the building
I loved the museum with an ache, loved its low-slung and smooth roof and its slow-moving dry brush, forming a diorama of mountain behind it. A row of lights flicked on along the stairs. Silt in the air blew past. A couple strolled by with interlaced fingers, timeless. I drank it in, the quiet, dry courtyard the metal sculpture in front, an organic body frozen mid-flow. I wondered why buildings were always personified as she. The hairs on my arm stood up.
I waited until long after the sun had set, and then I walked carefully up the steps, guided by the interconnected radii of lights on the stairs, until I reached the stone wall, the color of sun-bleached reef, now the empty color of a whisper in the darkness. But I knew it was there. Up close, I did not know where the wall began and where it ended. I leaned forwards and kissed the stone.
– s. feng
the teapot
We were in a coffee shop – one of those hanging ones –– and it was near midnight; that’s what I remember. Rain outside on the glass walls, the sound of it echoing everywhere, the chatter around us incoherent. I had just picked him up from the train station, and he was sitting across from me, his suitcase at his feet, and he was laughing, the darkness around him smearing out the moving pinpricks of gold from the lamps behind him. It was beginning to fill up –– the coffee shop dimming its lights, flicking on its old radio to play soft, staticky jazz –– and customers were beginning to filter in. One of my friends ordered tea, so a waiter set down a big-bellied, garishly white teapot in the center of the table, and I poured it into each cup, the steam warming up my knuckles.
I looked down at my feet, which were sleeping, like rabbits. I was wearing a blue dress that I never wore and I felt static crawl along my arms. I looked up. His face curved. I could see his teeth, which were the same color as a chipped piece of an old ceramic bowl. The table between us was two feet. The steam, rising up, posed a question to me.
– s. feng
the chocolate bar
When we stepped into the fluorescent store, the doorbell chimed. It smelled of mint, cool and sweet and clinical. You purchased a bag of pretzels and a pack of gum. I could not stop looking at you, but if you ever met my eyes I would fixate upon something else instantly, as if I had always been intently examining a package of gummies hanging from a hook. Your eyes were dark and smiling. Quickly you put a Snicker’s bar on the counter as well and paid with a ten-dollar-bill from your wallet. I bought a sandwich wrapped in tin foil and we sat outside on the curb. You put the chocolate in front of me.
I haven’t had one of these in years, I said.
That’s the fun of it, you said.
– s. feng