Last night the sky detonated.
Fireworks punched holes in the dark. Gods were fed. Fortune was negotiated in smoke and red paper. Somewhere above the South China Sea, divine accountants stamped our paperwork for the Year of the Horse.
Today I attempted to finish Act III.
It was not peaceful.
I fought chapters like a deranged lighthouse keeper wrestling fog. I swore at sentences. I cramped my wrist. I laughed at myself. I high-fived the air like a cranky old wizard who had finally bullied reality into alignment.
Act III stands.
Is it brilliant? No.
Is it alive? Yes.
Draft 0.9 is the brace on the knee. You don’t need perfection. You need structure that holds when you put weight on it.
Mid-spell, the family returned from a three-kilometer pilgrimage to the village with buns and a pound of mussels. And suddenly there was chaos.
Someone used fresh water.
Or maybe salt.
Or maybe it was dramatic miscommunication amplified by wizard temperament.
Either way, I sprinted down the hallway like Gandalf in Crocs trying to save shellfish from a freshwater apocalypse.
The mussels survived.
So did the book.
They are now in the fridge, plotting quietly.
Tonight: garlic, butter, German beer. Cape Breton by way of China. Dalhousie ghosts approving from a foggy Atlantic shoreline.
And then the gold medal game.
They say Sidney Crosby might dress. Brace on the knee. The old captain from Cole Harbour. Twenty years ago he was a kid and I was younger and we both believed time was something that happened to other people.
Now he tapes up damaged cartilage and steps toward another final.
Across from him: American grinders, the Tkachuk brothers, Jack Eichel — built like Elmo meets the trolls.
On our side: Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Big Mack Celebrini, speed that bends physics, plus enough goons to remind everyone this is still a contact sport.
I live in China. I think in two currencies and two myth systems. Most days I am soy sauce and dumplings and fireworks.
But tonight?
Go Canada, go.
My dad flew across oceans to sit on my couch and watch this one. The man who asked me a hundred questions a day is here for ninety minutes of sacred silence.
That feels like myth.
Writing Amos & The Edge of Chaos felt like Crosby putting on the brace.
Not perfect, not painless, but inevitable.
There is always chaos.
There is always correction.
There is always a cranky wizard sprinting down the hallway trying to save the mussels.
Flash in the pan.
Sometimes the spell holds.
My Friends! I wish you well.
Kai
