Thawing
I have a burning sensation on the palm of my left hand. I'mstaring at my hand, and I turn it over. I have various notes, reminders thatI've written on the front. Print letter, drinks, the character for light bulbs.I locate where and when I wrote these. On my other hand, though, I have writtenin clear black the words 'right three place'. My mind says that it is the titleof a film I wanted to see, but I cannot make certain of it. My mind wracks,searching for the reason I wrote this. I cannot let it go, what is that? Andtoo, what is the origin of this blotchy, sensitive skin I have? In this dimlight, the skin looks cracked, dehydrated, the bumps- mounds on a flat plane.
I woke a moment ago. I close my make shift curtain. It ismade of a sheet, pinned up by pegs and secured to the rail by safety pins. Themesh window cover is open, and I close that too, though it is hideous to myeye; grey, rusty. The mesh itself is pinned by small, yellow tailed clumps offiber that come from the trees. I look at this filter of a frame and itscaptives held, look at its kind denial of those creatures, those pinnedyellow-air-fish, so easily do they swim into my lungs, causing a cacophonouscough.
I woke a few moments ago and the shadow of a headache makesits presence known. The heat, too, slides slowly into my consciousness. Thebeating, heavy heat of an afternoon, a heavy, city afternoon heat. The colourof the heat is a saturated yellow. Were the sun to pour out its colour, thewhole world would be this yellow, though our shadows would be black against it.A yellow city with black elongated stripes and figures dappled across itsshape, with only the whites of our eyes showing. A world in the image of achild's sticky thick paint. This heat's weight is tangible. Breathing in itsweighty breath, moving through it, one feels it most inside your shoulders, theheat penetrating the marrow of your bones. And then the headache and the heathit me hard, a wave of nausea so potent I may as well be staring at the sun. Iclose my eyes and lie back down.
Like an uncomfortable, lengthy fish in a pond too small, Irealise that my bed is in direct line with the sun through the window. I pushmy bed, but the base is halved in two parts. The mattress, as thick as a box ofmatches on its side, slides around from side to side, so slim is it to have itsown autonomy. With my feet against the wall, I move one part of the base at atime, to the other side of the room. The backs of my sticky legs catch finepowder on the floor. Sitting down, I see that there is a small circling clusterof hair and grey dust in the corner. This dancing, circling being draws my eyeto the other dancing, circling clumps and clusters of dirt and grime and greydust and hair lining the floor. The molding patches of pealing paint, browningat the edges, too draw my eye. And were I to tilt my head up, I would see thenaked skeleton of a fluorescent light bulb, it's shape circular anddinner-plate sized, its electrical wiring dangling above my head.
The girl I live with walks in and mentions a sandstorm lastnight, ”had I noticed?”, said too that I had talked in my sleep, she’d heard methrough the wall.
One of my walls is covered entirely by a mirror. Below itare six cupboard doors, and therein drawers, behind which are possessions ownedby other people who too lived in China temporarily, and therein left unwantedthings. Thus far, I have not ventured into these spaces. I moved my bedearlier, and found a rusting razorblade and the packaging of a condom. Those cupboardsdo not speak to me, do not pick and tap at my curiosity the way safer hidingspaces do. Those cupboards are brimful of belongings, therewith information,details of the lives lived in this room. When I first moved in, I saw thatthere were two shoe boxes full of tapes with strange titles. An objectresembling a ceramic mould of a life sized dog, and peacock feathers colourthese dark cupboard spaces. Clothing; books; a print of some artist'simpression of Trafalgar, documents; empty boxes; lives, details, personaleffects live in there. In an other rarely opened drawer are two books, theirtitles "Pismo Swiete: Starego I noweco Testamentu, Biblia TysiacleciaPallottinum", a bible of some language, and “Slownik- PolskorosyjskiRosyjkso- Polski", a bilingual dictionary translating Polish to Russian orSlovakian. Now that I look at this dictionary, I see that many of the wordstranslated are anglisized, 'Materializm', 'histoire', 'mikrofon', 'republika'.Yet the alphabet is strange, it jumps from C to T, followed by a backward R.But the dust gets me coughing and I put them away.
I drag a large, ancient fan into my room. Its base is madeentirely of cast iron. Its neck is tall and sturdy. It is cream coloured,mottled with scratches and smudges of grease and more dirt. It once had fourwheels on which to be pushed, but it has lost one of these wheels, and thushobbles to a halt, rearranging its balance as it comes to a standstill. Itsdownward tilting, blowing head vacillates, oscillates, as it finds it locus ofweight. Central to the head is a four leaved clover of a design, a detailedflower of gold lines and edges, and at its centre a red star. Its switches anddials are all brown plastic, and the characters for numbers one to five shavedfrom overuse barely visible, written in white. A red small light shines anorangey glow when the thing is on. A red sticker stuck diagonally acrossassures buyers of its Quality, and there is no irony in the matter. This closeto animate object must have been produced in the sixties, and yet stillbreathes just as well as any other fan. I have always been fond of this big,old fan. It has been the subject of much of my photography; it's caged headenclosing three identical wings moving in the same direction, the cage someretrospective cosmic design, a connection of relative lines all joined togetherat the centre.
I turn the large brown dial to 180, though turning to anyother option would still result in the fans head's slow turn from left toright, creaking along as it does, and the character for five, for maximumeffect. Immediately papers and clusters and objects blow to life, circulatelike pollen, but it must be stopped. The room settles once more and no soonerdoes the heat reclaim its heavy presence. I pick up the papers and put theminto their places. I go through my room, tossing out what is unnecessary, whatI do not need to keep, to live. The scene of some artistic flight into paintingsits in one corner; paint brushes, water, paper, a soiled palette, some abstractcreation. I clean this up too.
I sweep all the hair and dust into piles. The dust pan is anorange plastic thing with a neck, and the design of a wide-faced smiling cat inits mouth. The familiar whiff of frying oil seeps into my nostrils as I openthe window to toss out the dust, toss it to whence it came.
I remember now. It was at a restaurant, or outside. Today,earlier this afternoon. Yes, outside the restaurant. I remember the sun and thepeople. I pushed through them keeping in the breath I needed to release; onehundred imminent breaths pleading for release. I push past them in the queue; Ineeded to get out of the large room, the large clanking, clicking room filledwith chewing mouths and feeding bellies. I head to the rest room, but thethought of the smell of urine and chemicals-The thought of it stopped me. I runto the exit, but another quantity of people stand huddled around the till and Imust push out some more. They are scratching the lottery tickets you get forfree with every meal you buy in China from the tax administration. I know whythere is this initiative, I once won five kwaai. It paid for two meals. Calmly,I move through the group, push through the hot, sticky people that stand aroundthe till.
I walk out into the white sun and run towards the closestopen space I can see, squinting. The sidewalk opposite the restaurant is lesspopulated, but spot lit by the white-dry sun. I run towards that wall, as I do,coughing. I cough, and cough, coughing on my own saliva. I spit it out, it isred. Yes, it was a chili that I had swallowed whole by accident. I cough andheave and choke and splatter. I, a heat-ridden retching, choking spectacle, siton my haunches, supporting my self by one hand against a pole, coughing andretching and gagging on my own fluid. The sound of my coughing a basey, hoarsegravel texture, a deep dragging sound coming from the bottom of my throat. Athick layer of saliva and mucus paint, and it wants out, I want out. My head istilted down near the pavement. Hot tears stream down my face, my nose hot anduncomfortable. I want to sneeze. I want to vomit. I want to pass out. It ismidday, I am in the sun. And the faces stare.
The cough simmers slowly and I guess I must have taken a bushome. I got off at the place I thought was my stop, and walked up the street.My head still tilted down, is drenched in cool sweat, and I stare at the streetfloor, its surface coloured by those grey-yellow fibres. My face in anuncomfortable frown, I try to relax and walk home. I turn right into anotherstreet. Along the left side, five pool tables in a row, men playing shirtlesswith cigarettes in their mouths and beers in their hands. Young children sitnearby licking on green ice sticks and playing chess in the dust, their mouthsgrubby with green juice drippings and brown dirt. Red spots of light punctuatethe rubbish-ridden white-dry street, punctuate it perfectly with equalproportion, and it seems the red paper lanterns above are what filter these redlight-puddles. I walk on. The street looks vaguely familiar, as every one ofthem does. Sameness, redundancy. But I calm in the fact that I am not coughing,and walk on, knowing that I will come to my street soon enough. I walk on andon, past meat stalls and factory outlets and flower shops and a handless manpainting minute characters in perfect lines with the brush clamped between hissoiled teeth. A frame shop has in its display Klimpt's 'The Kiss' framed lengthwise. The awkward landscape of two figures embracing in a standing kiss, Iwonder if this is some Chinese interpretation of Western art. And I wonder howKlimpt came to be here. Mirrors in the display see me.
I walk on more, then eventually ask for directions to a manstopped at a cigarette shop on his scooter. He gestures frowningly that the menat the till will draw me a map. On a cigarette carton, one old man starts withshaky arm. He draws a dot and a line, and characters showing where I am. Buthis unsteady arm frustrates the other man, who grabs the pen and with gusto,draws lines swiftly, showing my coordinates. As he does so, he curses, his eyesreducing the other man and his feeble efforts. He draws a map indicating that Ishould go back, turn left, then right and straight. I thank him smiling, andwalk on.
This map indicates that I should go east, when I know, Iknow that I must go west. I walk on. Ten minutes pass and I realise that I amwrong. My gait disorientated, I stumble. My phone rings and I fumble in my bagfor it, pulling out a phone that is not ringing.
After a long, longwhile, I get home, put my body to bed.
And before that, I was at work, at school, and I remembernow that that is where I acquired these strange bumps on my hand; I give mystudents hi-fives as greetings. Alas, however, I will have to look those threewords up. Right three place. Hmm, I guess one cannot always… know.
And now that the heat is waning out, the dry heat now apaler shade of warm, I go down to the cold green tea stall and have my favoriteconversation with a smiling, gentle soul, asking for a cold green tea. Its softlanguid texture soothes the drought in me. The wind has picked up, and now Isit in my windowsill, my feet dangling eleven stories up over a city,simulated.
I have a burning sensation on the palm of my left hand. I'mstaring at my hand, and I turn it over. I have various notes, reminders thatI've written on the front. Print letter, drinks, the character for light bulbs.I locate where and when I wrote these. On my other hand, though, I have writtenin clear black the words 'right three place'. My mind says that it is the titleof a film I wanted to see, but I cannot make certain of it. My mind wracks,searching for the reason I wrote this. I cannot let it go, what is that? Andtoo, what is the origin of this blotchy, sensitive skin I have? In this dimlight, the skin looks cracked, dehydrated, the bumps- mounds on a flat plane.
I woke a moment ago. I close my make shift curtain. It ismade of a sheet, pinned up by pegs and secured to the rail by safety pins. Themesh window cover is open, and I close that too, though it is hideous to myeye; grey, rusty. The mesh itself is pinned by small, yellow tailed clumps offiber that come from the trees. I look at this filter of a frame and itscaptives held, look at its kind denial of those creatures, those pinnedyellow-air-fish, so easily do they swim into my lungs, causing a cacophonouscough.
I woke a few moments ago and the shadow of a headache makesits presence known. The heat, too, slides slowly into my consciousness. Thebeating, heavy heat of an afternoon, a heavy, city afternoon heat. The colourof the heat is a saturated yellow. Were the sun to pour out its colour, thewhole world would be this yellow, though our shadows would be black against it.A yellow city with black elongated stripes and figures dappled across itsshape, with only the whites of our eyes showing. A world in the image of achild's sticky thick paint. This heat's weight is tangible. Breathing in itsweighty breath, moving through it, one feels it most inside your shoulders, theheat penetrating the marrow of your bones. And then the headache and the heathit me hard, a wave of nausea so potent I may as well be staring at the sun. Iclose my eyes and lie back down.
Like an uncomfortable, lengthy fish in a pond too small, Irealise that my bed is in direct line with the sun through the window. I pushmy bed, but the base is halved in two parts. The mattress, as thick as a box ofmatches on its side, slides around from side to side, so slim is it to have itsown autonomy. With my feet against the wall, I move one part of the base at atime, to the other side of the room. The backs of my sticky legs catch finepowder on the floor. Sitting down, I see that there is a small circling clusterof hair and grey dust in the corner. This dancing, circling being draws my eyeto the other dancing, circling clumps and clusters of dirt and grime and greydust and hair lining the floor. The molding patches of pealing paint, browningat the edges, too draw my eye. And were I to tilt my head up, I would see thenaked skeleton of a fluorescent light bulb, it's shape circular anddinner-plate sized, its electrical wiring dangling above my head.
The girl I live with walks in and mentions a sandstorm lastnight, ”had I noticed?”, said too that I had talked in my sleep, she’d heard methrough the wall.
One of my walls is covered entirely by a mirror. Below itare six cupboard doors, and therein drawers, behind which are possessions ownedby other people who too lived in China temporarily, and therein left unwantedthings. Thus far, I have not ventured into these spaces. I moved my bedearlier, and found a rusting razorblade and the packaging of a condom. Those cupboardsdo not speak to me, do not pick and tap at my curiosity the way safer hidingspaces do. Those cupboards are brimful of belongings, therewith information,details of the lives lived in this room. When I first moved in, I saw thatthere were two shoe boxes full of tapes with strange titles. An objectresembling a ceramic mould of a life sized dog, and peacock feathers colourthese dark cupboard spaces. Clothing; books; a print of some artist'simpression of Trafalgar, documents; empty boxes; lives, details, personaleffects live in there. In an other rarely opened drawer are two books, theirtitles "Pismo Swiete: Starego I noweco Testamentu, Biblia TysiacleciaPallottinum", a bible of some language, and “Slownik- PolskorosyjskiRosyjkso- Polski", a bilingual dictionary translating Polish to Russian orSlovakian. Now that I look at this dictionary, I see that many of the wordstranslated are anglisized, 'Materializm', 'histoire', 'mikrofon', 'republika'.Yet the alphabet is strange, it jumps from C to T, followed by a backward R.But the dust gets me coughing and I put them away.
I drag a large, ancient fan into my room. Its base is madeentirely of cast iron. Its neck is tall and sturdy. It is cream coloured,mottled with scratches and smudges of grease and more dirt. It once had fourwheels on which to be pushed, but it has lost one of these wheels, and thushobbles to a halt, rearranging its balance as it comes to a standstill. Itsdownward tilting, blowing head vacillates, oscillates, as it finds it locus ofweight. Central to the head is a four leaved clover of a design, a detailedflower of gold lines and edges, and at its centre a red star. Its switches anddials are all brown plastic, and the characters for numbers one to five shavedfrom overuse barely visible, written in white. A red small light shines anorangey glow when the thing is on. A red sticker stuck diagonally acrossassures buyers of its Quality, and there is no irony in the matter. This closeto animate object must have been produced in the sixties, and yet stillbreathes just as well as any other fan. I have always been fond of this big,old fan. It has been the subject of much of my photography; it's caged headenclosing three identical wings moving in the same direction, the cage someretrospective cosmic design, a connection of relative lines all joined togetherat the centre.
I turn the large brown dial to 180, though turning to anyother option would still result in the fans head's slow turn from left toright, creaking along as it does, and the character for five, for maximumeffect. Immediately papers and clusters and objects blow to life, circulatelike pollen, but it must be stopped. The room settles once more and no soonerdoes the heat reclaim its heavy presence. I pick up the papers and put theminto their places. I go through my room, tossing out what is unnecessary, whatI do not need to keep, to live. The scene of some artistic flight into paintingsits in one corner; paint brushes, water, paper, a soiled palette, some abstractcreation. I clean this up too.
I sweep all the hair and dust into piles. The dust pan is anorange plastic thing with a neck, and the design of a wide-faced smiling cat inits mouth. The familiar whiff of frying oil seeps into my nostrils as I openthe window to toss out the dust, toss it to whence it came.
I remember now. It was at a restaurant, or outside. Today,earlier this afternoon. Yes, outside the restaurant. I remember the sun and thepeople. I pushed through them keeping in the breath I needed to release; onehundred imminent breaths pleading for release. I push past them in the queue; Ineeded to get out of the large room, the large clanking, clicking room filledwith chewing mouths and feeding bellies. I head to the rest room, but thethought of the smell of urine and chemicals-The thought of it stopped me. I runto the exit, but another quantity of people stand huddled around the till and Imust push out some more. They are scratching the lottery tickets you get forfree with every meal you buy in China from the tax administration. I know whythere is this initiative, I once won five kwaai. It paid for two meals. Calmly,I move through the group, push through the hot, sticky people that stand aroundthe till.
I walk out into the white sun and run towards the closestopen space I can see, squinting. The sidewalk opposite the restaurant is lesspopulated, but spot lit by the white-dry sun. I run towards that wall, as I do,coughing. I cough, and cough, coughing on my own saliva. I spit it out, it isred. Yes, it was a chili that I had swallowed whole by accident. I cough andheave and choke and splatter. I, a heat-ridden retching, choking spectacle, siton my haunches, supporting my self by one hand against a pole, coughing andretching and gagging on my own fluid. The sound of my coughing a basey, hoarsegravel texture, a deep dragging sound coming from the bottom of my throat. Athick layer of saliva and mucus paint, and it wants out, I want out. My head istilted down near the pavement. Hot tears stream down my face, my nose hot anduncomfortable. I want to sneeze. I want to vomit. I want to pass out. It ismidday, I am in the sun. And the faces stare.
The cough simmers slowly and I guess I must have taken a bushome. I got off at the place I thought was my stop, and walked up the street.My head still tilted down, is drenched in cool sweat, and I stare at the streetfloor, its surface coloured by those grey-yellow fibres. My face in anuncomfortable frown, I try to relax and walk home. I turn right into anotherstreet. Along the left side, five pool tables in a row, men playing shirtlesswith cigarettes in their mouths and beers in their hands. Young children sitnearby licking on green ice sticks and playing chess in the dust, their mouthsgrubby with green juice drippings and brown dirt. Red spots of light punctuatethe rubbish-ridden white-dry street, punctuate it perfectly with equalproportion, and it seems the red paper lanterns above are what filter these redlight-puddles. I walk on. The street looks vaguely familiar, as every one ofthem does. Sameness, redundancy. But I calm in the fact that I am not coughing,and walk on, knowing that I will come to my street soon enough. I walk on andon, past meat stalls and factory outlets and flower shops and a handless manpainting minute characters in perfect lines with the brush clamped between hissoiled teeth. A frame shop has in its display Klimpt's 'The Kiss' framed lengthwise. The awkward landscape of two figures embracing in a standing kiss, Iwonder if this is some Chinese interpretation of Western art. And I wonder howKlimpt came to be here. Mirrors in the display see me.
I walk on more, then eventually ask for directions to a manstopped at a cigarette shop on his scooter. He gestures frowningly that the menat the till will draw me a map. On a cigarette carton, one old man starts withshaky arm. He draws a dot and a line, and characters showing where I am. Buthis unsteady arm frustrates the other man, who grabs the pen and with gusto,draws lines swiftly, showing my coordinates. As he does so, he curses, his eyesreducing the other man and his feeble efforts. He draws a map indicating that Ishould go back, turn left, then right and straight. I thank him smiling, andwalk on.
This map indicates that I should go east, when I know, Iknow that I must go west. I walk on. Ten minutes pass and I realise that I amwrong. My gait disorientated, I stumble. My phone rings and I fumble in my bagfor it, pulling out a phone that is not ringing.
After a long, longwhile, I get home, put my body to bed.
And before that, I was at work, at school, and I remembernow that that is where I acquired these strange bumps on my hand; I give mystudents hi-fives as greetings. Alas, however, I will have to look those threewords up. Right three place. Hmm, I guess one cannot always… know.
And now that the heat is waning out, the dry heat now apaler shade of warm, I go down to the cold green tea stall and have my favoriteconversation with a smiling, gentle soul, asking for a cold green tea. Its softlanguid texture soothes the drought in me. The wind has picked up, and now Isit in my windowsill, my feet dangling eleven stories up over a city,simulated.
