Over the years certain words have been added to my private lexicon, loaded with a personal significance not found in any published work of reference. One of these became my mantra, imbued with a mystic power that never failed me.

In my North Vancouver high school (where I spent years in near-anonymity, and developed an uncanny ability to make my way down crowded hallways unseen by any eye) there was a small central courtyard landscaped with scrawny, much-abused trees, several industrial-strength benches, and a scattering of weeds. A gravel path wound between the benches, and over the course of many school years the gravel had become set into a matrix of discarded cigarette butts and mulched candy wrappers: the detritus of adolescent life.

The courtyard was where the “tough” kids hung out, where they smoked, and where they spat. One wall of it was glass, providing a peerless view of the school’s main entrance hall. At lunch and study breaks the girls would lounge upon the benches (the wooden surfaces filigreed with carved initials commemorating an endless parade of failed teenage pairings) and would cast their kohl-rimmed eyes scornfully on all who passed through the foyer. At another bench the jocks hung out, brooding, making scathing and suggestive comments that they half-hoped the girls would overhear.

In my several years there, I never once set foot into that courtyard. I even hated walking past that long, glass wall. I could feel the weight of those insolent eyes upon me, and imagined all manner of disparaging remarks heaped upon me from the far side of the glass.

Until at some point the phrase “chung king” popped unbidden to my tongue. I liked the shape of it within my mouth, the way the two syllables hummed within the head. Tentative at first, and then with more assurance, I tried it out. “Chung king; chung king.” I had no idea what it meant. I had no idea of where it sprang from. For some reason, though, it bolstered me.

“Chung king,” I would incant softly beneath my breath, stepping from the hall-shadows en route to the foyer’s farther side. “Chung king.”

The tongue’s unseen slide along the palate; the plosive “k”, unheard by anyone but me. Spoken without a movement of the lips, the phrase held magic for me. Protected by its mantric power, my shoulders back, the disparaging remarks from courtyard benches slid off of me like ice from Teflon. Boldly walking down the hall to class.

At graduation I had no further need for it, and the phrase slipped slowly out of use. Some years later, though, I was startled to see a line of frozen Chinese food that bore the Chun King name. A close variant of my mantra, I imagined that some Asian adolescent had used it to pass unscathed through his high school halls, and later (successful entrepreneur) had built the brand in fond acknowledgement.

Say it to yourself sometime; there’s power in it still…