saturday, 11am – he is reading after cleaning the table. the weather disrupted his plans again, and now he only wants to stay inside. he was supposed to climb the great wall today, in a bid to fulfill a childhood dream before leaving his dream city. it’s only a former dream city now, after he has lived for a course of time long enough to discourage him with its indefinite sandstorm, its dog shit, its careless coughers. but before leaving he wants to make it to the great wall, not because it’s one of the must-visit places. he used to be a poet, crazy about all the pieces of mao style, and is always waiting for the time, after scaling the great wall, to repeat that famous line: 不到长城非好汉. he always believes if he fails to reach the great wall, he is not a (good) man.

saturday, 11am – he was trying to clean up, or cleaning up would have him. the last days were too much and everything had to go. yet at the same moment that something leaves him, another thing fills or comes to take place, like a fluid machine. he had lived long enough to want to forget, and maybe that would be okay for now, a tyranny of the unexpected newborn child. (“What was/is the purpose of this takeover? Can we accept a notion of ‘perfection’ in the flow of cultural/natural events? Can we presume that there is always a balancing tendancy to the equation?”)he thumps along to the music now, singing and dancing. but what (good) man will this baby grow up to be, a nomad, an anxiety attack?