Rip the belly into two – the three month cage has done its job. [1]
Wrangle with the blood and flesh and organs and dig until you get
to the very center and pick your harvest. It’s been a long wait.

[1] When I first saw her skinning it a wave of cold dread went through me. It looked too big, too round, unlike the flat body of a fish. “It’s shark,” Grandma said. “You like fish, right?”

Its cries will be piercing at first, but don’t let it distraught you.
Clean up the blood, peel any leftover membrane. Do this with care,
it’s very fragile [2], and very rare [3].

[2] Its clear, bulbous eyes looked at me in a permanent state of petrified shock, mouth half opened in its last futile attempt to cry. It’s no longer than the width of the square sink – a juvenile, a baby from the ocean.

[3] Sharks belong in oceans. Or if not, they should be in a restaurant somewhere, weighed under a bed of ice. Not in the sink where my Grandma mauls its intestines and butchers it. 100 million are hunted each year, and for some reason one had to end up here.

In a large boiling pot, boil the broth at medium to high heat. 
Add shredded drumstick, scallops, crab meat, and shiitake mushrooms.
Then gently lay it in the soup [4], add shaoxing wine and soy sauce. Boil for 10 minutes.

[4] She cooked it in curry because she knows I love nothing else than curry fish. My dad was thrilled about the feast (shark is expensive). He picked up his chopsticks and went straight for the head, pierced into the fleshy eye and scooped up the perfect ball of muscle, its bulbous flesh dripping with sweetness. The whole thing came off perfectly, leaving nothing but a gaping hole behind that you could see the other side of the bowl.  He gave it to me. “Your favourite.”

Turn off the heat and start plating. Grab your bowl and fill it with the soup first,
Make sure you add in the other ingredients too. Then finally, plate the jewel [5] right
at the very center. Top it off with the placenta. Swirl the umbilical cord as decor.

[5] Shark is delicious. Its meat is unlike fish meat. There is something heavy about shark flesh. A certain fishiness, a certain taste of blood. I could imagine how big it would have grown, how it would become one of the many kings of the sea. The descendant of the Megalodon, the last few giants in the world, the thing closest to a miracle of the long-lost dynasty.

When Dad gave me the eye – the same eye that gawked at me that morning – I couldn’t say no. So I ate, chewed past the fishiness, the lingering taste of blood.  Swallowed the eye, the head, the meat – everything – whole and after a while I got used to it.

Dinner is served [6].

[6] Right before I went to sleep I vomited. For the first five minutes nothing came out. Finally, I retched them: the dog, the cat, the elephant, the pangolin, the tiger, the monkey, the bat, the bear, and the shark, all their bones and eyes floating in the toilet bowl, prehistoric artefacts. And finally, with the biggest breath I could take I heaved and pushed, delivered the piece de resistance – the baby, my son, disfigured child of the future, born into the dying world eaten away by me.

what is the loss
here? father, you were 
a ghost in our lifetime –
living poltergeist, black demon,
haunting your children
even in broad daylight.
we knew you by your drunk stupor,
by your furious, inebriated banging
of doors and roars. we knew you
by your silence, floating
through our lives, absent
if not for our fights.

you are dead now,
body in a casket,
we see you clearly more than ever.
the minister gives a eulogy –
a standard textbook answer.
how could this be you?
but then we catch the wisp
of a memory: a day at the beach,
a graduation ceremony, your last smile,
and we tear.

the casket seals shut and
we send you off: the ghost has turned to ashes.
we sob, this loss is too great to bear –
father, you were a ghost
in our lifetime, but now
you’re really gone.

The casual conversations, the lighthearted jokes –
It is almost like childhood when we had dinner together.
Now we’re back at it again after years of separation,
but the lights are a bit dim.

You order the most expensive things, things you’d never
thought of ordering for me before: 
Wagyu beef, premium scallops, foie gras and
deluxe hotpot with abalone… I feel the bile rising up my throat, tell you that

it’s enough, it’s enough, please Idon’twanttoeatandIcannoteatand
everythingissoexpensive – but you wave me off. My heart drums
with dreadful excitement when you order our favourite unagi, upsized
for good measure.

I’ve never seen you treat anyone like this before. Anyone
except your exes. I see your eyebags and I wonder
if it is me who’s been keeping you up at night instead of your flings.
I wonder if you are as generous with me as you are with them.

The doctor said I’ll die if I don’t eat. I guess that’s why you finally
showed up at mom’s place today in a white suit after years of silence,
looking faintly like Prince Charming from my childhood.
And I am barely a Cinderella, too sick for the gown and have long outgrown the shoe.

Everything cost two hundred dollars in total, but you pay without the blink of an eye.
I watch you claim your rebates and points and you tell me how this will be
our thing now. We’ll go to a better place next time, with better food,
better people, better experiences, and I’ll get better, better, better…

When I reach home, I stick the fingers down my throat,
my eyes burn and blur at the remnants
of your sheer love. Tonight’s dinner is a first,
and I will make it last.

Father’s love is him sending me to the hospital for a checkup
immediately after Mommy told him about my problem.
(He argued that it was too sudden and troublesome.)
He called for a last minute half-day off just to make it.

Father’s love is the payment he makes for all my medical bills.
(He tells me not to see the Nutritionist because “it’s a waste of time”) 
He encourages me to buy the anti-depressants when I say
“I’m worried about the cost”.

Father’s love is a dinner we haven’t had in ages.
(The doctor said I’ll die if I don’t eat; Father stopped arguing then.)
We spend the time together, finally able to see each other after years of separation.
(But the lights are a bit dim.)

Father’s love is the expensive things he’s ordered for me:
(he’d never do this for me before)
Wagyu beef with foie gras,
deluxe hotpot with abalone, oysters, and premium scallops,
unagi rice upsized with extra unagi and rice for good measure.
(They were all on promotion)
The whole thing cost $200 but he didn’t even bat an eye.

Father’s love is when he finally turns up at Mommy’s place after years
of silence, his white suit sparkling like some Prince Charming or Knight or
some nobleman from my childhood.
(Mommy tells me to be wary; he was like this when they got married,
and look at where they are now.)
We watch a movie together and he buys me cake,
looking at me with pride and hope as I take each bite.
(I don’t tell him that I hate chocolate and that my toilet trips aren’t for the toilet.)

Father’s love is the outing we have every weekend –
a walk in the park counting squirrels, a movie, and a dinner.
It is the jokes we exchange and the conversations in the car.
It is the pats on the shoulder and kisses on my head.
(He did this with all his girlfriends, and they always broke up after a month.)

Father’s love is-
Father’s love is?
Father’s love is…

Father’s love is
the things he’ll do for me
(for now)
And I will make it last.