imaginary cities: menda —

City of the big one, the whopper and the raised eyebrow. City of tales so tall they call them riddlescrapers. City of a thousand hits and one junkie’s promise to tell all. City without a story arc. Follish little boys trundling barrels down to the px for spare candy. Two old men fighting in the street with a crowbar next to a construction pit while everyone else just looks on. City of two finger type pads and mouse recalls. Third floor activity hubs. Second floor restaurants catering to the mafia. First floor florists. Streets filled with newspapers telling of the latest academic to be hauled before the prosecution for supporting the non-existent enemy state. City of excruciating silences and barely audible whines. Factory timetables. Hawker routs. City of the tin whistle, the banana peel and the open mouth. Gags that flow like rivers through the food halls. City of girls who hold their hand over their mouth while speaking on mobiles, laughing or both. City of girls in short skirts who hold their handbags behind them as they ascend escalators to deny men upskirt glances. City of gas attack contingency plans involving orange facial hoods and a wan yellow light. City of re-run movies. City of motorcycles and grey steel poles. Backslapping the squat toilets, doing a runner as the kim chi courses through me. Elaborate hoaxes involving chaebol daughters and the sons of former military commanders. All hauled before the prosecution, never to be heard from again. Plum wine in heart-shaped bottles, vitality juices in forbidding metal cans. City of roaring hot plates. Hair dye and tooth bleach. Nature rooms. The rarity of disability access. The sanctity of dynamics. The over-inflation of production targets and the boo-hoo of parliamentary shame. Take what you want, give with a grimace. Too many falsehoods to halve in one day. Typical.