Short stories
NIGHT FUGUE, 'Hong Kong Highs and Lows', Hong Kong Writers Circle, 2018 (pp.104-113)
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(...) These are the days after your irrevocable decision. They have a different quality. Time is elastic, most nights are spent in that liminal state between sleep and wakefulness where dreaming and my surroundings become one. In this hazy, suspended state several homes and places are superimposed. I see narrow cobbled streets, a small lake with wading birds, a foggy park that resembles Berlin’s Tiergarten, an old block of flats where I used to live in Paris, a steep path leading to a mountain village. My bed feels too large or too small, bedroom walls become porous, trees grow inside the house, our clothes lie scattered on the side of the road. I no longer know where I am. I wake up every hour thinking that I have not been sleeping at all.
(...)
What did we know about each other at that time? Probably everything that is worth knowing about another person. I knew you had a lot of talent to waste. That’s what drew people to you. Talent is most appealing to others when it’s wasted. Self-destruction protected you from envy. No one could harm you better than yourself.
Yes, maybe there is an element of competition in it, like there is in a potlatch where tribesmen put all their most valuable possessions on a pyre in a show of noble disinterest. When you self-destruct, you want to fail more and lose more than others, show more disregard for the gifts that life has bestowed on you.
Life gives and life takes, why wait for the moment when it claims back those gifts? By then people grow insanely attached to them. The horror of old claws that can’t let go.
(...)
I like visiting you at night, holding a torch, stamping my feet on the concrete path to scare away snakes. The last five hundred metres are rather steep, trees are sparse and shrubs become dense, then the path ends abruptly and one has to take an unpaved trail. I must have become fitter because, despite the load I am carrying, I no longer need to stop and catch my breath when I reach that point. My leg muscles still burn a little, but the sensation is not unpleasant, quite the opposite: I am alive, I am made up of oxygen-hungry cells and the heartbeat that seems to live in my throat and in my cheeks is telling me that right now blood is being pumped through every fiber of my body. So I keep pushing, nostrils slightly flared, I put one foot in front of the other, feeling the rocky terrain under and the light breeze on my face.
When I reach the top of the hill, the sky seems to hang low as if caving under the weight of clouds. Here, where the granite intrudes coarse ash crystal tuff, I open my backpack and take out the beach pebbles I have carried uphill.
I make my way through a bed of ferns and climb on one of the four boulders that form the crest of the hill. This rock, worn out by wind and rain, has been here since the Mesozoic, probably emplaced during the final pulse of magmatic activity. Its top is smooth and slightly hollow, large enough to cradle my body when I lie down. In the darkness I am one with earth and sky. That’s my way of abolishing distance. But of course, not as completely as you did. You were not afraid to mount too high or descend too low. You had a lot of practice, you had been throbbing between two lives for a long time. I once asked you if you could climb trees, ‘tell me you can climb that tree!’ when my favourite t-shirt was hanging from a branch, the wind had blown it off the clothes line on my balcony.
You grinned, ‘I can fly to that tree.’
You started flapping your arms in a parody of Swan Lake, jumped, twirled, attempted an arabesque. ‘Do the white swan. Now do the black swan. No, not like that, you are doing the mad swan again’ I shouted over the music blaring out of my desktop and you kept spinning and falling till you kicked my bookcase in a high jump and hurt your foot. We forgot about my t-shirt, I fetched some ice for your bruise and we just lay down on the floor talking about… who knows what we talked about. Here, in the clearing on top of the hill, it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters was your disregard for pain. You kept falling, broke your bones and waited a couple of days before going to hospital, cut your chin open. There were often scabs on your knees and elbows.
One can’t fly into flying, one needs to learn. Nobody knew you had already started practicing. We had our highs and lows, talked of black holes sucking us in, but that was just a figure of speech. Or so I thought. I wasn’t afraid of metaphors. I wasn’t interested in the laws of gravity.
Here on the hill overlooking the Lamma Channel, where everything is still and silence is broken only by the horn of a passing container ship, it’s hard to believe in the permanence of what I have left down in the valley. The village in the distance resembles a badly arranged grid of domino tiles that could be toppled with a flick of the finger.
Here, those who are near feel far away, those who are far away can now reach me.
They are the people I am trying to know twice. I hear you say that nothing can ever happen twice. It’s so unfortunate, isn’t it? The first time we improvise, deliver a pretty lame performance, and leave without the chance to practice. But we all think that we can do better. Next time. That’s how we keep fooling ourselves. We go through life like fools, relying on memory and language, none of which can be trusted.
We believe that places and people will continue existing, somewhere, as if in a vacuum, floating beyond the laws of time and gravity.
Can we relive the night we fell into the ditch? It would be another ditch, with another person, wearing another wig, sailing on a different sampan…Now even the thought of me falling into a ditch is preposterous.
I can tell this story a hundred times but some details will always be missing, and not just because my memory of that night is fading, not just because language is inherently ambiguous.
So, why did I bring it up? Maybe because you are the only person who can fill the gaps in my memory. Whenever I said two words, you finished my sentence and the best part was that you knew exactly what I wanted to say.
That’s why I like visiting you. I walk up the hill when it’s quiet, when I don’t run the risk of crossing anyone on the path, the risk of small talk about dogs or the heat and the cold.
I prefer coming under the cover of night, when I cannot see what lies down below, the ocean and the village where lights are switched on and off.
Building lights were still on when you walked up to the 15th floor. From that window, despite the low visibility - it was hazy, humid and oppressively hot - one could see thousands of lights, the garish costume that Hong Kong towers wear at night to obliterate stars. Did you notice them? Did you pay any attention to the streets below, to the taxis waiting for their fares?
Once inside, nothing can escape a black hole's gravity, not even light. That night, gravity had become so extreme that it overwhelmed all other forces. I like to think that you found a way of leaving your body before the impact, that all that falling and getting up again was but a form of training, and that you jumped only after your soul had mastered flying.
(...)
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THE GOODBYE LOOP, One-Act Play, 'HK24', Hong Kong Writers Circle, 2017 (pp.110-123)
(...)
SIMON. Here. Have some more wine.
You’ve run out of cheese… anything edible, actually.
TAMARA. Sorry, I haven’t been down to the shops for a while. But I have enough dry provisions and cans to hold out for at least another week.
SIMON. Were you sick or just training for your new life in the steppes?
TAMARA. I was busy.
SIMON. Busy? You don’t even work.
TAMARA. That has nothing to do with it. One can be busy with other matters.
SIMON. Such as?
TAMARA. Matters that working people usually have no time for.
SIMON. Like doing the dishes, painting their nails? From what I can see, you haven’t done either.
TAMARA. Very funny.
SIMON. I’ve always found it strange… a person as gifted as you…you don’t work. You are always buzzing with ideas. You read more than anyone around me and can talk about any subject. Plus, you know many languages… even extinct ones!
TAMARA. If you hear about a job that requires a good command of Sanskrit, give me a shout. I might be interested.
SIMON. How about German? Or Russian?
TAMARA. I’d rather live off Igor’s money. Do you believe that work gives meaning to life? Yes: carry on working, defer living. I bet you haven’t even organized the pictures from your last trip, or any trip you took in the last five years. How about the books you never read? All the emails from faraway friends you never answered?
SIMON. Hmm?
TAMARA. How do I know? I remember the pecan pie I had meant to bake but never did, the cucumbers I wanted to pickle but that eventually shriveled in the fridge. That was when I had a job.
SIMON. I’ve never seen you bake anything.
TAMARA. Why do you always have to take everything so literally? Is it an Anglo-Saxon trait? Like the idea that work provides salvation? Anyway, I did bake the odd cake when I lived with Igor.
SIMON. Some people find fulfillment at work, believe it or not.
TAMARA. You speak like someone who is never troubled by doubt. (Pause) And what about death? What about it? That’s my question. All of us are going to die, but nobody believes it. And if we believed it, we would not go to the office.
SIMON. What would we do instead?
TAMARA. I don’t know.
SIMON. We would just sit and worry about what we should have done differently or better or perhaps what we shouldn’t have done. But it doesn’t lead anywhere. (Pause) We would ask questions, more questions, probe and probe until we go crazy.
TAMARA. How do you reconcile yourself to the fact that you have to exist, and every day, every moment brings you closer to death? What do you do with your time?
SIMON. Make the most of it?
TAMARA. I see nothing except people who want to be distracted.
SIMON. And you don’t? You’re a walking contradiction. You’ve just told me that you want to leave because there might be dead geckos in your house. Come on, let’s look for them, let’s stare death in the face.
TAMARA. Always so literal. I give up.
SIMON. We all divert our attention from death. Except you. Do you meditate on death with a skull?
TAMARA. We can weaken or accelerate the progress towards death. (Pause) I sleep. I sleep a lot. I try to be as idle as possible. But my mind is constantly racing, jumping forward. I make a thousand plans...
SIMON. So, your idea of leaving Hong Kong is one of those thousand plans?
TAMARA. The only one that I can carry out. All this yearning for vague things has cast a shade on my life. When I think about the steppes I see a brightness that is almost blinding, I want to immerse myself in that light.
SIMON. What if it's just a death wish?
TAMARA. A death wish? I hadn’t thought about that. But isn’t it true that some people feel alive only when faced with danger? I know soldiers do. When they return to civilian life, they feel numb. I used to take a lot of risks in the past.
SIMON. You mean with Igor?
TAMARA. Even before him. We took different risks. God, I miss that intensity! (Reaching for her cigarette pack) The main difference between me and you, and other people, is that I've always demanded more from a sunset. More dramatic colors when the sun hits the horizon. Somebody said that in a movie. It would be a fitting epitaph for me. ‘She demanded more from a sunset’. (Sighs) That's perhaps my problem.
SIMON. And you believe that you’ll find that intensity only in some desolate place? You know, some people have brains that require thrills. (Smiling) There might be a name for this condition. It's probably treatable.
TAMARA. (Stands up and walks to the sliding door, lights a cigarette) I don’t need treatment. I need to get out of here. (Becoming more animated, takes quick puffs on her cigarette) Sometimes you get an idea into your head, out of nowhere, and it becomes an obsession. A driving force. When you feel you are on the verge of a major change, it’s electrifying. So you tell people, because telling people sets things in motion. When you articulate it, you see the possibility emerge. That’s when the change begins to happen.
SIMON. Maybe talking is enough. It keeps you on the verge, which is always the best place to be. Let’s sit here and talk. Forever. (With a hint of irony in his voice) Your words, my words and the luminous future they conjure up. (Holding the bottle of wine) More Pinot?
TAMARA. (Walks back to the sofa and sits down) We all do things with words. (Passing her glass to Simon) Words matter. But talking is just the beginning. I am gearing up. (Taking a big sip of wine) I can almost feel the surge.
SIMON. Good. Keep talking. I like it when you’re all fired up. (Pause) You have this wicked glint in your eyes.
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Tamara stands up again, walks to the terrace and looks out. It has stopped raining and the sun is setting.
TAMARA. Not a bad sunset, even by my standards.
SIMON. (Comes closer to her) You will miss Sai Kung. Dead geckos and all.
TAMARA. You know that feeling when you are leaving a place… you are driving away, or taking off on a plane… houses, people recede in the distance till you see only tiny spots? Suddenly you feel weightless, the speed increases…a sense of relief that the good-byes are over. You lean forward, you become a projectile. You are…(Simon interrupts her)
SIMON. Sweetie, you’re still here. I’m still here…but we’ve run out of wine. Which is a major… (Stops mid-sentence) How about we move next door?
(...)
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LOOTING THE LOOTERS, Hong Kong Future Perfect, Hong Kong Writers Circle, 2016 (pp. 65-74)
(...)
'That was then. Now when you kill someone on screen they may die for real.
Becoming quite animated, he described how, thanks to unmanned drones, the line between video games and warfare has been erased, how battle is conducted on screens by people who are divorced from the reality of conflict, how gamers as young as twelve have been recruited to fly drones. His anger was almost palpable.
'And what is deus ex machina doing about it?'
'Have you got something stronger than wine?'
We spent the rest of the night building mutual trust and checking each other's credentials, so to speak.
When daybreak came we were on the same side of the bed, and everything else.
That's how our collaboration started.
It feels strange to go up to the techies' floor and not see Tim. He has already left Hong Kong. He resigned citing personal reasons. We agreed it would be better if the attack appeared to be external and traceable to an Internet cafe in Mumbai.
In a few days, after the incident response team and crisis managers have stepped in, after narratives have been changed, you may read an advertorial in the local papers about the bank going from strength to strength despite a minor security breach that hasn't in any way dented the trust of its clients and investors. The text will be skilfully crafted by some master wordsmith of corporate communication.
By then, deus ex machina and I will be sharing the fruits of our labour in another continent. In case you wondered, we will not be sipping cocktails on a white-sanded beach. That’s a stale fantasy. Public beaches are covered in plastic and makeshift shelters, discarded life vests, mangy dogs and burning garbage cans. Private beaches are the preserve of the same high net worth individuals in whose precious company I have spent enough time. There is no sandy paradise where we are going.
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Looting the looters is how we finance our operations.
I can almost picture you knitting your brow. Understandably you take exception to my language. Have I guessed correctly? I agree, looting sounds coarse, Karl Marx’s turn of phrase was far more elegant: expropriating the expropriators. If you prefer, I can call it redistribution of wealth. This is a more reassuring, civilized definition. But I am afraid the redistribution will not be very orderly, nor civilized. So, for the sake of honesty, I stand by my initial choice of words and their unequivocal meaning. While working at the bank, I have developed a deep distrust of the rhetorical acrobatics that produced expressions such as corporate social responsibility, so allow me the primitive pleasure of calling a spade a spade. Our organization relies on...sorry, I got carried away. You and I were never introduced, so please excuse my caution. You must understand that at this stage I can’t be more specific, making you privy to our activities could jeopardize them. Suffice to say we are not members of any charitable organisation, though one of the unintended consequences of our actions will be the total relief of guilt associated with excessive wealth. Something that corporate social responsibility never delivered.
Just when the lift doors are about to close one of the vice presidents steps in.
(...)​