鏡頭錯過了

一街的樹木披披，遮著慵懶的空氣；棕色栗色的落葉，默默的托著散落的金光，待走過時，才覺出一絲似有還無的涼風。不遠處，一只灰綠的舊梳化靜靜的翻側在路口，馬路對過一隻淺栗色、頭頂深棕毛的暹羅貓徐徐橫過。一切是這麼安閒，亂中有序，這就是秋。

紋身

經過一個外國女子，頸後鬢下赫然露出上下兩個中文字：無悔 ——白膚藍字，工正湛然。只見她從行人天橋的窄梯上一蹤一跳，脫然下去了。

when lights are low and orange: seduction

Tango. 11:30pm.

Shoes. All you see are her shoes.

Open toes. A small patch of orange leather, boomerang shape, over her feet. A small patch of black leather, boomerang to the other direction, around her ankles. Front and back symmetrical, clad delicately around her feet, beautiful as can be imagined. Long straight stem of a heel. Tall glass stems, supporting those legs. Those fluorescent white shapes glowing from the shadow a black dress. Morphing deities that we now all worship.

They are seeking, fishing for something. The music is loitering, hasn’t really started yet. It’s excruciating to watch. Them fishing. The tip and the heel hover over the floor, not touching. But swirl, hesitate, change course midway. Feeling a mood, not finding. Retrieving, not forgoing. Draw a half circle, another that way, and search again.

We cringe a little, all of us who just a moment ago contracted foot fetishes. None of us feels comfortable. Not inside. We know what this is: Foreplay. Two pairs of legs, liquid on dry land, feeling for an opening. Pouring over the dance floor, thick as mercury. We really shouldn’t be watching. We know. You are either one of the two, or you are intruding.

Finally the music gets to a point. A guy begins singing. The legs wake up to the song and become more decisive. We are relieved, taking a moment to look at the body above the legs. She’s an elegant woman in that indeterminable age sometimes called prime. Her face, no doubt as elegant as the way she moves, is not clear; her black dress, fitly on her body, is fused into her partner’s dark suit. Invariably we come back to her legs. Her legs and her shoes.

If all innovations in the world are a result of scarcity and competition, then all creative arts are products of eros. Ordinary people, insufferably lifeless one moment, become artists the next moment as Aphrodite graces their foreheads with her touch. Woken to life, these inspired souls spend their lives inventing new ways to captivate their desires. They would keep creating, never resting, until they consummate their love, or die from exhaustion trying.

If I didn’t have the now rare chance to feel attractive today, I wouldn’t be inspired to write this much right now.

I wouldn’t see those mesmerizing, fishing shoes of two feet, agonizing, teasing out that never-coming turn of music when they can finally, dance.

Cotton Tree

The tree outside the window is blossoming. It started with a few bulbs - it seems longer - but only a few days ago. Those budding bulbs looked so hard and small, you’d expect them to be indifferent to the imperious climate, resistant to the luring rain. They were white, small and satin-seeming; I thought it was a cotton tree (木棉). But a day later they all changed, adding in number, growing in size, and it became clear that they were going to be full-crown flowers. Every time I looked out the window they had changed– a coup that staged its moves covertly and uniformly – and I reminded myself to write about it, about its white promise with a tint of yellow– or was it pale yellow I saw? But I forgot every time, and again they changed. Within a few hours there was no doubt: the bulbs were going to be yellow flowers, lemony yellow. With the discovery I relished the lost moments- very little mystery is left, is there? Well, until you catch yourself looking out the window again, you never know.