Tsang Shu-ki
Original: 31
December 2001 http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sktsang.com%2FRF%2FRT311(revised now with a twist).
K headed north, up the hill. It was a
tourist city of famous terrain, with the old town sprawling from the peak
downwards. “Seven forty-five in the morning!” K murmured to himself and yawned,
shivering somewhat. The temperature must be only 10 or 12 degrees Celsius.
Street-side stores were however already thriving, with all sorts of food and souvenir
on the offer. He could feel it in the air. After making a few turns, the slope
became relatively steep. “Oi-yee should try this,” K thought.
K looked at the detailed street map from
the hotel, a year-1999 version. Things shouldn’t have changed too much in 2001,
anyway. He yawned again. “But where is the Lotus Temple?” Which was supposed to
be on the left turn of a sidewalk beyond the half-hill mark. There was the Fotu
Street, which, according to the map, lied way north of the half-hill mark. “Well,
forget it. Why bother.” K was in a better mood now. He glanced at his watch:
8:07am.
He turned around, and saw the harbour view
down there. He did study the guide books before they started their winter
vacation. The morning haze was still floating amidst the clusters of old and
modern structures and buildings. He tried to identify some of them. One he
wouldn’t miss was the Oriental Palace Hotel. The fabulous beach on the outer
rim was also visible. What a pretty sight! “Where is Oi-yee jogging now?” K
began to enjoy his first trip to this place that Oi-yee said he must come.
Something suddenly seemed to cross him with
thundering speed. He watched around. Things looked quite normal, except the dog
that had followed him went away with no good reasons. It was probably a few
naughty boys rushing by. There were so many kids. Well, every tourist has his
following dogs and kids, until they are convinced that the pursuit has been
fruitless. Ha, Ha! What’s the fuss?
K shifted his attention uphill again. The
slope was even steeper, and hence more challenging. “I didn’t have enough
sleep, having flown these long hours. Why did Oi-yee insist on the late flight?”
To gain more day-time pleasure for tourism, of course. “It’s supposed to be a
time to relax.” K was slightly unhappy.
As K wrangled with these thoughts, the
landscape around him became more familiar. Wasn’t there the school? And the
small park next to it? The brownish complex and the greenish pasture were parts
of his permanent memories.
“They can’t be,” K said to himself. The
school he had in mind was the one he attended way back in his secondary
education, in a place quite far away, although also in Southeast Asia. Further
south, that is. It was a very hot and humid city, with a similar terrain.
“Silly me! Nostalgia so soon? Oi-yee and I
don’t come here if it is not cooler, in the winter at least,” K affirmed whilst
making further efforts up the hill.
There was the Pavilion! A sense of
satisfaction swamped K. It was the best viewing point of the old town, as far
as he remembered what the guide books said. He quickly walked to it, his feet
almost feeling nothing. Surprisingly, he was not mobbed by the well-advertised
sellers of postcards and souvenirs. “I’m having a break. Maybe it’s too early.”
His watch told him it was half past eight.
He began to feel pressed, though, because
he promised to return to the Oriental Palace Hotel at a quarter to nine and
Oi-yee had planned a full-day programme ahead, after her shower post jogging.
He took a look at the harbour and then rushed downhill. Before turning around,
he saw something that he couldn’t comprehend, the harbour view of his home
city. “Damn, I’ve not really wakened up.”
With hindsight, K should have planned his downhill
journey better, exactly because he hadn’t had enough time. But K chose to rely
on his instinct. He didn’t consult the street map. He couldn’t find it anyway. “Where
is the map?” K had no idea when and where he lost it.
K was in his mid-forties. Although he
taught in a university, he was not noted for his intellectual ability,
particularly in a time of stress. Oi-yee, in contrast, was sharp and energetic.
She was 18 years younger than K.
“Where’s the Oriental Palace Hotel?” After
making several turns that he thought would lead him to the simple destination,
K had to ask for help. But the environment around him changed as rapidly as his
own heart beat. The street side food stalls had all disappeared. Instead, he
found a cluster of temporary shelters in which people were living in abject
conditions. Many were cooking outside their homes using wood of all sorts in
crude ovens. Youngsters ran around on muddy paths without shoes. Moreover, they
all had rather darkish bodily features. “This is a sub-tropical area, not an
equatorial one. What has happened to this famous tourist city?” K wondered.
Nobody cared to respond to him, as if he were transparent. He felt increasingly
uneasy.
Finally he emerged from the chaos. “Ah,
that’s it!”
Across the shambles, there was a very
impressive shopping mall of grotesque shape. The name of the open street,
Oriental Avenue, was where the Oriental Palace Hotel was located. K looked at
the clock outside the mall. “Good Lord! It’s 9:30am. Oi-yee must be cursing me.”
But at least he was in recognisable
territory. “I’m really ageing. Why should I have gone into that horrible area?
Why can’t I even make a simple round trip?”
Without the street map, K decided to make a
left turn in a dash to the hotel. People around were of the normal features he
was expecting, whiter in skin, but they were all strangely dressed. “Who would
wear those colours in winter? Dear me!” Those colours were reddish or greenish
but all shiny. Anyway, K didn’t have time to analyse, until he was almost
knocked down at a crossroads by a car. Baaa…….! So he was horned at by an
unfamiliar sound, which was like that of a robot, half human, half machine. He
could not understand why because he hadn’t seen any traffic lights.
Eventually K arrived at a place that, to the
best of his intellectual ability and geographical sense, must be where the
Oriental Palace Hotel was. The harbour was just a few blocks away, as he
remembered.
Instead, there stood an office building
that almost shot up to the clouds. In front of it was a kiosk selling newspaper
and trivialities. He panicked. He couldn’t recall seeing the kiosk last night
when Oi-yee and he checked into the hotel. Nor this morning. He put his right
hand into the pocket of his jacket, only to find that he was not wearing any
jacket at all. “Where is the hotel key? And my mobile?”
K looked around, totally nonplused. “Where
am I?” He approached the kiosk, and saw a man there. He was in his 30’s, but
dressed in a metallic clothing of sort, bright green. That in winter, again?
“Hi, can you please tell me where the
Oriental Palace Hotel is?” K said to the man. “What?” “The Oriental Palace
Hotel.” The man looked puzzled. He turned to another guy, who was actually
lying low inside the kiosk. He rose, and appeared like the father. “The
Oriental Palace Hotel?” “Yes,” K responded, checking his watch. “What sort of
watch is this? Anyway, oh no! It’s almost ten!”
“The hotel was here, but was pulled down
twenty years ago,” said the father. “Maybe thirty years. Why?”
“Thirty years ago! You must be kidding.” K
became annoyed. “What year is it now?”
They laughed, as if an accidental tourist
could have asked such a silly question. “It is ’66,” said the son in the bright
green outfit.
“1966? Oh, come on!” K retorted, losing
patience. A moment of silence followed. And then the rude answer, “2066! Of
course! Where’re you from?” Both the father and the son stared dismissively at
him.
***
K wandered around the main streets aimlessly. It was a world that he
could no longer recognise. The knowledge he had gained from the guide books was
of little use. The Mokka Square was there, but so unlike the pictures he had
seen. Nor was the Cathedral, which should be by the side of a park. People were
not responsive at all. He didn’t even dare to ask questions. “It must be a bad
dream,” he told himself many times. In any case, he couldn’t find his hotel key
in the clothes he now felt very uncomfortable about. “Where had I changed for
all these?” To his agony, “these” were also shiny.
In desperation, he walked again to the place he thought where the
Oriental Palace Hotel was. The two at the kiosk didn’t even bother to look at him,
as he had become such a frequent occurrence, or to be more exact, nuisance.
K pondered: this must be the place where he and Oi-yee said bye to
each other in the early morning, in anticipation of meeting again an hour
later. It was such a normal routine in their five-year marriage whenever they travelled
overseas. “Where the hell is the hotel?”
As K was losing all hopes, a familiar colour entered his sight. No,
it was not exactly familiar. It was pink, but shiny pink. A young woman was
jogging by. She was the first jogger he met after seeing off his wife hours
earlier. “Hey,” K yelled. He ran behind her for about twenty seconds. Focusing
his eyes, he shouted, “Oi-yee!”
The young woman turned around without actually stopping. Oh, yes.
Oi-yee looked great. Petite and pretty, as usual. K paused and glanced at his “watch”.
It was 12:10. OK, I’ve made a mess of it. You have reasons to be angry, very
angry indeed. Well! But you should also know what I have suffered in the past
few hours. It’s the first time I’m here in this queer tourist resort. You chose
it though, not me. Yes, I also thought it was a good idea. Anyway, let this be
the end of the morning nightmare. Can you just forgive me? Let’s go back to the
hotel, and start the programme you’ve planned, although belatedly. We have
enough time, after all.
“Excuse me,” the young woman eventually stopped and jogged back to
K. She looked exactly Oi-yee, except the immediate expression and shine on the
pink suit. And her hair-style was slightly different. Also she seemed a bit
younger, maybe just fresher with another make-up. In any case, she’s Oi-yee!
“What has she done in the past few hours? Gone to the beauty
parlour? Why is she still jogging in noon-time?” K thought without saying
anything, just waiting.
“Do I know you?” The young woman asked very politely. That was the
most soothing sound K had heard all morning. And it was the voice he had heard
for the past ten years. But the content of her answer was most disconcerting.
He was almost impelled to say “of course!”
K stared at her again, and then widened his perspective to the
environment around them. K was an associate professor of psychology. Although
he was mediocre, he knew in general the major intentions and meanings behind
ordinary responses, especially off-guarded ones. This young woman a metre from
him was obviously surprised. K became despondent.
“You mean you don’t know me,” K replied with an embarrassed
expression, after what seemed like an eternity. “I don’t think so, Mister.”
Came with the familiar smile, albeit mixed with a certain sense of
bewilderment.
As the young woman continued her jogging, the shine of her sport
suit faded from sight with a rhythm. A diminishing rhythm that was both
inviting and rejecting. K wanted to follow but then stopped. At last, the pink
colour disappeared.
K walked back to the kiosk. It had already been closed for lunch. K realised
for the first time that there was a digital poster outside it. It was some kind
of a flashing gadget. On it was the front-page headline of the City Daily News:
“Deep Recession Predicted for 2067”.
***
"Cut! The last scene is NG!" Do it again.
***
What
next? Find it somewhere in my poor website around spring:
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