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.

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…

Eau de terminal alcoholic

by NCF

A thousand stories told ten thousand times in the tones of a thousand Marlboros and ten thousand more.

The Amazonian whore prostrate before his phallus, respecting this cock as countless before and thereafter. Interpol frantic. His conquests as stars in heaven and fish in a sea of pilsner.

A tender moment portrayed to breathless audiences from Seoul to Yantai to Min’nan: Laopo’s girlish ecstasy at first sight of his Viking manhood. ‘Hon bara woah!!’  Triumph relived ad delirium. Beers for breakfast and beers with Benny. Fluently incoherent in several languages and effortlessly offensive in more.

Eau de terminal alcoholic no amount of Colgate can oppress. Sweet sickening hint of fermented citrus parades briefly as ill-chosen aftershave before the punchline revealed:  the distilled rankness of a decades long bender. It’s one long happy university and everyone’s invited.

A madman embalmed in the bottomless tankard of his lager-filled aquarium, booming drunkenly over the din of another Jäger fueled Fujian Thursday night Charlie Foxtrot. Through pounding bass and piercing treble a voice with a question for the ages:

‘WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE?’