dialogues between two humans

(as opposed to the opposite)

by NCF

number one:

Metro line 2. 人民广场. Crowded platform. Waiting for the subway.

An old man in a bright blue Mao suit jacket approaches in grey pants. His features are not rugged. He cannot be a migrant worker, but he’s definitely from the countryside. Perhaps a retired school teacher with a son who made it in 上海. He’s carrying red plastic bags with ingredients for the evening’s meal. He approaches me and brushes my forearm with the back of his hand.

he. 诶。我要到世纪大道。在哪里上？
me. 好像。。。等一下我看吧 (looking at the map above the gate)。。。您那边上吧。
he. 嗯。

I’m looking at his face and I can’t see anything to indicate he realizes who (what) he’s talking to. He gets on the metro and disappears. I can see Chinese around me as confused as I am.

number two:

常德路812弄3号 The elevator on the left (the one that goes all the way to the basement).

He gets on at the 11^th floor as we’re going down. I’ve been on since the 14th. He is green sweater, dress pants, concrete dust and the permanent smile of a man engaged in the hard labour of renovating a harmonious society one middle class apartment at a time.

he. (pointing): 什么东西那个？
me. MP3. 听音乐得。
he. (nodding): 啊，知道。

The elevator reaches the first floor and he holds the door for me. He’s probably never first off the elevator.

Hitotoki – Shanghai Zhongxue Guojibu

by Ryan Carter

June 12-13, 2010

I’d like to say it was a test of their ability to deal with genderbending, premeditated, but really no such plan came to my head. I was looking at Renata’s nails lacquered green and needed something to break up the monotony of a seven-day week, mostly for them, because into this week we also had to cram nearly everything. Angel Liu had drifted to the front row and I asked her, for me, casually, “what color nail polish would you have?”  She looked down hard for a minute and then she defiantly as she always does- for here is a woman with a backbone through which you cannot pass your hand, and maybe the only one in her class-” dark pink”, she says. Tomorrow I’ll paint them for you, she says. Continue reading…

AN ALLEGED DEATH ON LINE 2:

A series of rainy Friday evening text messages between me and Wei Wei right after my divorce…

by Renée R.

06:12

T:  Hey hey Xiao Wei, on line 2 now. Some kind of delay. Train is stopped. Keep you posted. Kisses.

06:13

W:  What u mean? Metro stop where? U not arriving? I making the pizza!

06:20

T: Bushi! Wǒ lái le! Two stops away but the metro’s not moving. A message I can’t understand on the loudspeaker.

06:20

W:  Take taxi. Hurry. Stupid egg. Continue reading…

The Beat Coffee House

by D.

Downtown Las Vegas36° 10′ 8.8716″ N, 115° 8′ 25.5264” W
Date: June 21, 2010   Time: 4:30 pm

Inside, coffee shop. Outside, desert filth. The Okies had the Dust Bowl. We Lost Vegans get the Dirt Bowl, and it is this valley.

Dirtball. That is me: I’m grit-coated but sheltered by central air and good music. Coffee aroma and hipsters surround at other tables. The summer city is tough and sleazy, a neon and pavement oven electric, sandblasting us all with what must be economic decay. Granules of the End of Times. The air was not this sandy before the recession. It was hindered and frozen, paved over and tamed by progress and prosperity, but the desert must be reclaiming the concrete ghost town edges. This is the most abandoned town in the United States. Nature never takes long. Continue reading…

a dialogue

by Katrina Hamlin

A woman slaps dung on an earthen wall. It will bake hard in the sun. The heat makes her sweat as she works.

A tomcat limps by. Dogs dance a ballet in the dust, or spin and skip in play fight. Turkeys fan their feathers, arch scragged necks, and scream to crescendo.

A donkey is tethered at a wooden post. Empty panniers lie on the ground, ready for a new load.

This road is built into the mountain. Across the valley, goats pick through scrub.

The woman stops her work. She glares at the stranger as he walks on the road. He does not meet her gaze. The stranger is tired of attention, and speaks only with his guide, Baimaoba.

Baimaoba waves towards the dung.

“We burn this. We cook tea, also noodle and momo.”

“What is that?”

“Like dumpling, but must is better.”

The road turns by another house. Here, all houses are made of earth, and surrounded by high walls.

The stranger thinks he hears a familiar song from within the walls.

“I can back walk,” says Baimaoba. “Look.”

He twists his body to face the stranger, stepping backwards and keeping pace. He slips into a perfect moonwalk. Sliding through the dirt in fluid rhythm, he stares into the middle distance.

“Billy Jean is not my lover,” he tells the stranger. Continue reading…

Hidden Treasure

by Lincoln Daw

Ok, ok here we go, he’ll love this one! Adjust the microphone. Do you get it? We haven’t got around to hooking up a webcam but the blank screen I’m staring into is indicative of his reaction. How to proceed? I feel as if I’ve stubbed my toe at the beginning of a long corridor, we hobble to hang up.

Continue reading…

Hitotoki – Xiamen – the bastard steps by 思明南路

by NCF

it’s hot. it’s always hot in xiamen in the summer. at least it hasn’t rained. that’s always nice. she and i are walking up the steps of xuefu lu beside brown sugar cafe. i have just eaten another one of their god-damn awful rubber sandwiches with the sweet japanese mayonnaise that always makes me want to vomit. a nice accessory to the moment.

the steps are the perfect height and depth to throw your gate off just that little bit so you trip on every second one, like walking on a stationary escalator. one step and then trip, curse fuck! curse one more step adjust your stride, a smooth one then one more step stumble curse fuck! wash rinse repeat until you come out onto siming lu. heathen bastard steps. Continue reading…

Old Yang’s Noodle Shop

by Justin Corbitt

It didn’t look like the ashes came from an urn.

I mean, then again, it’s hard to say if that is completely accurate.  I’ve never seen ashes from an urn.  In fact, I don’t think I have ever know anyone to be cremated, or seen the cremation process, or seen the end result.  In short, I can only imagine the remains of someone, who chose to be set on fire once they expired, as a super fine white-gray ash.  More like the sand on a beach at some far off exotic locale than say the end of a burnt up cigarette.

The earthly remains of Mr. Yang’s Noodle Shop did not fit the bill at all.  The charred mass of a skeleton gave no indication of peace.  Dirt and mud mixed and coated the collapsed structure, whilst a cloud of ash and dust hung in the air and settled in little swirling pools.  Burnt, blackened wood debris, still smoldering and sticking out amongst the rebar and shattered glass, gave the ghastly appearance of a broken, misshapen spinal cord, as if the small building had broken its back when it tried to roll around on the ground and put itself out. Continue reading…

The Soup Shop

by Katrina Hamlin

‘Is this mao cai?’

The man in the cap heard the halting words. He looked at the foreign girl.

‘No.’

His Mandarin was careful. She needed it. So did he. He missed his home dialect in this city.

‘What is it?’

‘Malatang.’

The words were alien. Still, she thought she knew the scent and the colour of the soup; and she wanted something known.

‘From Sichuan?’

Behind a boy prepared trays of cold nuts and beans. The boy paused to listen to the unfamiliar tones. He couldn’t understand the common tongue yet.

‘Yes.’ Continue reading…

The Bund/Guangdong lu – 28th of December, 2008

by B.

Picking up my coat and scarf from the bar chair and collecting my Zhongnanhai 8’s, I down the last lonely Glamour Bar mojito for the evening, and to the muffled beat of what I think could only be Soulwax, I take the elevator down to the ground floor. The lobby’s divided staircase in plated gold lead takes me to the street, and dodging the Anhuinese beggar woman by the taxi stand, I turn left on to Guangdong Lu, and without really thinking I walk the 30 meters or so to where the Bund once used to be. The December cold is biting this year, and I pull my scarf tighter, reminding myself for the millionth time to buy a pair of proper gloves. Shanghai isn’t Northern Scandinavia, but I can’t remember ever the minus 20 degrees at home feeling as cold as these supposedly modest plus 3.

Continue reading…