He began his tale of the Orient, a place deeply steeped in mysterious ways back then. And a special place called Formosa Street. There, he said, was always a mist beneath a blue moon. There the streets smelled of the aromas of the Chinese kitchens, and the buildings were rickety, boney things that jagged into the sky, and held the many rooms of vices. To be a stranger on the streets of Formosa could be a dangerous thing, but he'd learned to get by unnoticed and enjoy the intrigue of the dark corners there.  

Formosa brought wondrous magic to a traveller, unexpected things could happen there. There was a story of a girl who slept in a gigantic soup bowl. A woman who, left by her lover, refused to ever go back to her life as we think of it, but stay in her room dreaming, floating, caressed by the liquid soup of the kitchens, in her gigantic soup bowl. He said he saw her once, she was a sweet, frail being, whose eyes looked like smoke. 

He said the stories from Formosa were not the ones you normally hear of, as each one was a mystery of what was called the Blue Moon. He would then bring out the ivory combs that he had taken from the girl, and we would hold them as if they were flames. He would say, "Beware the Blue Moon and if you are on Formosa Street, turn up your collar and tread softly through the mist, for the stories are thick and deep there, and the things you see may never come again, so always remember that when winter sets in and the fires blaze, you can tell about it--even if no one believes."  

I live in the Midwest, am a writer and artist, this is an excerpt from my Formosa Dreams series. 

I wish I had traveled the Seven Seas, but can only do it through the inky oceans of my pen. 

E-mail Nancy at lgriffee@alltel.net