefits the most people, and yet, we know with this idea, we would willingly allow the suffering of others. 

This story is a fever dream, a harsh light cast on all the problems in the world and the way we might ignore and overlook them, the way our society might abandon others for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of larger functioning. It is an illumination of those sacrificed and left behind, a criticism of those who are doing the leaving, and at the same time, exploring the consequences of what happens if they don’t.

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Much like the previous two pieces, Earthlings holds a lot of commentary on the failures of society, but with an added layer of the ways society might drive those it is meant to serve towards a willing death.

Murata explores what it means to die, both literally and metaphorically, what happens when it feels as though our bodies no longer belong to us, when we seem to be merely tools for society—easily used and discarded.

In Earthlings, adulthood is seen as the death of childhood. There is grief, funeral customs, the living as guides for the dead, the grieving for a dead child who they never truly knew, horrible deeds, perversion, grime beneath spotless mask. There is death, the numbing of the mind, as a means of overcoming trauma, because society has turned a blind eye to crime and injustice. Death, in Earthlings, is explored in the form of violation. Trauma becomes death itself.

This book reminds me of 1984, not in the sense of the theme of surveillance, but in the sense that the societies in 1984 and Earthlings are forcing their citizens to conform until they bend under the pressure to work, to reproduce, get married. Earthlings depicts the binaries of expectations of men and women, duty and responsibility, confines of culture and tradition through overbearing families and friends, the inflexibility of gender, the way infidelity is seen as reward.

At its core is the question: How are we to live on a planet not our own, on a land we feel as though we don’t belong on, even if we were born on it, and how do we deal with a society we don’t agree with—can we, should we, must we?

Dear readers, don’t be fooled by masks of perfection, because if you stare closely enough, you might just see the cracks, you might just realize that nothing is truly whole, and that everything is ultimately broken.

One thing I’ve been contemplating lately is the cycle of life and the interconnectedness between life, death, time, memories, evolution, and now the impact of technology on it all—the way we think about, experience, and understand each has changed with each new technological invention and innovation, more so now than ever. These elements have been interwoven and inseparable. Technology has become something that impacts life, extends it, even going as far as extending beyond death, and perhaps even the potential to rid our world of death once and for all—but should it? Today, we’re looking at a novella by Wole Talabi titled “Ganger” in his collection Convergence Problems that explores all these ideas and facilitates further philosophical discussions on life, death, and technology.

In “Ganger,” we are presented with a world so technologically advanced that it allows all to experience stability but in exchange, there is a lack of privacy—emotional and physical motoring, collection of data. And this brings me to thinking about current technology and the way our phones seem to be listening to our every conversation, privacy agreements for the different apps, and tools we use becoming more and more invasive, algorithms catering to our interests and perhaps eventually flipping that and become the curators of our preferences instead and manipulating it to the benefit of corporations?

In the novella, death becomes something measurable and explicable as rendered by science and mathematics rather than something more inexplicable and philosophical, as something to be controlled, that can be controlled rather than as a result of nature, where previously it cannot be measured or predicted and left more so to fate and the unknown.

In connection, what is most interesting about this world is the way it explores the possibility of making coded models of the human mind so humans will be able to survive even without the flesh bodies. This reminds me of the animated series created based on Ken Liu’s stories named Pantheon where great minds are brought back to life through technological modelling to be used in another period’s battles. In a sense, technology is slowly becoming something that is transcendent, as post-human while still somehow including humans, and the implications on humanity as it allows for a kind of immortality might not always be one that’s positive.

With modelling technology, there might come a time where the evolution of humans become one that removes the need for adaptation and surpasses limitations as result of mind uploading, where the physical human become obsolete—the extinction of humans as we know today, the rise of new post-human species. But with new technology there is always the introduction of new fears and consequences.

With technological immortality come the questions: Are we still humans without our bodies? If our minds exist only through code? If we rid ourselves of humanity’s perceived and supposed flaws and weaknesses and thrive for ideals of perfection?

It seems appealing in the way that it may help our minds break boundaries, rules of space and time, accentuate perception and sensory experience, and reshape creation and retention of memory (an example might be the movie Limitless or Inception).

But without the fear of death, and the limitations of time and space, without problems and issues and struggles, would we also lose the meaning of what it truly means to be alive? Would we still be “living” if there is no death?

Though it may be bleak to think about, it seems that the struggles of humanity to come together, to solve the problems we have created, to survive is what makes humans who we are, a crucial part of our identity. Problems and solutions, consequences and victories, and a blend of all these things. Without them, what are we? What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to live? What does it mean to live and be alive in a seemingly technological perfected world?

Without labor, what would we pursue? What might become of our art that tackles social and political faults and developments, explore what it means to be human, and our connection to the world. Do we have to have issues to have art? Does art always have to say something? What will come of religion? Folklore? Mythology? Storytelling and history making?

What will become of our passages of life, milestones, marriage, employment, children, family? How will post-human worlds, if it comes to it, deviate from cultures and traditions as we know today? How will all of these reshape, fall apart, evolve, cease to exist except for in the oldest and most hidden parts of our memories?

What are humans without death?

For this month’s piece, I’ve decided to do something a little different and focus on the places of death I’ve visited in 2023. Of course, death has occurred in all places, but these three specific locations have some intriguing dark histories that have become a part of their identities.

I’ve had the pleasure of travelling far more this year than I ever have in my life leading up to this point in life, and what I took away most from these trips is the importance of learning about the histories of the places I’m travelling to, their people and their customs, rather than what I used to think travelling was all about as a child—scenic landscapes and pictures.

It’s fascinating now to think about what is behind the beautiful pictures we see online, how these places came to be, the hands and feet and events that had shaped and reshaped these places and left its trail of histories; the ways humans have fallen victims to the land; the way that we as humans give land human identities. We give both the things we have created (streets, buildings, statues) and the things that have always existed (mountains, rivers, oceans, forests) human names. Something I’ve always wondered myself is what the land would call itself if it could tell us its name. But that is complex conversation for another time.

Death Valley, California, United States

When we arrived, it was already near sunset, but the bleed of blues and purples were a magnificent backdrop for the barren desert with dead trees like gnarling bones of fingers and amazing textured landscapes. But what interested me most was the name “Death Valley.” After digging my shoes into the sand, I went home and dug my mind into its history.

In 1848, with the discovery of gold at the Sutter’s Mill in California, groups of people who are now known as The Lost 49ers trekked their way in search of riches in the Golden State. Unfortunately, many of these individuals took a shortcut that in turn took their lives before they were able to find their fortune. Some were able to escape—only the lucky ones. On this grueling journey, the travellers had to slaughter the oxen that pulled their wagons and continued on foot. They had to abandon their horses, or their horses were ridden to death.

Death Valley is known to be one of the world’s driest and hottest of places. Even today, hikers meet their demise if they come ill equipped for their trails. Cars break down due to the heat. Visitors even note that it feels as though their skin is burning off when visiting Death Valley during the height of summer.

My visit was during December, so my skin neither burned nor did our rental car break down, but I am curious as to what my own trip might be like should I revisit when it’s much warmer. Though perhaps if I do return, I’ll be armed with a case of water and my best hiking shoes.

The Forbidden City, Beijing, China

I’ve always wanted to visit the Forbidden City ever since I was a child. It seemed magnificent in the photos and on TV, and considered one of the most popular tourist attractions, both among those foreign to the country and those who reside within China. But what I didn’t know was its haunted history and the reason why the Forbidden City closes its doors every day at 5 p.m., no later (though it’s open during the night only for specific occasions and for honored guests), as it is said that after 5 p.m., the Forbidden City belongs to the realm of ghosts and spirits.

The Forbidden City has seen the rise and fall of numerous emperors and dynasties. But there is one emperor in particular who went above and beyond in painting his hands with the blood of his people. Emperor Yongle was known for his cruelty and indulgence. He burnt his own nephew who was in line for the throne so he could claim it as his own. In 1421, Emperor Yongle killed 2,800 (some sources say 3,000) members of his harem—concubines, servants, eunuchs—and left only 15 (some sources say 16) of his favorite concubines and their eunuchs to avoid scandal concerning the size of his harem compared to previous emperors.

When Emperor Yongle passed, he hung the remaining living concubines from silk nooses, bringing them with him into the afterlife.

Visitors have said that they’ve spotted ghosts strangling victims at the Forbidden City. They have seen victims being pulled under bridges and strange animals running around the palace grounds. Other strange occurrences include the appearance of weeping women ghosts with long black hair, dressed in white, featureless, and flute music seeming to drift from no source.

It seems I have a pattern of always going to places right before closing, which was the case with the Forbidden City as well. We left around 4 p.m., though there were no supernatural occurrences that I myself detected, perhaps I shall return and lurk about its walls later at night the next time I visit.

Torii Gates, Japan

There is no direct flight to my spouse’s hometown Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, so we were fortunate to visit Tokyo, Japan before making our way to Hohhot. This feature doesn’t include one specific location but will focus on the presence of torii gates scattered across Japan.

Torii gates are bright red, made to ward off evil spirits, and serves as a passage to liminal and sacred spaces. It is the boundary between ordinary spaces and shrines, distinguishing between the human world and sacred grounds. They are also used as identification markers to sacred spots like rocks and mountains, though they are usually found in front of Shinto shrines in Japan.

Atop the gates sit yokai called Otoroshi that guard the gates. These are beasts both hairy and large that will attack those who they sense as evil and allow passage for those who are good. However, when passing the gates, one must always pass to the side of the gate. You must not walk through the middle of the gate as that is reserved for the kami to enter the realm of gods. It is a Japanese belief that when people pass, they become kami (Shinto gods), sacred spirits, worshipped by the living. It is also believed that humans are innately good, and that they only become evil because of evil spirits.

What is fascinating in my research about the torii gates is that in Shinto, death is seen as impurity, and so Shinto shrines are not built near cemeteries and funerals are not held within the shrines, but often weddings are held and parents often bring their new born babies.

I myself missed catching these beautiful gates on camera, so I will have to return to visit the most known torii gates next time around.

If you have a place of death you’d like to share, do drop me a message through the contact form on my website or message me on whichever social media platform you most use. I’d love to hear about other places of death and visit them when I get the chance!

Reading Recommendations that pair well with these deathly locations:

This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer

Keeper of the Night by Kylie Lee Baker

“A Realm Alive After Dusk” forthcoming in The Map of Lost Places Anthology (a little shameless self-promo for a story I’d written which was inspired by my visit to the Forbidden City)

[images by the author unless otherwise specified]

I returned to China to visit my relatives and to also meet my spouse’s family after not being back to my birth country for eight years. A lot has changed since then—the technology, the architecture, the people, but at its core, it still feels very much how I remembered it when I was a child. Except for the fact that now there is a second culture that I can compare it to. But what I found most jarring is how much time has passed and the ways my relatives have both changed and remained the same while I was away. Of course, I can’t expect them to have never changed, but my memory of them is stalled from the moment I left China the last time I visited.

Before my return, my grandfather had been rushed to the hospital because of poor health. From this health fright, what I realized is the difference between hearing about something terrible that has occurred and seeing it in person. (It has also reminded me how desensitized humans have come to terror and how frightening that fact truly is.) I walked into the new apartment (a very old building with a very questionable elevator) that my grandparents shared and broke down into tears when I saw my grandfather.

When I was younger, I wanted nothing more than to extend his lifespan, saying things like “stop smoking or else I’ll disown you,” which seems like something perhaps someone older might say to someone younger and not the other way around. Back then, I saw him as immortal but perhaps knew deep down he wasn’t. And the realization itself is even more terrifying than inevitable death.

Below are three books that touch on the topic of immortality—the way we immortalize others, cling onto them, and the way we try to immortalize ourselves.

Mammoths at the Gate by Nghi Vo

This is the fourth standalone novella in The Singing Hills Cycle series by Nghi Vo, and like the other books, there is always a focus on stories. In Mammoths at the Gate, the stories center around a mentor who has passed—Cheric Thien. This is a story focusing on the memories of a person and how those who have passed should be remembered, what about their lives should be passed down, and how these tales told by others can shape and reshape a person after their passing. There is an unwillingness by the characters to believe stories told about those they love and admire that contradict their own memories, and how honor in one culture may be infamy and misunderstanding in another.

Often times, our own memories might be distorted, and the pictures we paint of the dead might become who we ourselves desire them to be rather than who they truly are—we can be mistaken, our memories can change, fill in the gaps that were missing with fictions that seem like reality. And even though the neixin in this series have memory like iron, the stories they carry are influenced by those who they hear it from, and not only what they themselves have experienced. But what is most interesting of all about this novella is the way it shows us that in our mourning, we might even become those who we mourn. Sometimes, we immortalize the dead in ourselves.

Withered by A.G.A Wilmot

As mentioned in my blurb for Withered, this is a book that explores the timelessness of grief and its toxicity, and the way it suffocates the living who experience it. Wilmot illuminates the impact of art on memory and identity and paints, using elegant prose, a ghost town—Black Stone—where characters discover what it means to be alive, how to conquer death and escape the clutches of time—always, at a price. The idea of Black Stone shows readers how the spaces we inhabit might consume us, the demons we create for ourselves and hold onto.

There is a house with a dark past, a family striving to stay afloat. It is witty; it is slow burn. Black Stone is a place where the dead follow you home. What is more, in this town, Wilmot explores the power of death but more so, the power and hope of wanting to be alive or remain among the living. There are themes of mental illness, queerness, body image and horrors. It is a town where the roots seek immortality, even at the expense of all those surrounding it.

The Body Harvest by Michael J. Seidlinger

This book is an absolute fever dream, and not just because I read it while I was actually sick, which was quite ironic to say the least. The Body Harvest features characters who have the need to feel alive through feeling their mortality, identifying it, and pushing it to its very limits; of being on the verge of death but not dying, of using illness as a way to overcome the difficulties of life. The characters attempt physical overcoming to combat emotional challenges to the point of toxicity. But isn’t that very like humans? To become obsessed, to pitch over cliffs in downward spirals, to become stuck in toxic relationships and have pain continuously feed on more pain?  

The characters are imperfect, broken, manic, but incredibly sympathetic even in their terrible thoughts and allowing the darkness to overrun rationality. But if given the opportunity, if there are no consequences, how many would succumb to their darkest desires? If we are immortal, would morality still stand? Without disease, both of the mind and the body, at our cores, would we still be virtuous or allow rampant to suppressed demons and feelings of grudge and vengeance towards those who have wronged us?

From my reading, this word seems to point to the revisiting of the past through memory and the way that repressed memories of the past might at times overcomes the present. I think the definition can also extend to the act of deliberate remembering, as we specifically call upon particular memories. In Beloved, we can see how rememory is something that causes the past to manifest in the present.

I have been brewing further on the way death affects us both consciously and unconsciously after writing LINGHUN—the way we cling tight to deaths unexplained, accidents that could have been prevented, guilt where there should be none, guilt when there is all that there is, revenge and justice—and wonder about what might linger in those who have passed. Below are three recommendations that I think explore the concept of rememory in one way or another and the form it might take in worlds fantastical, contemporary yet cosmic, and far, far into the future.

Merciless Waters is about an all-female crew aboard a ship set sail in an eternal present. What strikes me most about this book is not only its breathless and poetic prose, but its dark narrative centered on repressing memories and living without ever drawing on the past. Knowles shows us what happens when pasts are unlocked, traumas triggered, when we cannot help but latch on, particularly when it comes to who have been wronged. Merciless Waters shows us what happens when the desire for revenge is much stronger than that of peace, and perhaps that is what makes the story world so terrifying—the way people seek to be in constant turmoil both consciously and unconsciously. I took a psychology class once that said humans tend towards chaos, do things that mess things up rather than make things better, but in this story, it seems that the characters are only able to achieve justice and peace through chaos.

Recently, I finished Uzumaki by Junji Ito with its hypnotic storyline and artwork about death because of obsession, and I think Disappearance of Tom Nero by TJ Price is a lovely companion for those looking for obsession-driven horror. Through Price’s intriguing structural choices and experimental format, we gain deeper insight into cosmic forces that might drive humans mad and the way that sometimes obsession is something we simply cannot explain. In Uzumaki, obsession takes form of the spiral; in Disappearance of Tom Nero, obsession takes form of a word that the characters cannot rid of from their minds. Another interesting similarity is the way that these seemingly cosmic driven obsessions impact those around the obsessers both before and after their death—the way one person’s obsession might transfer onto their closest to them, or the way those mourning deaths might inherit the deceased obsession almost as a way to reconnect with them or keep a piece of them in their lives.

In Time’s Ellipse by Frasier Armitage, the story explores the concept of death where death is something that moves at different speeds for different people as we follow the settlement of humans on a new planet and the generations that survive after them. Armitage explores the concept of rememory through the ways in which children carry memories of the previous generation and the knowledge of ancestors no matter how that knowledge and history might have changed as it passes through different hands. The way that death, not just life, results in evolution, the way we make sense of the people who no longer exist in the world of the living and the past events that might alter depending on the perspective it is filtered through. Here, rememory takes the form of stories that have been created, passed forth, and lost, and how calling upon the past might shape and reshape the collective present and future.

Ghost weddings are said to be performed to pacify the dead and uphold traditions where younger brothers are not meant to marry before their older brothers. There are beliefs centered around the idea that a lack of a marriage equals to an incomplete life and that it is shameful to have unwedded daughters. Jobs with high fatalities such as construction and mining meant many men passed young and unmarried, and their families often struggle to find them a suitable match to accompany them in their afterlife.

Yet, in the past, there is the irony of the one-child policy favoring males, while the scarcity of brides increased the value of women, particularly in rural areas. This resulted in grave robbers stealing and selling corpses to serve as ghost brides and an increase in activities such as human trafficking or forced labor.

Families looking for a ghost bride or groom might also receive a priest or diviner’s consultation on matchmaking for their deceased child, or would place objects such as red pockets in public—and within them cash or locks of hair—and the first to pick it up must marry their child. Dowries may be up to 100,000+ yuan and accompanying gifts might include jewelry, clothing, tea, among others in the form of paper offerings.

Ghost weddings are most often performed between two deceased individuals, but on occasion there may be one living bride or groom who is sought out to perform the ceremony. As a part of the ritual, bamboo or other wooden effigies are created of the bride and/or groom and burned when the banquet ceremony ends. In more current times, there have been laws set in place to prevent ghost weddings between a deceased and living individual, where the requirement for a ghost wedding must be three years after both parties have been deceased, though the ritual proceedings and legality still widely vary depending on the place.

Below are some ghost wedding inspired works that I would highly recommend for interesting takes on the concept:

This book (also adapted for a Netflix series with the same name) follows a young woman named Li Lan who must become a ghost bride for the second son of a wealthy family to save her family from their troubled fiancés. The family she will marry into is a friend of her father’s and the son who had passed early is a childhood friend who Li Lan barely recalls but is someone who had been smitten with since their youth. Both the book and show are interwoven with mystery, supernatural horror, fantasy, and a gem for those who enjoy historical period pieces—and of course, ghost weddings.

This movie is humorous and emotional and on the lighter side, with a more wholesome tone compared to The Ghost Bride. Nonetheless, it tackles heavy topics through the premise of a ghost wedding: sexuality and identity, reincarnation, family and acceptance, and what is the true meaning of marriage, companionship, and love. I think what touched me most about this movie is the strength of the character development and the blossoming friendship between the living and the passed, and what they are able to teach one another despite their different circumstances, backgrounds, beliefs, and values, and the way their relationship to one another can reshape everything they had once thought they understood.

This is not a story about ghost weddings per say but rather about a wedding between ghosts/spirits. Rather than the marriage between the living and the dead, this story follows a young woman, Siew Tsin, who had passed before she could wed and was married off to a rich man in hell by her uncle (who is also a spirit), whose greed for wealth and a comfortable life in hell before reincarnation is far greater than any duty he feels towards his niece. However, when her new husband brings home a new terracotta wife, the new wife’s existence throws Siew Tsin’s quiet life in hell into turmoil.

This is a story that focuses on the finality of death, and the ability to obtain immortality and strength through technology, but also the appeal of reincarnation and fate despite the fear of moving forward, and the forgetting and letting go of a past life—particularly if the past life is one of comfort, wealth, and luxury. But at the heart of the story, we see how there are some things worth more than both immortality and material abundance. 

References

Ghost Marriage: The Chinese Tradition Of Getting Dead People Married
Ghost Marriage in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature: Between the Past and the Future
China’s ghost weddings and why they can be deadly
Married for the afterlife in China – Asia – Pacific – International Herald Tribune
Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore

For some, the concept of life and death can be quite binary, yet for others, they are almost interchangeable: when we are born, we are born dying; when we die, we await reincarnation—new life. Though, this differs from person to person, culture to culture. I do think life and death are unarguably intertwined, where there cannot be one without another, and more often than not, there are consequences, prices to pay, when it comes to both.

When I think about “life built upon death,” there are three books I have read recently that I feel accurately encompass what this phrase truly means:

The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker

Quite literally, resurrecting the dead is the main character Zilan’s livelihood, what pays the bills and puts food on the table. Zilan can return souls to their bodies at a terrible cost—draining the life force of those who love the resurrected most—and those with their souls returned may not necessarily be as intact as one might like depending on how long their body has been deceased and the level of decomposition.

Immortality is not a far-fetched idea in the world that Baker has created either, where the rich can remain young forever by consuming alchemical gold.

However, as Zilan enters the royal palace as a royal alchemist, she realizes dangers lurking where resurrection techniques are used for something more sinister.

What I enjoyed most about this book is not only  its wide sweeping world building and fast-paced action, but the way it also tackles the connection between wealth, life, and death, and who holds the power to wield the three.

Dehiscent by Ashley Deng

It is difficult to fully speak about this novella without giving too much away because its short length, but Dehiscent by Ashley Deng is equal parts dark and unsettling as well as warming and wholesome. There are complex familial dynamics, tension between those who are not as fortunate and those who are at the school Yi attends, and the need to hide from others who lack the abundance the Zhu family is blessed with.

But such abundance does not come free, and even though the Zhu family house provides them with everything they need to survive the eco-horror world outside, they are not allowed to share, they are not allowed to question, and because of the way the Zhu family home seems to thrive on death, they will have to sacrifice lives to sustain their way of living.

The Vein by Steph Nelson

In this multi-POV and non-linear debut by Steph Nelson that blends horror, crime, and thriller, the central theme of the novel is very much focused on death and returning ghosts and unravelling the mysteries around disappearances and a found corpse within a silver mine that is not simply a silver mine.

Like the previous two books, there are characters within this book that may go to desperate lengths to obtain wealth, to the point of making unspeakable sacrifices. And sometimes, the beckoning of death is not something easy to shut out or look away from, especially when what it promises entices more than the fear of getting blood on our hands.

For some of the characters “life built upon death” might be dedicating their lives to discovering the reality behind a loved one’s death, and for others, it is more similar to Zilian and the Zhu family, where only through the death of others can the character live.

This is a book both about holding onto those who have passed and learning to let go, as well as discovering the necessity of the latter.

Did you miss any previous Chaos Trifecta posts? Check them out:

#1 – Cabinet of Curiosities
#2 – On Guilt
#3 – Death Note
#4 – Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre
#5 – Folklore
#6 – Steps of Death in Three Stories