Lamma Island, 4:59PM – Overcast.

Entry 69

Two phone calls from friends today. Friends from without the dictatorship in which we now live, from beyond the colony which, whether it likes it or not, is still that very thing.

We are stuck because it is almost impossible to come back. Go on and count the threads of ambiguity I have strung there.

Come back to the place where women have never felt so safe walking home at night. Come back to the place where (white) men have never felt so wanted, so in demand.

Even if it were a dictatorship in the romantic, black-and-white-cinema-screen, it-only-gets-better-when-this-is-all-over sense of the word, those listening in would still have nothing on us from these phone calls. What should we say? The world already knows it is a joke, they laugh without us putting in a few words, without our two cents. We are past it. Beyond it. And yet they want us to live without it. You know what it is, don’t you?

These phone calls are a breath of fresh air. The green walls of my apartment melt away. A bird calls out like a broken bike chain.

One friend calls from San Francisco. The other from Phuket. No news is good news. Forewarned is forearmed. You can still do so much in this place if you stop leaving, stop drinking, stop waiting on those false ends, stop looking for those false beginnings. But that is not news.

The two friends would most definitely get along if they ever met. Strong women who make things look easy. Good mothers to us and yet no children.

We can’t leave. We can’t meet. We have friends who are locked up. At home. Abroad. Those at home are held against their will. Those abroad are held by their will. Will, what a word. My two friends and I would agree on what “at home” and “abroad” mean, even though they are different things to each of us. Our families would disagree with us. They would say we are running away. Today, I know that is where they are wrong. Let it follow me. There is no where. There is nowhere to run.

For phone calls like these I wish I had a landline with a physical cord. Rotary dial. I can hear you right now. Taobao on your lips. I want to sit in my chair, legs crossed, and twirl the cord around my fingertips like a movie star from one of those old dictatorships. WhatsApp calls will never be glamorous.

I decide to catch the next ferry to Hong Kong Island. I am late.