A Whimsical Story
THE HAWSER (索) There existed at some point in time, a nation divided by a line. The line divided the North-eastern regions from the Rest of the land. The North-eastern region had as its emblem a hammer. The Rest had as its emblem lightning. Hammer and lightning engaged in occasional oratorical skirmishes and fisticuffs, resulting in an auditory melee that was only rarely mellifluous. A concerned citizen (he had a few epithets - the Bridge-Builder, the Rabbit-Trail-Chaser, the Channel-Creator), lived at the divide. He decided that he needed to create a new emblem – the Hawser (索). The Hawser would take the shape of a lightning beam emanating from a hammer. His earnest hope was to combine the strengths of both emblems to create an opalescent (at dawn and dusk) and iridescent (at noon) country, which he imagined to be a rainbow nation; perhaps the country could also serve as a bridge, thereby rendering it a rainbow bridge. (Building bridges was one of his passions.) The North-easter...