by Anonymous
I remember China as yellow. Summer, and it smelled like hot garbage. This part of town was run-down. The sidewalk lifted dust when you walked on it. Dust made the air thick, made it hold color better. The sun was yellow. I remember walking across this stone bridge, a few feet down from the bus stop. The bridge was dusty, too. I’d be out of breath by the top of the bridge. I never paused at the top, to look at the cars going by. I can’t remember if there were any cars going by. I don’t think China had many cars back then. And there was this man who sat at the head of the bridge. He sat on paintings like they were rugs. He had a tea set with him, too, and it left rims of wet green on the muzzles of dragons in the paintings. I think he slept there. I never looked at him, closely, always sped up when I got to that part of the bridge. He had long hair. I remember him as blue, like the waves on China plates. The apartment complexes were dirty and hot. There was a stray cat, orange and tabby, who’d slink around when the sun hit noon. When the sun hit noon, it’d be too hot to stay outside. Everyone took naps after lunch. At noon, the only sound you heard was electric fans, hot static. I don’t know how anyone could fall asleep in that kind of heat. It was so hot. I could never keep still in bed. The bed was hard, lined with a sheet of cotton. Next to it was an ironing board with a box of tampons and a huge electric fan. The electric fan blew hot air. Behind it was a window that never closed, and on the cooler days, when people still had the energy to keep out at noon, you could hear the wives playing cards, screeching from the floor below. Listen to Chinese there: it screeches. The women, mainly. At their kids, at their friends. The wives played cards at a plastic table set outside the first-floor shipping company where their husbands worked. Sometimes when I napped on the second floor, I heard the men ape as they carried big boxes onto big trucks. It was yellow in China. I always looked out the window if I couldn’t fall asleep, and it was yellow out there. You could see outlines of the apartment buildings across the concrete courtyard. The buildings were all two stories. They looked empty. Sometimes, I imagined looking down through the window, to watch the men load trucks and the women laugh at cards. I never did because I was scared they’d look up, see me there. Speak to us, they’d smile. They were all mothers and would know how to take care of me. I’d try the language out with a soft tongue, just out of view of the window. I’d stare at the smooth wall, move over, and shut the blinds.