The yellow shadow paces back and forth on the dark water surface.

As I walk by the shore, I see 

A dead fish pushed around by the gentle wave; a teal seashell; a broken stone in dark red;

and a banana peel rolling in the sand.

 

The grandma in peacock green is squatting on the rock, washing her hand as the wave comes around. 

Her hands seem clean; what is she trying to get off? 

 

A foreign girl walked from behind. Her shoes are missing, possibly in her mother's basket. She picks up a plastic lid and swings her arm, hard

—the plastic landed on the slow wave, only a few meters in front of me.

 

I watch the lid floating further away as the tide approaching my dry converse. 

When I witness the waves piling up on the sand, it is clear that the water is moving toward me. 

Yet once I move the sight far away, the directions of the waves seem unclear. 

You can't tell if the ripples are going forward or backward, or there is no such a concept for them after all. 

 

Behind the restless ripples, across the sea, there is Hong Kong. 

I know the bridge on my left connects two lands, though I cannot see the end of it. 

 

Back on the shore. Boys are running; girls are throwing stones. Somehow reminds me of the underground live house in Beijing. 

The drummer from Denmark smashed all his anger on the drum set; the bald leading singer swung his body back and forth, trying to swallow the microphone. 

A small, standing crowd surrounded the corner stage while other audiences were sitting at tables, surrounding the crowd. 

In the front row, there was one guy who roamed like a bomb waiting to be ignited. 

He tightened his tiny ponytail and weighty backpack, then brandished his arms at moments that can not be specifically remembered. A pair of sneakers left the floor with full power, just right before they fell back in place. 

His arms never stopped the attempt to move other audiences.

 

No one was talking, yet everyone seemed to carry an overwhelming amount of emotions that had accumulated under the daylight. Some of them seem angry, others tempted. It was an unexplainable observation, just as you can't reason why kids in the park sprint with their arms wide open when they see a downhill.

 

"We are standing on the bridge, watching fish and water getting salvaged." My headphones screamed right before a construction worker interrupted me. It was, actually, a construction team on their bike.

 

"Are you not scared, by yourself?" He asked.

"Nope. As long as you don't push me from behind."

 

He couldn't stop laughing. What's so funny? I kept on walking toward the port. 

 

Out of nowhere, I remembered someone told me that if I run ten steps with my eyes closed, then open them, I would run faster, and the distance feels shorter. 

So did I retested this theory as I stepped on a long observatory that stretched from the shore. 

It not only didn't feel shorter, the distance even extended as I kept worrying about bumping into the construction worker with my eyes closed. I glance over the Hong Kong bridge on my left; the trucks move faster than those I saw from a distanced rooftop. 

 

A middle-aged man is running in my direction. He wears a pair of black rectangle glasses and a neon green athletic shirt. He runs methodically, one foot at a time. But something just seems missing, compared to the boys in the park. A bit too mechanical, a bit serious, a bit funny. 

 

I try to walk like my father, with both hands rested behind. It feels weird as if my body suddenly jumped to a different age. When my right-hand squeezes the left, my two arms naturally tighten the body. Somehow I feel like this distorted posture fits my age better. 

 

"We are standing on the bridge, watching fish and water getting salvaged." My headphones keep screaming. This song is one of those that repeat the same line over and over again. 

 

(in Chinese) 

'Fish' and 'rain' share a similar pronunciation, so do 'getting salvaged' and 'getting me.' 

 

We are standing on the bridge, watching fish and water getting salvaged.

We are standing on the bridge, watching the rain getting salvaged.

We are standing on the bridge, watching the fish and water salvage me. 

 

It is dark now; the sky and the water are blending into one. The park is getting quieter; once in a while, you would hear a woman in the distance calling her kids. I walked a few steps closer to the Hong Kong bridge. The sirens coming out of trucks now sound like elephant trumps. 

 

Imagine lying beside a well, in a rural village. Not so far from the stone well, electric wire entanglement stretches horizontally. It is a zoo on the other side, crowded during the day, covered in dark green during the night. Occasionally, animals' roars break the night silence. And there you hear the elephant, just like a distanced truck on the bridge.