#operator talks

Oh, hello darlings! Operator here to inform you that some individuals want to be asked questions, and I’m here to communicate for them!

Notes of who you can ask are in the link, as I really don’t want to rewrite everything for tumblr lmao.

Can’t believe that I’m graduating next month and I had a busy weekend so I wrote this in kind of a rush. I initially wanted to pay homage but I didn’t have enough time. 

Another week of worrying for nothing but that’s okay. I’m going to be okay with whatever happens this week. As for the homage I plan to write, it’s from Lost in the City again and from the end of the book. I’ll be writing in reference to the section A New Man. 

One day in late November, Charlie Hallia returned home covered in sweat and found her older brother, Jack, enthusiastically chatting with two teenagers. She was fifteen and the youngest of the four siblings, a high school freshman with a passion for gardening and learning botany at the local garden center while also interested in history and poetry. For the past four years she was living abroad in Japan with her mother after Jack was grievously injured in a boat accident and attended school while recovering with relatives in Anaheim. Her older sister, Danielle, had moved to the mainland to attend college in New York City and her oldest brother, Graham, decided to take the hardship pay and work in the green zone in Baghdad. For as long as she remembered, she wanted to stay on the island of Hawai’i until she left for college and return to either improve her father’s desalination business or work in the government like her mother and oldest brother. Jack waved at her as she entered from the garage door from where she parked her bike and continued speaking with the redheaded boy with a posh British accent and the Asian girl with what might have been a Dutch accent when they tried to greet her in Hawaiian. Her brother explained they were new friends from school he planned to hang out with and she soon prepared to go out again after showering and chopping a mango for herself. 

The morning she came home from her daily bike ride, she spotted the haze in the sky from either Kilauea or Mauna Loa which were active on the island. She would need to check which one it was. There hadn’t been any major eruptions yet and tsunami season hadn’t impacted them that badly. Apart from that were the regular signs of protests against building one of the telescopes on sacred land in addition to tourists from who knows where who were driving around lost. Charlie and her friends were sometimes asked by tourists on bikes and rented Mustangs if they were going in the right direction back to the fancy resorts they were staying at. Her dad had also left a folded piece of paper for both her and her brother when he left early in the morning which she hadn’t read yet. 

Can’t believe I’ll be graduating in about a month. Anyway, I’ll be paying homage to Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones in regards to pg. 167 where it begins with describing how the next day is Friday. 

The next day was Wednesday, and Johannes was determined to visit his friend because it was raining out and the semester was coming to a close as finals were ending this week. He texted Mike before he entered the dorm after walking there from the nearby metro with no idea what was going to happen next. 

“Sorry, but would you like something to eat? It’s disrespectful in my home country to not offer a friend anything to eat when meeting.” Mike was eating takeout ramen and had opted to meet Johannes in the study area of his floor. 

“No thanks, I’m fine.” replied Johannes. “It’s been a while since we last spoke and I wanted to ask what was going on.” 

“Sure... I’m not going to finish this semester and I’m going on medical leave.” 

Johannes took a breath in shock before asking, “Is this due to your health issues or has something happened at home. I’m so sorry...” 

His friend looked down at his food and answered, “It’s a mix of both. I really wish I could have stayed here a bit longer but I already spoke with the administration and I’ll be flying home tomorrow night.” 

“So did something happen to Ashley? I saw on her Instagram that she flew back to Cincinnati last week?” Johannes continued, reeling from the shock. 

“Yeah… she left and didn’t even complete finals due to an emergency medical leave. I don’t think she’ll be coming back.” 

“Seriously? I didn’t know this was going on. Ever since Kendra and I had that falling out, I haven’t seen you or Ashley on campus that often.” 

“Look, Kendra is a complex person. I know you had your reasons for no longer wanting to associate with her after what happened...” Mike went back to eating his now cooling food. 

“She was hurting herself by bashing her head against the wall. I couldn’t help her so I reported her to the school and walked away.” he said. Clearly frustrated about even mentioning her. 

“I’m asking you to reconcile her again after I leave.” muttered Mike. 

The nearby elevator door dinged and Johannes thought silently in case Kendra was on the same floor and sighed. He didn’t hear anyone walking towards the room to his relief. His friend continued to eat while Johannes checked the time on his phone. 

It’s the Week of March 28th. I’m stuck indoors today because of the rainy weather but I might go for a walk after writing this to get some fresh air and to stretch my legs. I submitted my first workshop back on Friday, I’m happy with it, and I’m outlining and thinking of some ideas with my second workshop story. I read Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones and decided to do a short homage for The Girl who Raised Pigeons chapter. 

Frequently, when the time was properly managed, the girl would leave her studio style dorm and walk into the air polluted city, reading books in English, translated manga chapters, or pre-downloaded webcomic strips from Webtoons of 2019. She chose to leave at around early after noon, usually from four to five pm when the sun began to set and there was not a large likelihood that professors would email her. In the early morning, she would sometimes order hot soy milk, twisted crullers, and a possible hash brown from the Chinese delivery app and enjoy that as brunch before working on anthropology, history, law, or whatever she was studying. She could walk out and visit Family Mart or 7/11 and get a bun plus a bottle of packaged milk tea or green tea. And when she walked back to the dorm, she could see the children and their grandparents strolling through the city, the countless number of delivery drivers making less than $15 USD a day though food delivery, and the old street cleaners from rural China who came to the city to work. In the afternoon, she sometimes walked down the street from her dorm to where a small market stood. Inside was a wet market that sold live chickens, rabbits, and ducks while butchers lined the walls and vegetables were placed in booths under white neon lights. She refused to buy food from there as her room lacked a kitchen and she was trying to lose weight so she walked back and spotted an old women selling pets underneath the tree by the sidewalk. A bunny the size of a coffee cup in a cage smaller than a shoe box, turtles cramped in little plastic boxes, and fish in small cups. 

Continuation of the homage to Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn. This is in reference to chapter “Redemption” where Joey wakes up in sweat. I tried my best since I was trying to emulate the feeling of being in the room.  

Elliot woke to the sound of ringing. The lightswitch near their nightstand clicks as they turn on one of the lights above their bed. In their new, air conditioned, and neat dorm room, Elliot reaches for the charging iPhone and answers the call. Aunt wants to know when they’re going back to Taiwan for Spring Break. Grouchy and looking for their glasses, they promise to text the flight info and slump back into bed. 

They look quickly around the room, the dreary morning light behind the white curtain is soon pulled back to reveal the Pudong skyline. Elliot opens their eyes again and goes to the small mini-fridge, taking out an orange and bottle of water. The morning shouts are soon heard behind the lone window. Calls of the bosses motivating their office workers and the old grandmas dancing to music in the nearby concrete spaces. They feel enclosed in the studio dorm room and think of a plan to go out later after finishing laundry and the anthropology paper due on Monday. 

Author’s note - this is a homage from Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn. Specifically the chapter “The President’s Wife Has a Dream” which I enjoyed due to the description of the water and the location. 

In the park by the side of the Huangpu River, a concrete pathway with lanes for bike riding and plenty of areas for sitting and walking stands in an unfamiliar area of the city. The river is busy, slow moving coal boats and cargo vessels travel up and down underneath the hazy orange and blue sky. The park feels empty, only grandparents with their grandchildren and several foreigners jogging with bluetooth headphones mind their own business as time passes and the sun begins to set. She thinks of her home in Philadelphia, aiming spending some time away from a computer, the unpleasant past and uncertain future while planning to leave soon to get some Western or European food for dinner. 

She rides the blue AliPay bike alongside the fence that faces the river and stops. She is fashionable in a black and read leather jacket, a pristine white shirt, and black jeans with matching shoes. She gets off the bike and moves to sit on one of the benches. Looking at the sight around her that was once a cargo docking point. Disabled machinery that once lifted the great cargo containers now stand silent while there are the small concrete homes where the groundskeepers from the rural parts of China reside. 

She checks the news. Knowing that most reporters are asleep and looks at Twitter where writers in the Philippines, artists in Japan, and critics in Malaysia comment and complain for their followers to see. She gets on the bike again and soon the hydraulic cranes that brought in imports and exports fades as she travels farther away. Crossing a white bridge where cyclists cross and a small area for public concerts she has never seen.