\nChildren rarely deal in the abstract, and you are no exception. You know Love in the way Mother runs her fingers through your braided locks, and you know Beauty through her, too\u2014hair smooth and black as the river at night, skin bronze like the fields of sand that stretch as far as the eye can see.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhen I grow up, Mother,\u201d you declare, \u201cI would like to be as you are.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nYou remember only bits and pieces of Father, fragments that, when slotted together, never quite make a coherent whole. But you never do try very hard, for there is little to desire outside the life Mother has crafted for you. Mornings, you feed the chickens and tend your garden. There is lemongrass, of course, and peppers and snow peas and scallions. But it is the flowers you care for. Mother points to each of them in turn.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSun Lily. Empress\u2019s Thistle. Blue Mayapple\u2026 If you sing for them, they will sing for you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nWhen you are old enough, Mother teaches you your characters. But you already know Horse and Jar and Empress\u2019s Thistle, just as you know Love and Beauty. You know how they taste, you know how they sound, you know how they feel to the touch.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut Mother only smiles away your objections and says, \u201cTo capture a moment in words is to preserve it in resin.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nPaper and brush, stick and stone. Around and around you go. Your wrist hurts; you develop a crick in your neck. You have not the patience for these exercises of tedium. But you weather them all for Mother\u2026 and the trips that are promised at the close of each. Your lesson of the day over, Mother takes you to the edge of the forest, where a great banyan stands. Again and again, you climb its knotted limbs, lose your grip, and scrape your knees against the tree\u2019s rough bark. But you are a daring child, with limitless energy, and it is not long before you manage to scale the first juncture.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nYou live with Mother in a cottage on the outskirts of a small village. Visitors rarely grace your doorstep. But it is neither fear nor scorn that deters villagers, merchants, and travelers alike; there is simply nothing to gain from venturing this far west, where the road eventually gives way to legions of shifting sand.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd yet, he comes. He, with his long, black locks and skin like white jade.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe first time you see his footprints in the dirt, you do not know what to do with yourself. For you know little of boys and even less of men. But you know flowers, and he picks them for you, white ones that perfume the room you share with Mother.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLike honey,\u201d you say.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLike honey,\u201d Mother agrees.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd you find, suddenly, that you have little need for anything else. The flowers in Mother\u2019s garden pale in comparison, and as for the great banyan\u2014you feel certain your conquest of it has finally come to an end. So you scrub the dirt from beneath your fingers; you spend hours oiling your knees to a shine; you avoid the sun like the plague.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nYour wedding is a joyous occasion. Mother braids your hair and drapes you in robes red as the blood that spills from the pig they slaughter in your honor. That night, you lie beside him in that grand, old house of his and, long after he has drifted off, relive again and again your sweet love making. You knew what to do, then. Knew the way a body can come undone.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nMother came with you to live in this grand, old house. It is some consolation. The place is like a maze. There are more rooms than you ever could have thought possible, and you spend the first few days losing your way to the kitchen, thinking wistfully of the little cottage and the little life Mother spun for you.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut there is a pleasure, too\u2014a certain thrill, of slipping from one echoing hall to the next, knowing all the while that this is yours.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nIt is a mild winter. The snow, when it arrives, does not remain for long. At breakfast, you serve Husband first, then pour cups of tea for Mother and yourself. You wait, patiently, for Husband to raise the cup to his lips, and only then do you inquire, \u201cHave you seen my mother?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nSteam turns his eyes opaque. \u201cShe is out there, in the garden.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nYou are seconds from taking your first sip of tea when Husband speaks once more. \u201cYou are fortunate not to have taken after her.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen the steam clears, you follow the direction of his gaze out the window, and gasp. For you find that he is quite right; with her thin, scraggly hair, pockmarked skin, and dark, sunken eyes, Mother is a hideous sight. How in the world did you fail to notice? Heat creeps up your neck and floods your cheeks. How long have you been sharing your home with a monster?\n<\/p>\n
\nAt dinner that evening, Mother recounts a chance meeting in the garden with a curious squirrel.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI thought they\u2019d all gone to sleep for the winter. You should have seen him!\u201d Mother chuckles. \u201cI swear, he was as intelligent as any human child. He had such shen.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t laugh quite so much,\u201d you blurt out. \u201cYour teeth are rotting where they hang.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMother falls still. Husband brings a bowl of steaming rice to his lips. In the quiet that follows, you sigh your relief.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe midwife prescribes you a diet of bitter teas and broths.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNothing cold,\u201d she warns, \u201cunless you wish to be barren as the sand fields to the west.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nYou grimace as the last spoonful of soup slides down your throat. You can feel Mother\u2019s eyes on you. You wish she wouldn\u2019t. She holds a hand over her lips. She has taken to doing so on the few occasions you speak.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d Husband interrupts. \u201cMother, I cannot understand you. You must speak up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMother wishes to tell us that the flowers have bloomed before their time, you think of saying. Instead, you fix your gaze on the opposite wall and reply, \u201cIt is nothing, Husband. It is nothing worth repeating.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nYou see little of Mother and hear even less of her. But more important matters occupy your days.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou are to have a daughter,\u201d the midwife proclaims.\n<\/p>\n
\nHusband wanted a son, of course. But there is still time; you are still so very young. You place a hand upon your stomach. You have yet to show, but you imagine you can feel the flutter of life beneath your palm.\n<\/p>\n
\nHow splendid. How very splendid.\n<\/p>\n
\nMovement draws your attention. You look up just in time to catch a silhouette shifting out of view.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI thought it was the rats scurrying about.\u201d Husband shakes his head. \u201cBut it is only ever her, scattering with the shadows of dusk.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThat night, as you ready for bed, another shadow shifts in the corner of your eye, and you know she is there. Her calling card. You feel her eyes on your back. You wish she wouldn\u2019t.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis house,\u201d Mother murmurs. \u201cIt feels smaller and smaller with each passing day, does it not?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nYou say nothing. It is exactly how you feel. But there is no need to encourage the old woman.\n<\/p>\n
\nWordlessly, Mother hobbles forward and, from the folds of her green, tattered robes, draws out a plain, wooden box.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHow many times do I have to tell you I have no need for your old scraps?\u201d you say in exasperation.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThen humor your mother this last time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nYou take the box from Mother\u2019s sun-bitten hands and make to open it.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNot yet, my love.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe time is not yet right.\u201d She dips her head. \u201cBut when it comes, you will know.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat is it?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nBut she says nothing more. When, at last, the door closes behind Mother, you cross the room and bury the wooden box at the bottom of your wardrobe.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe next morning, you wake, as you always do, before Husband. You allow your gaze to dance across the dining room.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDid we have a guest over the night before?\u201d you ask.\n<\/p>\n
\nHusband glances up from his tea and frowns. \u201cNo, we did not.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYes, of course.\u201d You breathe out a laugh. Touch the third cup of tea you have poured. \u201cWe did not.\u201d Slowly, you reach over and roll up the extra mat of bamboo. And yet how strange it is that the house feels far emptier than it had before.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen you return to your tea, you find that it has already gone cold.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe child comes in July, just as the first birdsong of dawn splits the horizon.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat a splendid omen!\u201d the midwife cries.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut you have ears only for the gentle breaths of Daughter, finally fallen fast asleep. What a thrill it is to know you made such a wondrous thing. That she comes from you. That your love is hers.\n<\/p>\n
\nHow splendid. How very splendid.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nAfter Daughter is born, you are given a month of restoration. You venture not a step beyond the front door. You are forbidden to bathe or tread across marble. You adopt a diet of rice wine that leaves you heady at night. Minor inconveniences. For Daughter, you would spend an eternity with your hair unwashed.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut it comes as some relief to feel again the wind, infused with the last remnants of summer, upon your cheeks. Husband takes you on a walk down the main road. Each time he asks whether it is time to turn back, you reply, \u201cJust a little farther.\u201d It has been so long since you felt the smooth contours of the earth beneath your feet, and you allow your body to do as it pleases.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt takes you to a place where the trees grow wild.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere is nothing beyond here,\u201d Husband says, waving a dismissive hand. \u201cNothing but an ocean of sand. It is a pity, yes, a pity. Think of all we could do with so much land.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nYou are listening, of course. But not quite hearing. For, among the trees, you have gleaned the outline of a house. A cottage, really, and as you draw closer, you glimpse a garden out front. It is a sickly tangle of green; weeds have all but strangled the life out of the small, drooping blossoms between.\n<\/p>\n
\nWho would so callously allow these flowers to wilt? It fills you with such inexplicable rage, and it is a wonder you manage to hold your tongue the whole way back.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut he must see the anger written across your face. \u201cIt is not such a loss, really,\u201d Husband consoles you later that evening. \u201cThose flowers are not such lovely things.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nYou sigh. He is right; you are being quite unreasonable. \u201cWho lives there?\u201d you inquire. \u201cDo you know, Husband?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo one lives there. No one has lived there for as long as I can remember.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe plague comes as the frost begins to melt and takes with it your husband. For a month, you wear nothing but white\u2014white robes, white veil, and white socks\u2014to match the profundity of your sorrow. When you catch your reflection in the mirror, you are reminded of the white flowers he once picked for you.\n<\/p>\n
\nDaughter is too young to mourn him. You know she will remember only bits and pieces of her father, fragments that, when slotted together, never quite make a coherent whole. But you hope she will never try very hard, that she will desire little beyond the life you give her.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe two of you have no need for such a grand, old house anymore, so you pack your belongings and move into the cottage among the grove of wild trees. You spend hours toiling in the garden. The herbs and vegetables have long since rotted off and need to be replanted. But the flowers persisted. Hardy little things. You sing as you work, and the flowers burst brazenly forth.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSun Lily,\u201d you tell Daughter. \u201cEmpress\u2019s Thistle. Blue Mayapple\u2026 If you sing for them, they will sing for you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nOne evening, long after Daughter has drifted off, you find, hidden in a dusty cupboard, brush, paper, stick, and stone. How strange, you think, as you set them out on the table. For, brush in hand, your body seems to move of its own accord.\n<\/p>\n
\nHorse, you write. Jar. Empress\u2019s Thistle.\n<\/p>\n
\nOutside, the night creatures softly sing. But the house is quiet. Quiet, save for you.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTo capture a moment in words is to preserve it in resin.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nYou press your fingers to your lips. You do not quite understand the meaning of it all. Only that it needed to be said. Only that you have heard it once before.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nDaughter learns her characters reluctantly, but she climbs the great banyan at the edge of the forest with startling enthusiasm. After a long day out in the sun, her hair is sorely in need of re-braiding. You sit her before the mirror in your room and run a wooden brush through her thick, black locks, until it feels, at last, as if water is spilling between your hands\u2026\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIs something wrong, Mother?\u201d Daughter twists around to grin up at you. A mischievous expression. \u201cYou look as if you\u2019ve seen a phantom.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo, my love.\u201d Laughing, you nudge her head back around and begin braiding once more. \u201cPhantoms do not tread among the living.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nShe taps you lightly on the arm. \u201cWhen I grow up, Mother,\u201d Daughter sighs, \u201cI wish to be just as you are.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nShe shares your eyes. You miss the next weft. You will have to start all over again.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nDaughter makes good progress on her brushwork. And the tree. She grows like one, too. Her robes require fitting and refitting; the fat has sloughed off her cheeks, gone elsewhere upon her body. Tonight, you will have to coax out another stitch.\n<\/p>\n
\nOnly yesterday, you were crawling into my lap, you think of saying. Instead, you smile, take a seat on a weathered, gray stone, and watch her climb.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nIt is a difficult thing to explain, only that what happens next feels all but inevitable: one afternoon, you spot a pair of unfamiliar footprints stamped into the dirt outside your house. Back inside, you smell their honeyed fragrance before you lay eyes on them\u2014a collection of white flowers strewn across the bedroom sill.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat do you call these, Mother?\u201d Daughter\u2019s cheeks are gently flushed, and there is a luster in her eyes you have never seen before.\n<\/p>\n
\nYou smile against the seed of despair that has taken root in your heart. \u201cIt will come to me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nDaughter marries him on a warm, summer night, and you move with the two newlyweds into their house. It is a grand, old place; on days when the sun floods dazzling through the windows, you feel as if there is room enough for the whole village within the walls of the house.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut it is evening now, and you stand behind Daughter, running a brush through her long, black hair. There is something on her mind; you can tell by the slight tremor that runs along her jaw, as if she is tasting words she is not yet ready to share.\n<\/p>\n
\nSo you wait. You wait until she is ready. And when she is, Daughter confesses, in a small voice, \u201cSometimes, I cannot even find the front door.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nFor a moment, you say nothing. Then, you caress her chin and reply, \u201cIf you are ever lost, you need only listen for the wind.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nIt works. The days come and go, and you watch Daughter transform from a guest in her own home into the lady of the house. There is a surety in her step when she strides from room to room; her spine uncurls.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen autumn arrives, you find yourself seeking the garden and the last of the sun\u2019s fleeting warmth. Their season of life over, the flowers have begun to draw in on themselves. A little bird, sweetly singing, lands next to you.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWill it be a difficult winter?\u201d you ask it.\n<\/p>\n
\nTo your surprise, the bird tilts its head to one side, as if pondering your question, and lets loose a series of chatters.\n<\/p>\n
\nYou are laughing in delight when you hear Son\u2019s voice low in the distance.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cShe has a braying sort of voice,\u201d he observes.\n<\/p>\n
\nYour blood turns cold; your muscles follow. But the laughter does not quite die from your lips. Until you hear Daughter\u2019s reply, in an odd sort of voice:\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYes. I suppose she does.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nYou learn silence quickly enough. Alone in your garden, however, you allow yourself to sing. Softly, unobtrusively, so it can only be mistaken for the wind. It is a secret all your own. Or not quite. For the flowers know, too, and it seems to you they possess the loosest of lips, bursting forth before their time with every stolen song they overhear.\n<\/p>\n
\nYes. They possess the loosest of lips. If only, you think, if only Daughter cared to listen.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nYou keep your hands busy: cooking, cleaning, tending the garden. But it is not always enough; at night, you find your fingers reaching for phantom strands, tracing wefting patterns in the still air.\n<\/p>\n
\nOne morning, you are tossing out the last dregs of tea when Daughter walks past. She catches sight of you and slows and shakes her head.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI wish you would not go out in public, looking as you are,\u201d Daughter sighs.\n<\/p>\n
\nYou abandon the teapot. In the quiet of your room, you stare into the mirror\u2019s blurred depths, and gasp. For you find that Daughter is quite right. From then on, you wrap what is left of your thinning hair in a moth-bitten scarf. But there is little you can do about your dark, sunken eyes, except learn to make yourself small. Keep to the wee hours of the day.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen the midwife comes, however, you cannot help yourself; you follow her to Daughter\u2019s bedroom, where she and Son are already gathered. You press yourself into the shadows. Minutes pass in silence. You do not dare breathe, not until the proclamation comes:\n<\/p>\n
\nYou are to have a granddaughter. A granddaughter. You press a hand to your heart; your eyes fill with tears. And perhaps that is why you do not step aside quickly enough to evade Son\u2019s scrolling gaze.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere your mother goes again,\u201d he mutters, \u201ccreeping about like some phantom of the night.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nDaughter turns to stare at you. An opaque look. \u201cPhantoms do not tread among the living.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen the midwife leaves, you return to your room and retrieve, from the depths of your wardrobe, a cloth sack. You do it without venom, without malice. You have not the words to describe what lies in your heart. But you imagine yourself as an hourglass. Not a very good one. There is a puncture in the lower bulb, and you are hollowing out.\n<\/p>\n
\nYou fetch the brush and your underthings first. Though your hands move with certainty, it is slow work. You stare down at the contents of your existence. How strange it is that the sum of one\u2019s life can fit so comfortably within a cloth sack. Sighing, you lift the last of your robes off the bottom of your wardrobe, and gasp. For there, lying quite inconspicuously, is a small, wooden box.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe time is not yet right. But when it comes, you will know. Someone had told you so, years ago. But who was it? Husband?\n<\/p>\n
\nOr perhaps a visitor, for whom you had lain out a third mat at the table.\n<\/p>\n
\nSlowly, you nudge open the lid. Small though it is, the box is far too large for its contents: enveloped between the petals of a living blossom, a square of folded parchment. This, you take between your leathery fingers and smooth as best you can against your knee. Lines of writing, outlined in an unhurried hand, stare back at you. A letter. It has been years since you last went over your characters. You were young, then. Beautiful, too. Daughter had told you as much. You squint down at the paper, and, despite the cataracts in your eyes, despite the sudden pain in your chest, you read, haltingly, the contents of the letter:\n<\/p>\n
\nMy love\u2014\n<\/p>\n
\nBy the time you read this, you will have forgotten my name, my very voice. Such is the curse we bear. But even if you cannot remember all the nights you fell into my embrace, you must know you came from somewhere.\n<\/p>\n
\nCan we begin, first, with the flowers? Sun Lily. Empress\u2019s Thistle. Blue Mayapple. The ones who persist. If you sing to them, they will sing to you. You are starting to remember now, aren\u2019t you? Your hand between another\u2019s, tracing the characters for horse, jar, Blue Mayapple. Like a seed taking root in your mind, like an echo, you know that to capture a moment is to preserve it in resin.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis is where our tale begins; this is where it ends\u2014with sand, legions upon legions of it stretching as far as the eye can see. Cup a handful of sand between your palms, and what does it do? It scatters on the wind.\n<\/p>\n
\nDoes it surprise you, daughter, to know this is where we come from? You, I, my mother before me, and your daughter after you\u2014that we should be so pliant, so easily impressed, so coolly forgotten? It should not, my love. For who are we? Who are we if not reflections of how the world sees us? What is our worth, if not rooted in the love we give and the love we receive?\n<\/p>\n
\nBut look again. Look once more upon the sand dunes to the west. Try to take those between your palms. It is not such a simple task, is it? They are not so effortlessly displaced.\n<\/p>\n
\nDaughter, this is nothing you do not already know. For you remember the flowers and the braids and the character for horse. But do you remember the great banyan? The one your daughter climbed once, twice, three times before she fell and scraped her knees. She cried into your arms that day, and you wondered what you had done in your life to deserve such happiness. Tonight and every night after, this is where you will find me, waiting beneath the branches of the towering tree.\n<\/p>\n
\nThere is a thorn in your heart, daughter. An ache. It is only natural. But do not cry, my love. Do not mourn us. For is it not a blessing to know a love like this? A love that waits. A love that endures. A love not so effortlessly displaced.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nBy the time you step foot in the valley where the forest begins, there is no trace of the sun on the horizon. This is fine. For you no longer need the light of day to see what your body remembers: a gentle dip beneath your feet, the scent of furred moss. When, at long last, the banyan\u2019s great crown draws into view, you slow.\n<\/p>\n
\nFor all the memories come flooding back again, and Mother\u2014Mother is just as lovely as you remember, with hair smooth and black as the river at night, skin bronze like the fields of sand that stretch as far as the eye can see. And her laughter, when it leaps off her tongue, is sweet as birdsong.\n<\/p>\n
\nDo not cry, you remind yourself. Do not mourn us. But you allow yourself this much: to run the rest of the way, to fling yourself into Mother\u2019s warm, familiar embrace. Where she touches you, your spine uncurves; where she kisses you, your skin grows tender; and when she runs her fingers through your hair, silky, black locks burst forth like water from an undammed spring.\n<\/p>\n
\nAt long last, you extricate yourself from Mother\u2019s arms, and only then do you realize the two of you are not alone; for there are others standing beneath the tree\u2019s knobby branches, and their eyes, when you gaze into each of them in turn, look just like yours.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe ground crunches beneath your feet as you pace forward. You glance down. You never noticed before all the sand here, caught between the tree\u2019s knotted roots. You bend and scoop up a handful. Almost immediately, an errant breath of wind whisks off the fine grains. You smile, stand, and embrace each of the women. Then, there is nothing left to do but take a seat by the weathered, gray stone.\n<\/p>\n
\nPaper and brush, stick and stone. This is what the women give and you receive in turn. You gaze down at the blank page. It has been years since you last went over your characters. You were young, then. Beautiful, too. Just as you are now.\n<\/p>\n
\nMy love, you write.\n<\/p>\n
Sophia Zhao is a fiction writer whose work is forthcoming in Apricity Magazine. She is currently based in New York City.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Children rarely deal in the abstract, and you are no exception. You know Love in the way Mother runs her fingers through your braided locks, and you know Beauty through her, too\u2014hair smooth and black as the river at night, skin bronze like the fields of sand that stretch as far as the eye can …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20191],"tags":[20193],"class_list":["post-140848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-55-spring-2025","tag-the-colored-lens-55-spring-2025","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/108125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140848"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140850,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140848\/revisions\/140850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}