︱tape: 01 - glimpse into north point︱

laundry draped above me as wires cross the gap of one building to the next in the starless night. air conditioning units sit fuming on the few sills while my arms swim through the muggy air of hong kong at every pace. a short walk down the alley, the steam of cooked food creeps out of half-opened doors until it becomes a golden cloud that further caked the soaked cardboard boxes, their labels weathered to the point of incoherence from rainfall. this scent, it guides one to a familiar dinner table. it is one such scent that does not need the help of the runway lights nor their flashy pedestrians walking their streets; but in the first place, the pathetic dim bulb above was more concerned with the square of light below it, the table where we all gathered.

five minutes in this gorge between two apartments, i had been hoping—jammed in this slit of space that ended in the neon brim street—that i would find some familiar pipeline or characteristic cardboard box of this alley i could pass on the way home, but the only feature that remained unchanged was the concrete wall polished to wild excess by the raindrops until there was only a shawl of faint neon budding on the surface as if in my mind it had melted completely and thinking i could step into it, i only feel the rough surface off my fingertips. after slinging my bag of groceries shoulder-over, i recounted the shapes of food in the plastic bag resting on my shoulder blade. instant food, chips, exotic snacks with a common language of bag-pop-munch and some oysters paired with various seasonings. out to those candy-bar wrapper streets of fortress hill, colorful logos and insignias extend over the roads in glowing shapes to dancing calligraphy glitter on in all flavors of neon: blue, red, green and pink alternate through the night of the commercial district as the cars underneath amass their golden chorus with the ticking of traffic signals between, the beat of passersby that would keep time the street’s radiance and memories already fading with the stone castle walls defend against the now darkened greens of victoria peak, the mountain gracefully reaching to the starless pearl of night.

i keep toward my apartment block, thinking to take the stairs. i was ten floors up but it was always a nice thing to do every now and again, like seeing a neighbor before heading off to work. taking stock of myself in some way— whether conversing with people i know, or listening to the conversation my feet have with the steps— it pushes me forward with the relief of knowing i’m doing okay, knowing where i am, where i stand. once i arrive in the lobby as the commotion separates into a neatly partitioned glimpse behind me through the glass double doors, the streets condensed into a small blue glow pouring over the roof of an executive sedan before three people strolling by through the frame at a time and i wonder if there was any point it would repeat itself until i walk down the tan interior, air conditioning shed the warmth of those crowds, their bright coloured dresses and shirts functioned only to distinguish them from one another, while simultaneously remaining strange. they were “external” to myself and any onlookers.

as far as i knew, we could have been the talk of many, our identities reduced to that one door on the tenth floor that remained a mystery to everyone outside. all they knew was some foreigners were living beyond that door: a chinese-canadian and a white girl or gewi mui.taken literally: ghost-girl. the elevator archaically beams me up with the hum of machines and steel pulleys past the silver reflections of metal doors that made me think vaguely of village life, those old photos of the walled city carrying plastic buckets of water on the moss encrusted rooftops with television wires fashioned out of thin chicken wire, those olden times my parents somehow thought so fondly of thinking if it wasn’t for bringing water everyday from the outer district back into the walled city, we wouldn’t be here. the elevator doors slide open to the tenth floor, as they always do. pink tiles pixelate the ceramic veined corridor; metal gates are pressed in uniform spaces, some decorated with red calendars, a cheap gold sparkle font preserving the ostensible prosperity of the past chinese new year. i knock at my door, rattling the metal gate of room 1005. elise opens the door and the gate bar frame stripes her nonplussed look; she sees it’s simply me again.

“i brought chocolate ice cream.” i shake the bag as if to prove the truth of my words.

‘oh is that all?’’ she asks not willing to cede the apartment whose air conditioning has been turned to maximum from the chill that reached the corridor, its light recede from the golden spokes breathed from the room’s cieling lamp. from this, i place the bag down and take the cold ice cream tub to see her try to slink back until i lunge with the tub in whose cold surface touches her hand and sends her into the room’s warm light.

‘hey hey hey, ok ok, sorry sorry.’ her teeth chatters slightly before she firms herself grabbing both my wrists. ‘alright, you can come in, that’s enough now’

little warmth left her fingers onto my wrists, knobbed against her touch that wouldn’t sink into mine, she drops them, any of the past excitement dies down while i take the rest of the groceries from the door still left open. she walks around the little sanctuary of our apartment with simple-shaped ikea furniture in flat matte colours. i thought it made us look a little pretentious since we could say since, hong kong being a port city and all, we had decided on installing imported furniture. not exactly a conversational piece, but it was a little joke between us that we laughed about together; our foreigner mannerisms to stick with whatever we knew best in the outside world by keeping our wits and import furniture with us. the windows were open and we were still audience members participating among the faint screeches of buses and the refractions of life from stores below. elise drops something on the table; a jingle and a crash with an attached lanyard pooling on the tabletop.