IMAGINARY INCIDENTS

The first cup of coffee had been quite strong, so I chose a bigger pipe for my early morning walk outside. Forty five minutes later, when I returned home, I was still wired. The street outside the building looked clean and neat, despite the earthmoving equipment and a large tubular concrete object on one side. Streetsweeping can be done, even with parked caterpillars. The sunlight silhouetted the working men further up, early to the job.

A cup of tea was required. Like on work days. My apartment mate listening to podcasts before heading off remarked that she hate how "all these twenty year olds sound exactly alike". Well, yes. But what that really means is that you now sound like what you have become. Years ago you wouldn't have noticed that they're all twitty idiots.

Precisely like Amber, spam-calling about "your last car accident, which was not your fault, and you did not receive compensation, is this correct?" Yo, Dingbat, this particular phone number does not own a vehicle! Hasn't for aeons. Which I'm negatively explaining to you in Cantonese, rudely, because I will not use any words that would be useful for you to record and hack into my phone, which, I believe, is the intent of this call.
Besides which that option has not been enabled.
The recorded voice hung up.

My last car accident was indeed a long time ago, not my fault and uncompensated, because it did not happen or it was imaginary. Probably a dream, likely not my own.
And somewhere else, very far away.

Arguing with spambots in foreign languages is fun.
Useless, but good for the soul.

喂，傻人，呢個特別嘅電話號碼人唔係擁有車輛！一直都冇。我係負面噉同你解釋緊。


Perhaps artificial intelligence has gone too far. It's starting to resemble natural stupidity. And lord knows there is plenty of that. It's an inexhaustible resource. Not nearly priceless.

The briar sticking jauntily out of my jaw during the walk was a Comoy sandblast, shape 95, which always reminds me of harbour pilots, muddy estuaries, and humid hot climates.

Also, the old international airport in Hong Kong (啟德機場 'kai tak kei jeung'). Which hasn't been operational for over two decades. Noodle soup. Dumplings. Rainy weather. Working men smoking cigarettes under deep awnings. Bedraggled kiddiewinkies seemingly impervious to feeling quite soggy. A red ball. Splashing. Hot milk tea.

When the temperature is nearly ninety, rain is not refreshing or cooling. And once you're out of it, indoors, your clothing dries to the point of slightly wet within minutes.
Still too warm and muggy. Everything slightly damp.
Perfect mildew weather.

It's quiet now. My apartment mate has gone off to work. I've shut her bedroom door, and lit up a second pipe. There is, occasionally, a bump or thud from outside; the working men and their caterpillars. Around seventy degrees outside.
Sun slanting in. Refill the tea.


It has been a very long time since I felt rain in hot weather.
That's elsewhere, not San Francisco, ever.
Dreamy car accident weather.



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