Hitotoki: Fahuazhen Lu/Huahai Xi Lu, June 13, 2010, 5:30am

by ferret

I’d stayed up all night, and I was surrounded by the morning hush. For this brief hour, the city had crashed, fallen into a deep slumber. The revelers and party demons had retreated, and the drivers, the busybodies and the makers of the day had yet to arise and meet the morning. All that shuffled about were the soy milk servers and newspaper couriers, working in silence, as if the city were a temple.

A man brushed by me on my way down a wide avenue, babbling to himself, using the silence as a sounding board. I regarded him with some interest, but I found nothing strange in his behavior. I was talking with the silence as well.

How could I not? In these moments, the world was spread out before me, unified in that silence, bereft of differentiation, blurred from right and wrong, existing as itself and nothing more. Continue reading…

Hitotoki: The junction of Wulumuqi Lu/Yuyuan Lu

by S. C. Gordon

Time of story: Midnight

It’s raining. Wulumuqi Lu stretches behind me and beyond – a wet black ribbon. The rain is a blizzard; the trees are full of it. At the junction of Yuyuan Lu I stop at the traffic lights and remove my shoes, tucking them into the basket on the front of my bike, under the bright yellow spread of my cyclist’s raincoat. (It is more of a costume than a raincoat. Or a plastic niqab. It covers me completely, apart from my feet. I have tightened the toggle above my nose, so my field of view is a narrow slit under the inbuilt peaked cap.)

I touch my bare feet to the glossy tarmac as I wait for the lights to change. A man on a scooter pulls up beside me and stares. For once, the stare is unaccompanied by a muttering of laowai. He has no idea I’m not Chinese. My eyes are hidden beneath the peak of my canary-yellow disguise. My only strangeness is my bare feet.

It’s a rare anonymity. It’s liberation. Maybe it’s only the masked ones, the ones who are disguised, who are free.

The lights change to green beyond the fuzz of the rain. I claw my toes around the pedals and push on.

China, China, China

by ferret

The breeze of politics overtook our conversation

Lapping at our ears with its incessancy
Nagging at our eardrums
With the patter of rights and dispensations.

You talked about China and futurity
Your tongue sticking on that word
“Ascendance”
As if it were the name of some lover
You’d forgotten from long ago. Continue reading…

dead & buried – lost poems from a blue suitcase I

Left Behind

by Angel

I’m Bonny. I have mummy and daddy, I live with my grandma and grandad though. Mummy and daddy work in Suzhou, but I don’t know where it is. It must be very far away, as they don’t come to see me much, only two to three times a year.

My grandparents run a small drugstore at the corner of a street, and we live behind it. Most of time, I play by myself, grandma does the housework and grandpa takes care of the business. Sometimes, I sit with grandpa behind the counter, watching him talk and sell things to our customers. A lot of kids come to our store with their parents, they usually get gadgets and snacks if they ask. Continue reading…

A Letter for Li Peng

by ferret

Li Peng,

I know my parents told you that I won’t be coming on the class fieldtrip to the Expo because I’m sick, but it’s not true. You’re my best friend in the world, and I want you to know the truth about why I’m not coming. But please promise you won’t tell anyone.

I’m a wicked person. My parents keep telling me so, and I think that they’re probably right. But there’s this part of me that thinks they are wrong, and I’m not so wicked. This makes me more wicked. That’s the truth.

Do you remember the card for the Dark Woodland Elf? The one that Xiao Bai always plays? The character can make himself stronger than almost any other character, but only by sacrificing the trees which retain his power? He gets stronger, but it doesn’t last. I’m afraid I’m like that Dark Woodland Elf. My parents built me this forest, and they told me not to destroy it, but I want to tear it all down just the same.

Continue reading…

Xiao Wang’s Day at the Expo – A Field Trip Report

by S. C. Gordon

Name: Amelia Margaret Fieldman

Age: 16

Trip Report

My name is Amelia Fieldman, and I live in Gruenberg, Vermont, with my parents and my kid sister Lily. The trip co-ordinator from Swan Tours has asked me to write this report as part of the experience.

To be honest, I’m not really sure where to start. Lily is sitting beside me right now, scribbling away, but she’s much more eloquent than me, even though she’s only twelve. In any case, she sees the whole situation differently. For her it’s fiction – something she feels removed from, as if it had happened to someone else. For me it’s horribly real, and I hate it. If it was up to me we would never talk about it, but Mom and Dad wanted us to take the trip. Continue reading…

Illustrated Groupthink

a collaborative work by several drunken artists

Continue reading…

the heart as an octopus

by Butler

Expo Groupthink – May 23rd

The funniest thing happened to me on Sunday. I woke up thinking about how hot mermaids are, and how much I would like to see one in a fight with a fox, with beautiful mermaid titties showing through skimpy mermaid tops. Guess what? My dream came true thanks to Susie Gordon – minus one sororal lesbian encounter. Check it check it out here.

Butler gave us a taste of things to come from his love as an octopus series of poems. The words speak for themselves. ’nuff said. We’ll get it posted asap alongside Ginger’s melancholy footwear love affair.

Dizzy D from Las V sent in not one but TWO submissions. Awesome! You know those contemporary video art installations you see in museums that make you scratch your head and say ‘what the fuck?’. Get ready for it. Plus an awesome poem with accompanying video/graphic.

Least and last was Bjorn and Nate’s collaborative effort with Filipino bartender extraordinaire Ray/Jerry and two American tourists whose names we didn’t catch. Sorry Hunter, I don’t know why you are wearing a skirt, or why you ran over Butler in a car, or how you ended up in bed with Bob and Mitch but I hope you enjoyed the circus. I am looking forward to hearing reader insights into this abstract masterpiece.

I assume you’ve all noticed the beautiful artwork montages featured at the top of our site. Big thanks to Art Director Johnathan Walters for that one. If you’ve got any questions or comments about artworks you see up there just click away or flush an email to j.walters@haliterature.com.

Next Groupthink will take place on Sunday, May 23rd. The theme….”Xiao Wang’s Day at the Expo”……Drop us an email at editor@haliterature.com if you’re interested in attending.