Starr and Staff

Starr and Staff

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A Mirror Image Storm
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul
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Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 13: Prisoners of War
Marilyn said wryly, "That's the whole paradox of life, Yukiko. It makes sense, but it makes no sense."
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 12: Street Music
On the street, there was a piano. Ansel gave me a nudge. “Why don’t we play a little street music?” he said.
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 11: Cat Fight
There are so many legends about cats in Japanese folklore. Sometimes magical powers are attributed to them. Yet these cats were a whirlwind of claws and…
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Kenneth Yap

May 2025

Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 10: A Broken Violin
The violin dropped to the floor with a crash, and I could see that it was broken, cracked.
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 09: Angel of Death
Maybe this was just what it was like to be growing up and leaving behind the innocence of childhood: you start to notice the skeletons in your family’s…
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 08: An Unusual Birthday
Today is my sixteenth birthday. I received a number of gifts that I will cherish, but the best gift of all is the one I could give away to others.
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 07: News from Home
For the next few weeks my Aunt Hanami will be visiting us from Japan. She brought us news from home, but not the news we had been longing to hear...
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 06: The Forgetful Wizard
I opened my violin case and started playing for this man who was losing his memory, who once conducted one of the most prestigious orchestras in the…
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 05: Dreams and Snowstorms
In my dream, I was searching for my mother in a snowstorm. It seemed as though the storm had obliterated the whole world. Then I saw two familiar…
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Kenneth Yap

April 2025

Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 04: The Mysterious White Fox
As a child, you never think much about your parents’ lives before you were born. But now I find myself thinking about that constantly.
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 03: My Father's Eyes
There’s a look I see once in a while in my father’s eyes. He has joked sometimes that he’s a professional daydreamer. Other people have called him a…
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Kenneth Yap
Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 02: My Mother's Voice
Closing my eyes today and listening to my mother’s voice singing her most famous song on the CD, I tried to imagine how she must have felt at her final…
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Kenneth Yap
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