City Like Water
Translated by Natascha Bruce
A dream elegy for the political death of Hong Kong, from the author of Owlish.
The city you grew up in is gone, as if sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Though so much has vanished with it - classmates, teachers, counterfeit watches, the erotic toe cleavage that used to lead the way down secret passages - you still catch snatches of conversation lingering in the air and glimpse sun-dazzled residents retreating into dark crevices.
But then the disappearances come closer to home. Your mother joins in a housewives' protest over fake lotus roots only to be turned into a glittering bronze statue by the police. Then it's just you and your father at home, until he is quietly absorbed into the enormous new TV gifted by the government, and you spot him picking through leftovers in the background of soap operas. And didn't you once have a little sister, before she flew away in her school uniform?
As the police go undercover and transform your neighborhood into a violent labyrinth you can no longer navigate, where does this leave you?
Lucid, nightmarish and indelible, City Like Water is a wondrous and pointed message in a bottle from a city not so different from your own.
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