Author
Note, this is written by a character in another story:
http://www.kristensboard.com/forums/index.php?topic=63586.0;
[Maiden Taiwan
By Kinsey Brooks
"Bye Jian!"
She shook her head, and drove off smiling. I can't get it right, it's not like Jane, Jean, or Jen, but all 3 at once. I don't think I hold my mouth right, and no matter how slow she enunciates it for me, but I haven't been working for her that long.
Then, Cheng came out, with the ski-mask thing he made out of some bicycle shorts with a knot on top, and a hole cut for his eyes. "Ninja!" He said, and held up the ruler.
I was just going to kick the soccer ball around the yard, but he ran back down the hall, so I put it up. He's 8, and Taiwanese. Not Japanese, I think that's China, but between Japan, and the Philipines if you look on the map.
He came to stay with his Aunt, and learn English at school here, which makes sense, since she's taking that in College. They speak it in Taiwan, and she's going to be an English teacher, but his hands aren't big enough to hold the wide metal meter stick. It's like a yardstick, only a little longer, metal, and I can pretend it's like a sword.
So anyway, I turned off cartoons, and figured the neighborhood boys would be over to play Ninjas with him. They don't know the difference between Japanese, and a Chinese Island, they just like to play Ninja, and he's got oriental eyes to peer out the spandex mask.
"Jite!"
"Huh?" He held it up. "What the f'. Uh, heck is that?"
"Jite, Jite!"
It looks like, I don't know, a piece of a robot? I certainly didn't recognize it as anything, just this weird shape of blue plastic, with mechanical stuff in it, like ball bearings, and this thing sticking off the side like a twig.
Or a piece of bright blue coral? "What's it for?" The plastic is squishy, but see through, I thought it would be hard. So the ball bearings can rotate in it, but then I found an on-off switch on the bottom. I had to guess, the arrows went both ways, but I can't read the pictures to tell which is which, and there's a button on the side.
I was trying to see if it had batteries in it, when it sprang into life, and the ball bearings started to spin, but it turned 3 clicks, and the button started rolling up and down.
"Uh!" I dropped it. "Oh, god!"
"Jite!"
He held up a card, a magic card, and it turned out to be spelled Jitte.
"Uh, you better put that back, where you found it."
"Pho polee. Weow weaw!" He ran around, waving it around, making siren noises, until I caught him, and took it away.
"Where did you get this?"
"Awn Jian." Easy for him to say. He can't get the T in Aunt, but Jian is no problem. He showed me in her room.
The box was open, right there, and sure enough, there was a sticker on the flap that said [Made in Taiwan.]
"Well, we can't play with it." You know where it's been? Because I do, and I didn't know they had such fancy robot vibrators, anywhere, but I guess being so close to Japan. You know, I've seen cartoons, they don't show on Saturday mornings, so maybe it's for Squid porn, or something.
I don't know, it's just weird, and mechanical, and organic feeling, and kind of alive when it turned on, and started squirming around in my hand.
"Huh!" Thank goodness his friends showed up to go out and play in the yard with the ruler, and all the plastic swords, and stuff. Viking helmet, and football pads. One even had a big plastic Captain America shield, I think. I don't know, don't really like comic books much more than Soccer, and Ninjas, but I think that's the one with the red white, and blue shield, stars across the top.
Easy to remember, but I keep thinking about that, thing, and looking away from the window. At the hall, and. "Huh!" It's just so weird, but I finished making his snack, and washed my hands for no reason. They just felt dirty, even though I didn't get any peanut butter on my hands, and he likes cheese on one, and bananas on the other half.
Don't ask me why, but after touching that thing, and realizing what it was. Much less where it's been, I should have washed my hands before I started handling food. He'd put in his mouth when he got worn out, but she probably washed it before she put it up, right?
It didn't stink like you'd think it should, but you just kinda have to wonder, what's that all about?
That flat rubbery tip kinda shaped like a tongue, moving slowly round and round, while the ball bearings spun the other way, and the weird thing inside I thought was a switch, before it came alive, and started rolling up, and down, but I can figure out where that twig is supposed to go.
"Cheng!" I held open the door, before I went, and did something stupid. "Come in, and eat your lunch!"
"Oh!" They lowered their weapons.
"Your friends can come back in an hour or two, okay?"
They didn't, they went off to play war or something somewhere else, all afternoon.
I didn't think about it, but after he finished the rest of his milk, and belched. Rubbing his belly, he wiped his mouth, and went right back to his room. To take a nap, he didn't even ask for a story, and he was out like a light.
"Huh!"
'fuck it.' Under my breath.
I was going to wonder until it drove me nuts, and I just had to know. I bet you can't even get them like this, here. In the states, but it's not like I spend much time in Adult Novelty Shops.
Well, it says Magazines, Videos, and Novelties on the sign, under Adult. I know what that means, but when she gets off work, and pays me for the week, I might as well go see what they do have in stock.
But first, I just have to figure this thing out.]
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