Kinetic City
2016—2017, 2024—2025
Photography (B/W) + Text
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A corner faucet. The soap dispenser is perched above the tap. The paint around the faucet is slightly yellowed. Also dispensing is the paper towel station, positioned between the faucet and the mirror, fixed to the wall in an alcove. The barista walks behind my perch at the bar, and my shirt flutters in her wake.
I notice a large plastic container of green olives in brine next to a cardboard box in a corner. It seems lonely there, forgotten.
I’m across the road from the Mongkok Police Station in a cafe, sitting on an espresso and wondering where the time has gone. It’s a sunny day. The cyclone wiring on the station’s wall glitters with warmth. My leg is itchy, as is my shoulder. Something’s been biting me as I sleep.
Nothing’s changed, and everything has changed. I’m getting over my injuries slowly, and my recent bout of poor health and seasonal allergies, which have been getting more pronounced the older I get, are slowly dissipating. I stretch, I feel the blood flow harshly through me. I’ve fallen asleep the past few nights to the sound of rainfall. It’s beautiful. A constant. If it’s not raining, I hear the dripping from the air conditioning units within the building’s recess, all clinging to its side like moth flies in a drainpipe. It also sounds beautiful. Ambient droplets cover my sleeping consciousness like bubble wrap.
Suppose I listen carefully, deliberately, beyond the air conditioners and the sound of the tram as it turns through King’s Road. What do I hear? I hear people twenty floors down in the street pushing trolleys, collecting cardboard boxes, the occasional yelling match, and the guy on the telephone next door yelling at some relative about something. He has an expressive voice and seems to know how things should go. There’s a guy two doors down. He doesn’t throw anything out. He stacks everything up carefully in cardboard boxes. His concoctions of cardboard protrude out into the hallway. He roams the corridors at night under the cover of fluorescent lighting. But you have to listen carefully to hear him. The only evidence of his being around is sometimes found in the morning. A tissue on the ground here. A beer can by an open window there. I don’t think I’ll be living here in a few years, so I won’t be able to check in on him. I wonder how he’ll get on.
These photos were taken over two-year spans, seven years apart.
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