Chang Er hunches over her desk working. The administration of the moon is no easy task and the goddess has only one employee to assist her. She has been petitioning for another headcount, but each time the Queen Mother of the West—the highest goddess of nine supreme heavens, embodiment of ultimate yin, dispenser of prosperity, longevity and eternal bliss—would point towards a cluster of gloomy clouds and heave a melancholic sigh. “Take a look, Chang Er. The world is in chaos. This isn’t the time to be talking about transferring staff to your office.”
Except for the annual mid-autumn festival when devotees gather outside their homes bearing lanterns to marvel at the moon at its brightest and fullest, no one pays much notice to Chang Er. Mankind is constantly stirring up a deluge of problems that demands greater attention from the other gods overseeing earth’s affairs. Not that it bothers her. She dreads the long meetings and work lunches and the petty gossip and is content with wading into a sea of calculations at her desk by herself.
For a start, she did not choose this job. Or rather, she had no inkling a job such as Goddess of the Moon existed. Or that one could actually be appointed to the management of the moon for as long as you meet the basic requirements. All it took was a strange twist of fate that she found herself thrust into this place–literally.
Initially baffled by the math, Chang Er nevertheless threw herself into the calculations and began by memorising all the celestial rules and lunar formulas and heavenly protocol from the towering pile of books the Ministry delivered to her office on the first day. By the time she reached the bottom of the pile, a century had whizzed past. Life as a goddess on the moon is not as remarkable and varied as she’d imagined it to be.
The other employee on the moon is Jade Rabbit. He has eyes that are big, round, the colour of jade, floppy ears, a coat of soft white fur that glows warmly like the moon, a short fluffy tail and an effortless vitality radiating from the way he hops, which altogether gives him a lively and lovable appearance.
But what is most outstanding about Jade Rabbit is his unparalleled talent for the culinary arts. It is simple mathematics really. He has spent the past three thousand and five hundred years observing how ordinary housewives to celebrity chefs prepare their meals. These mortals on the other hand, even those with Michelin Stars, only have a couple of decades to sharpen their skills, flaunt their talents, raise kids and vacation in exotic destinations.
Chang Er first met Jade Rabbit the day he turned up at the door introducing himself as her new assistant. Two things surprised her here: first, a new colleague because no one told her she was to expect one, and second, a talking rabbit because no one told her stuff like that exist.
This encounter took place at a time when she was still adjusting to the latter period of her life she now refers to as “After Drinking (A.D.)”. Then, her life had just diverged from its proper path, irrevocably upended by an incident that stuck like a thunderbolt on a cloudless day.
Contrary to how some folklore have characterized her as a conniving woman who abandoned her husband, Chang Er swears the entire episode was unplanned.
•
3500 years ago
A cloudy blue in spring, nearing mid-day. The sound of sparrows chattering on the upturned eaves narrowed to a soft hum through the lattice windows. Chang Er was alone at home and attending to the household chores. Her husband was out teaching archery. He’d be back in the evening, he had told her before stepping out of the house at dawn with a bow and quiver of arrows slung over his back. Since the afternoon was free, Chang Er had wanted to catch the matinee performance of The Peony Pavilion. She’d be done with the chores by lunch. The theatre was not far, a fifteen minutes’ walk down the street.
Her neighbour and good friend, Cai Yun, eldest daughter of a prosperous silk merchant, had cried for three days after watching the opera. Fair and slender, her delicate appearance complemented her excessively sentimental nature. The day before the incident, they’d met at their favourite teahouse for lunch. Cai Yun clasped both of Chang Er’s hands in hers, tears streaming down her brightly rouged cheeks. “Promise me you will watch The Peony Pavilion,” she uttered in between breathless sobs. Her speech was almost incomprehensible against the sound of raindrops pelting down cobblestones. Outside, the overcast sky was breaking up into a downpour. Chang Er nodded with a soft smile and assured her friend she would do that.
But while Chang Er was in her husband’s study sorting the calligraphy scrolls and poetry books strewn over the table, she found a bottle, exquisite and unfamiliar. Small enough to rest inside her palm, the bottle was shaped like a sphere and had a short narrow neck fitted with a stopper. On the shiny curved surface, was a painting of a peach blossom tree, intricate strokes of hues unusually bright and vivid.
Chang Er felt a small flame flicker in her throat. She curiously rotated and flipped the bottle, left and right, up and down. But nothing indicated what was inside. As she stared long and hard at the bottle, she thought she saw the peach blossom tree stirring as if a gentle wind was passing through.
At once, the flame lashed out in her body like a wild beast, flaring red and hot. Chang Er felt the air escaping from her lungs and her throat drying out like a bone. It was a burning sensation unlike any other. The most excruciating pain fit for the gods. Just as she thought she was about to die, into her mind a voice crept.
Drink it.
That decision would thwart her afternoon plans and the trajectory of her life forever.
•
It could be the after-effects of drinking what was in the bottle. Or the shock at finding her house beneath her feet and herself heading heavenwards past the clouds, into massive blackness and onto a cratered rock surface. Whatever the cause, Chang Er had little memory of the ensuing events. “A bizarre dream,” was all she could say.
To find out what happened, Chang Er laid out in chronological order the stack of news articles Jade Rabbit had collected. Chang Er was not sure what Jade Rabbit meant when he said she was “dominating the headlines” but he made it sound like a very positive thing and that secretly encouraged her while she was in a state of confusion. “Let me show you!” he had said to her. The excitement in his voice was infectious.
Piece by piece, Chang Er studied the news articles, starting from the earliest. Internal Security Bureau. Complaints. Alcohol. Queen’s Mother Office. Screaming. These words leaping out at Chang Er–she of the Confucian educated: do not lose your clarity of mind from drinking–were enough to mortify her moral senses and drive her into her bedroom and beneath the blanket.
It’s a conspiracy, it must be, she tried to convince herself as she curled like a baby. But why? And how? What was in the bottle? Where did it come from?
There were plenty of questions but no answers. It was as if a thief had stolen her memories and left her nothing to recollect.
“I’m feeling sick. I’ll be skipping dinner tonight,” she yelled when Jade Rabbit knocked on her door.
•
A week passed and Chang Er, still in her bedroom, was exhausted from the futile rumination. She concluded it was too great a burden trying to figure things out at this point. Perhaps it would be better to forget what happened and move on. Taking a deep breath, she rolled out of bed and stepped out of her room.
But at the reception hall downstairs, the news articles–the last thing Chang Er wanted to see–confronted her in the form of a wall collage flaunting a misplaced pride.
“Good morning Chang Er! Are you feeling better today? What do you think of the Wall of Fame?” came Jade Rabbit’s voice as he hopped out from the kitchen, holding a tray of deep-fried dough sticks steaming fresh from the oven.
“Wa…wall?”
“Wall of Fame. We must keep a record of all the news articles for posterity. You know, chronicling the office’s milestones is important,” Jade Rabbit said. He explained that he had specifically chosen the wall at the side of the reception hall that faces the entrance. It was a strategic location enjoying high visibility and a natural spot to display the news articles.
Motionless and with lips slightly apart, Chang Er stared at the wall, the way one regards an overpriced art piece at a gallery. Visions were taking shape in front of her eyes, but they were all jumbled up, playing the wrong way like an accident. She did not know if they were from her memories or imagination or a mix of both. Whatever the case, the news articles still made no sense to her. The stark white wall from a week ago had morphed into a hare-brained nightmare.
In a split-second, Chang Er felt as if she was on the verge of annihilating the Wall of Fame. Instincts prompted her to turn away and she let her gaze drop to Jade Rabbit’s glistening eyes. He was looking at her like a hopeful child waiting to be praised for his stellar grades. Maybe it was the jade green. Maybe it was the slant of the sunlight through the glass panes. Or the way he tipped his head to one side to look up at her. Whatever it was, it tamed her violent impulse.
Jade Rabbit is only trying his best to do his job. Jade Rabbit is only trying his best to do his job, Chang Er repeated in her mind like a mantra. With control, she held in her displeasure, eking out a smile and a nod.
Present Day
“I’m afraid your appointment with the Queen Mother will have to wait. Her Highness is still in a meeting with the God of Wealth,” the secretary says to Chang Er. “Some cryptocurrency malware going on a rampage. You know how it is.”
There is a cold hard edge to her voice. A slight and wiry woman, the secretary has a pixie hairdo that Chang Er recalls seeing in an issue of Vogue Jade Rabbit brought back from a recent visit to a Parisian fine dining restaurant.
“It’s alright. I understand,” Chang Er replies with a smile that neatly smoothens all signs of irritation on her face. An interpersonal skill necessary for the job and one she has cultivated to perfection since she was appointed Goddess. “I’ll schedule another meeting with the Queen Mother next month then.”
Maybe I should be asking for a transfer to another department instead.
Although staying low-key suits Chang Er’s personality, it is not without inconveniences. Matters like seeking an audience with the Queen Mother is noticeably harder especially with the current situation on earth.
Chang Er arrives at the porch of her office an hour ahead of schedule and tiptoes to the door. Cautiously she grasps and turns the doorknob and gives it a gentle push. The door opens with a slight squeak and she pokes her head in. The reception hall is empty and quiet. She heaves a small sigh of relief and enters.
It is a pain having visitors swarm her with eyes brimming with curiosity and awe as they inundate her with mundane questions like What do you do every day? and How do you perform an eclipse? As well as the occasional rude ones like Is it true you abandoned your husband? and Why did you steal from him?
And when they are done with the questions, they would rustle around the moon, go ooh and ahh, and poke their mobile phone-loaded selfie sticks everywhere. The scene, with flashes of camera light popping like a long sequence of fireworks, depending on how you see it, is either riotous or festive.
Chang Er avoids visitors like the plague, preferring to leave them to Jade Rabbit whose gregarious personality fitted him to tasks like these. He loves meeting new folks and giving them a tour of the moon. (Spending hours in the kitchen without someone to talk to can be hard on a bunny.)
But whenever Jade Rabbit goes away on culinary study trips, Chang Er has no choice but to usher visitors around in his stead. There have been several moments when she caught two or three of them, from the corner of her eye, huddled in front of the wall trying to stifle a giggle. It is always the same spot. The black and white photo splashed on half the antiquated front-page cover of The Celestial Daily.
Occasionally a wide-eyed child would tug at her long silk dress, the other hand pointing at the photo, “Ms Goddess, is that you dancing?” What was she to say? After that little girl in glasses and pigtails, Chang Er later discovered that the trick is to feed these pesky kids with candies and comics.
As far as Chang Er is concerned, what matters most now is obtaining the Queen Mother’s approval for a new headcount. Then someone else, instead of her, in Jade Rabbit’s absence, would be able to take over his ushering duties. She is by now resigned to the fact that convincing Jade Rabbit to remove the Wall of Fame is in itself a herculean task, something she should not count on succeeding.
“These are old news, have you ever thought of taking them down?” she’d probed Jade Rabbit at breakfast a week ago.
“But why? I think our visitors appreciate the news articles,” he demurred at the suggestion.
He took a sip of oolong from the porcelain teacup. Whiffs of warm fragrant steam rose, blurring his face as a sagely look came over his eyes. “They’re testaments to our long and rich heritage.”
Unidentified Woman on Moon
Yesterday afternoon, the Internal Security Bureau received several complaints of an unidentified woman running around the moon and screaming at the top of her lungs.
A team of elite law enforcers arrived at the scene to apprehend the woman suspected to be under the influence of alcohol. The woman has been taken into custody at the Queen Mother’s Office and is under investigation for causing public disturbance.
According to several eyewitness accounts, the disheveled-looking woman appeared to be “possessed by madness” and was “very violent”. She had launched into a cacophonic tirade repeatedly screaming, “Is this hell? Am I dead? Get me out of here!”
Investigations are ongoing.
“Moon Woman” was a Mortal Who Drank Husband’s Elixir of Immortality
The unidentified woman who caused public nuisance on the moon three days ago was found to be originally a mortal who goes by the name of Chang Er.
Investigations revealed that she had drunk the Elixir of Immortality, an extremely rare potion designed to gift immortality to human beings. The elixir was created by the Queen Mother of the West as a way to reward outstanding mortals who have attained extraordinary merits on earth.
The Elixir of Immortality that Ms. Chang consumed belonged to her mortal husband, Mr. Hou Yi, who had received it from the Queen Mother for his recent efforts in saving humanity.
A few months ago, an unusual phenomenon occurred when ten suns appeared in the sky, threatening to scorch the earth and bring about the demise of humanity. Mr. Hou, who is widely regarded as the best archer in the entire world, shot down nine of the suns and saved earth from imminent destruction.
Claiming ignorance, Ms. Chang said, “I didn’t know what I’d drunk. I was cleaning my husband’s study room when I found the bottle in his cabinet. Suddenly I felt thirsty, so I drank it [sic].”
Queen Mother Pardons Moon Woman, Makes Her Goddess
The curious case of Ms. Chang Er, which has gripped all of nine supreme heavens in the recent weeks, has finally come to a close today.
Dubbed “Moon Woman” by the media, Ms. Chang, although found guilty of being a public nuisance on the moon two weeks ago, has received an imperial pardon from the Queen Mother of the West. The decision took into consideration the exceptional circumstances involved as well as the fact that she is a first-time offender.
The Ministry of Celestial Appointments has also submitted a report to the Queen Mother recommending Ms. Chang to be appointed Goddess of the Moon in accordance with prevailing celestial protocol.
The Queen Mother’s Office issued a statement yesterday agreeing to the recommendations.
An inside source commented on conditions of anonymity, “Since the position is currently vacant and we do need someone to manage the administration of the moon, we thought it will be a great idea to assign Ms. Chang this role. The recent events have certainly brought unprecedented publicity to a very important but sometimes overlooked heavenly body, and Ms. Chang’s name is now synonymous with the moon.”
Chang Er feels the heat rising to her cheeks. It has been three thousand and five hundred years, but the news clippings look as pristine as ever. Somehow, objects on the moon, like gods, never age. Taking several deep breaths, she follows the aroma of cooked food wafting from the kitchen. To her right, frozen on the wall: a dirt-smudged face and long disheveled hair. The deranged eyes of her doppelganger follow her.
Cherene Leong lives and writes in Singapore. In her free time, she wages sonic assaults on the piano, prowls through museums and art galleries, and reads almost anything from Japanese manga to western philosophy.
Photo courtesy Stocksnap