AnYi 安亦

Take us through a written walk down your street and to your favorite place through the eyes of somebody else.

He sneezes as the hot wave of evening wind brings in the humid, bitter-sweet smell of camphor trees. The sneeze echoes across the mosaic brick road beneath him, the sound travelling though the circle of high rise buildings like a bomb, creating a crack in the soft quietness enhanced by the setting sun shining over the overwhelming wild greenness of those subtropical evergreens.

He cringes in his head as he steps out of the South Gates, having never cared much for unattended plants or the colour green, literally or metaphorically. Instinctively, he checks the message from his wife. ‘Forgot my dancing shoes. Meet at the square.’

Her dancing squad take up a corner of Three Horses square every evening. He can see groups of pedestrians strolling towards there, the statue of three galloping horses standing out in the centre of the square, surrounded by renovated bushes and bright-coloured flowers, the names of which he can never be bothered to find out. Heading westward, he happens to make eye contact with two young apprentices crouching and smoking on the doorstep of the hair salon. Their incomprehensible hairstyles annoyed him a little – decent young men should at least have higher aspirations than seeking resemblance to roosters, certainly! No wonder this salon always looks as if it is on the brink of closedown, like all the pathetic other shops on the street. But he doesn’t like paying attention to such unimportant details, and never stops to glance as he walks past the salon and the other shabby little shops. The only exception was the music bar at the west end of the street, as the ungodly noise from behind the doors makes him jump. He decides to return that with a contemptuous swear word, before crossing street amongst a large herd of electrical motorbikes, nearly getting knocked over by a middle-aged rider carrying her child in the backseat.

‘Watch where you’re going!’

‘Idiot!’

Shouting simultaneously, they glare at each other for a second, before the lights turn green again on the southern side, where the woman is heading. He shakes his head and walks towards Three Horses. Soon enough, he locates his wife among her squad of retired women, all of them chattering at the same time, with a retro speaker playing deafening 2000s pop music in their midst.

‘Stupid old women.’ He mutters; but stays and watches them dance anyway.