James Sie | Professional Voice Actor for Audiobooks

Script:
I spent my first five years in a tiny apartment on the top floor of a six-story, ten-unit building at 26 East Broadway on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Because the tenement's building's cramped staircase was usually unlit, we often had to feel our way up and down the five flights. Eleven of us crammed into the narrow apartment, including my mom, dad, younger sister, grandmother, three uncles, two aunts, and a distant relative of my grandmother's. Without an air conditioner, the place was like a sauna in August. We had one bunk bed, a full-size bed that my grandmother slept on, and one mattress on the floor. Everyone else used bamboo mats on the living room floor. I preferred sleeping on a mat since it was cooler, but because I was her favorite, Grandma, who I called Pawpaw, insisted I sleep beside her on the more comfortable bed. Surrounded by snoring adults honking out a disquieting chorus, I often stared at the dark ceiling, awaiting the nightly show. An army of cockroaches emerging from the crack in the wallpaper. They'd scurry all around the room, and I felt their little legs skittering over my skin as I lay in bed. I didn't mind, though. I was used to them being part of my life.

Script:
When the sunlight fades on August 6, the lantern-floating begins by the bridge. Lantern upon lantern of red and green paper. Once their flames are lit, they begin to glow as if they're alive. When you set them in the river, they shine their light on the dark water as well. The lanterns and souls roll along together. The lights gleam. The lanterns pitch feebly, jostling together as they float away. Some lanterns don't manage to join the current. They bob endlessly by the riverbank. An old man in an open-collared shirt prods them with a pole. Some lanterns tip over. They continue floating away on their sides. The many colored lanterns, their lights flickering, float away to the far-off sea. Ever since she was too young to understand, Nozomi would see the lanterns off each summer with her family, and she would draw a picture in her journal for school. Her little brother, Akiyuki, would say the lanterns floating on the river looked like red and green cubes of kanten, and Nozomi, for her part, would recall an illustration from the story of Aladdin and thought they looked like the jewels he finds in the cave. Then she would bring her forehead right up to the paper and draw The Night of the Lantern Floating Ceremony. In the twenty-fifth summer since the bomb fell, Nozomi's mother knelt next to her and her brother in prayer. There were two lanterns floating away from her hands. The green one had a name written on it, but the white one did not. That summer, when Nozomi was a sixth grader, she thought it strange for the first time. Last year and the year before, and probably the years before that, too, her mother had released two lanterns, a green one and a white one. The white one never had a name. Nozomi had always seen it off without thinking, but now she wondered, who is that lantern for?

Script:
Mel stared at his phone. It was strange to receive a text from Ryan when they were in the same city, only a few miles apart. He'd be perfectly happy to tell Ryan that he was in Toronto and dating Vivian. Except he didn't know what Vivian wanted, and she was asleep. But when he looked down at her, her eyes fluttered open, as if she knew he'd been looking at her. She was gorgeously drowsy. Morning, he said, you've been awake for long? He loved hearing her voice first thing in the morning, when it was sleepy and unpolished, unlike the voice she usually used to speak to the world. Only about 15 minutes, he said. Sleep well? Pretty well, but I'm still a bit tired. I must have worn you out yesterday. I tend to have that effect on people. She chuckled. How about you? You sleep okay? Yeah, no four in the morning insomnia. He rolled on top of her and was about to kiss her, but she turned her mouth away. Morning breath, she said. Let me use mouthwash first. You don't need to. Her stern glare made him laugh. She walked to the bathroom naked, and he certainly wasn't complaining about the view. He took his turn in the bathroom after her. If she used mouthwash, he ought to do her the courtesy of using it too. Then he returned to bed and set to work, making her feel very, very good.

Script:
24, Jules, Lowell slips out into the hall, closing the door behind him. Why didn't you come in, he asks, a puzzled look on his face. I don't know, I just didn't want to interrupt. How is it going? Lowell looks skyward, puffs out his cheeks, a shit show. We aren't allowed to say anything, no naming names, he rolls his eyes. But everyone wants to know what's going on. He stops and stares at the dirt and bloodstains on my white muscle shirt, my wrecked hair, and smeared tattoos. How are you doing? You look like zombie, Harry Styles. I'm okay, had to go to the nurse just to, you know, get the blood off me. Yuck, Lowell lifts his chin, narrows his eyes. You really jumped in there, didn't you? Well, come on in, but before he can reach for the door, it swings open and a blue satin tidal wave spills out into the hallway. Lily Cho's dress, carrying along with it Lily Cho, a chair, a trash bin, and Casey. You know I'm not totally mobile in this outfit, Lily Cho says furiously to Lowell, untangling herself from the chair and pushing it back inside. You left me stranded. She manages to get the door shut, takes a few heavy breaths, then swings Casey in front of her. Casey, this is Jules. Jules, Casey wants to talk to you. Casey looks at me with anxious gray eyes that look huge and watery beneath their glasses. How is Jack? Is he okay? Their voice is soft and low and fast. I hope he's okay. I'm not sure, I say, starting to feel jittery again. I hope so, too. Casey bites their bottom lip, begins twining their hair with nervous fingers. You saw, you saw what he did, right, for me? I nod. He didn't have to do that. Why would he? He doesn't even know me. Gavin is a pig, says Lily Cho fiercely. He should be kicked out of school. He's mostly just ignorant, Casey says. I've known him since. We really need to go back in, Lowell tells me, interrupting Casey. If Jack needs support, he should come to GSA meetings. He's always welcome. How would he know that? Casey's voice is so soft, it's almost a whisper. Lowell cocks his head toward Casey. What? Anyone's welcome. Well, I don't feel welcome, Casey says to a spot on the floor. Silence.

Script:
I live with a bear. The bear sleeps there. Beware! This is what the bear looks like. Scary, right? Big ears, mean eyes, sharp teeth, strong arms, short but quick legs. Roar! The bear is really loud, really bossy, so messy. Your turn to clean. And always hungry. Hey, that's mine! Too slow!

Script:
I've got the window seat, no one next to me, optimal conditions. Four times in three stops, I've tried putting away Christostom's card, tucking it into my notebook, slipping it into my pocket, only to find it, presto, back in my hand again. There's nothing more to read on it, just a name and a number, but I can't help studying it, trying to decipher the deeper meaning. It's a golden-yellow card with dark purple lettering, plain and exotic all at once. What does a living statue need a business card for? Maybe he does birthday parties, charity events. Why has he given me a card? That's even more mysterious. The likes of me. A name, a number, that's all, but an entire world spins out from this card like a yellow brick road. One telephone call. I'm not the giddy type. Swooning does not come naturally to me, yet here I am, palpitating. I might as well be scribbling, do you like me? Notes with little curly-Q clouds on the borders and a heart dotting each eye. Do you like me? Yes, no, maybe, check one. I've never been like this. Even at Venice, Venice, my obsession with the statues was always in the service of art. Now I look down at my sketchbook with its pages full of Christostom and it's different. This is no longer a god I'm looking at or a study in shadows and geometric planes. It's a man, a nearly naked man in parts and whole who I've spent my time staring at, transcribing. I want to see him again. I want to see him now. My mind is full of Christo. There's no room for anything else. There's a pain right below my breastbone that catches my breath but feels like relief. I guess I know what this means, surprising but not surprising. This has been waiting for me my whole life. A hardened husk is cracking open and something inside is wriggling loose, this me being released. The bus ride is short but my life has changed. I touch his outline on the page, the pencil lines I've used to try to capture him in two dimensions. The line smudges, leaving a little of his mark on my finger. But he's not here in the drawings, he's escaped. He's become flesh, he's real, somewhere out there. I've got to punch the numbers in and he'll appear suddenly in a wisp of smoke, genie of the card. I just have to call. My long neglected cell phone is in my backpack pocket, waiting to be used. It would be easy enough, yes, no, maybe.

Script:
I stare at him across a deep divide. He has the moon face of Tibetan calm, regular and stressless, his lips upturned faintly like those of a statued Buddha. These reincarnations, to him, are conduits of an enlightenment that springs like flame from candle to candle, man to man. They are almost always men. The abbot senses the doubt in me, I think. He orders a novice to bring us tea while I shift uncomfortably on the monastic bench. He is less than half my age, yet his surety is grand and a little mysterious. Our life is very hard, the abbot says. Some monks cannot take it too long. Many leave for Kathmandu or join our monasteries down on the plains or in India, or they marry. He adds regretfully, courteously, the West is attractive to many of them. Even on his own wrist, I notice, the prayer beads nestle beside a digital watch.