Category: Smoke (page 4 of 6)

In the silence of the empty kitchen I unwrap bowls and pair chopsticks. The larger soup bowls feel at home on the shelf above the sink, along with the cannisters of rice, dried onions and pickled lemons. I call up some tulips on Windows and start chopping mint. The glass bowl steams with the heat of the water inside it, and shines translucently each time I dip a sheet of rice paper in its sharded depths, drops of rice rich water falling on the wooden chopping board. The tiny stories of bean shoots, carrot slices and mint folded together, then dipped in the peanut sauce. The stories we told each other that first time in Fitzroy. I eat the rolls with a grim determination, swallowing the almost dry vermicelli painfully. Swigs of ginger beer between bites. I leave the smeared bowl of peanut sauce and the implements in the deep sink. A small chirrup from my wristwatch. The drizzle of radio static in the wireless morning. 10am. Broadcast time.

The graffiti walls disappear overnight, only to be replaced by acres of crumbling bricks. Animated characters from Monkey prowl the screens of the subway cars and stations, drilling the denizens in security and respect, performing kick-flip manoeuvres with pixellated aplomb. I watch vacantly as the main display shows the progress of the train through the netwerk like a virus along a vein. Each time the train is infected by an intersecting virus a three-coloured circle appears, and more people shove to get on and off. Sitting there, jammed against the wall by the crush of black-haired Koreans, I realise, as if for the first time, the utter remoteness of my present situation from that of my previous life as Hanna, my incarnation if you will, as an interpreter for the Refugee Amnesties and Repatriations Commission (RARC) that had been set up in Melbourne after the war. Three thousand miles away in Free Korea, trapped in a corner of conformity, sweating garlic like the rest of them, interspersing sips of canned coffee with flicks on the switch in my pocket.

I stumble through the laneways and backstreets of Aramis, catching the occasional snatch of conversation and dice rumbling. The awnings are still out, despite the dark hour, and just as I realised I’ve taken a wrong turn to the left the rain begins to fall again, unannounced and with great speed. I freeze beneath the temporary shelter of the intersection and the stairway leading down to the underground substation, its neon glow barely visible down the tunnel’s hollow length. I wait in the blasted tunnel entrance and watch the black sheets of water falling like prisms through the postfuture morning, levitating slightly on a memory of Shanghai. Our midnight run through streets awash with rainwater frothing up like beer from the gutters, sprayed in an arc across the bottom half of your jeans as you dove headfirst into the electro. By the time we fell laughing in each others’ arms in our cubicle lovenest, the morning light was falling through the apartment block’s central courtyard, and the sound of mah jonng was already there, the tiles hitting formica like rain on a corrugated iron roof.

The mood in this PC Bang is bleak. Most screens switched off and the ones that run blink urgently, error messages forming solitaire cascades. Still this small corner of connectivity on this far deep space of the south continent is pleasant enough for 3am, and about seven tubenerds are here, feeding tubenews into their headsets, assembling and deploying scripts for the Korean diaspora, the frightened sons and daughters of the educational TV revolution. Your connections there with fellow students from Daegu, faces that seemed more familar than they really were, under the grey glowing lights of screentalk. Logging on to one of the non-commercial news sites, I sit back for a moment and breathe in the smoke as I wait for the myriad of flash animators to load, reminding me, as they always do, of birds picking insects off the backs of larger animals, such as the buffalo. When prompted for my subscription barcode, I pause for a moment and then open a new screen, calling up our private site, invisible beneath the radar of cross-border security. Three new posts. I sigh with relief.

Under the gloom of moonlights I wander the streets of Aramis, scouring the intersections for PC Bangs, those unofficial shelters for Korea’s refugees, the engine room of the diaspora economy, racks of aloe drinks and snacknuts. Beneath a giant podpark I find an alleyway arcade of fried pork stalls and freeband stations, instant access, newband booths, the works. Just as you’d described it. I mean, I’d proofread your application. Research into the thriving street level Internet cultures … exploring concepts of transmigration, as a means of cultural exchange between Aramis and Korean Network City. Who knew what that meant. Still, you didn’t seem all that surprised when the letter arrived informing you of a positive outcome, the notification itself perhaps even more significant than the amount of money. The equivalent of three months hacking, above street level anyway. You began sharpening your Hangul, and I my Mandarin. Then, of course, came the resumption of hostilities, the burst and the overseas draft. All accounts, like our plans, frozen.