TIGER STORY (circa 1976) She invited me to Marblehead one Sunday, took me to a State Fair where we watched prized pigs, chickens and ducklings, ate sugar-glazed apples, and bought two jars of dark raw jungle honey. Later walking on the beach, I gathered pretty shells as she told me how much she enjoyed Bach's Brandenburg Concertos we heard at Harvard. She cooked a tacos dinner, then drove me to the Blue Line station where we waited in a restaurant. Over some strawberry ice cream sundae, she gazed at me with her dark French eyes and asked, "Tell me what you know about the elixir of immortality?" I pulled out from my jacket pocket The Book of Chuang Tzu written over two millenia ago, and read to her from a chapter "The Secret of Life"—     In the State of Lu, there was     a hermit named Shan Pao who     breathed fresh mountain air     and drank pure spring water.     His mind was free of every     earthly attachment. At the     age of seventy, his skin was     as smooth as that of a babe.     Unluckily, one day, he met a     hungry tiger who ate him up. She laughed deeply from her belly. Cupping my face gently in her hands she kissed me softly and whispered "I could eat you up right now!" My ice cream melted in a pool of pink as one train left after another.         — Peter Y. Chou             Palo Alto, 3-8-1990