Circling the Rocks
Coming out of the worst period of my life I went to Hong Kong. I had spent the last few months dissociated, trying to sweat out the dark Winter in a windowless room, checking patients into clinic and watching the clock. I was barely aware of the climbing figures in my bank account. I spent my days trudging through vomit and piss and swinging on the monkey-bar handles of the tube carriage, and then getting deliriously drunk on the weekend just to trudge through vomit and piss by choice. If I wasn’t manic and at the club on the weekend I was crying on my bedroom floor while my dad opened the APA Dictionary of Psychology at the kitchen table.
When I felt myself smacked by the constant hot steam of Hong Kong I felt my knees buckling. After being an utter emotional, dependant disastar for months, I was struck by the fact that I was very alone in a very large city. I was deliriously tired. It was not long until I realised that I had left my tote bag on the airport express bus with my diary in it. Anyone who writes down their thoughts and owns a diary through a particularly rough period of time knows that this is like watching a cat get run over. I was so dissociated that I could merely stumble through the sharp feeling of grief and panic before I checked into my hotel and collapsed on the single bed.
The room faintly stunk of something foreign but not entirely unpleasant. I couldn’t really stand in it because my backpack took up most of the floor space. I was much too tired to do any late night calisthenics anyway. I turned on the fan and fell into dreamless sleep.
It was late morning when I awoke. Immediately I felt the dull ache in my stomach and saw the blood on my bedsheets. I rifled through my belongings for a tampon. I forced the door to the bathroom open- shoving my suitcase as I went- and took a piss. A sharp pain hit me. To make matters worse I had a UTI. I thought back to hasty pre-trip sexual relations and bit my lip in frustration.
I had to deal with what was at hand first. With the cold light burning into my retinas I rolled in my sheets like a pig in mud, hair on end. Through my depressive state I had clung to anyone and anything. Now it was just me in a room that was too hot or too cold, with the minutes and hours draining away. I crawled into child’s pose, feeling the blood rush to my head, rocking back and forth with my teeth clamped and grinding. The menstrual pain was unbearable and I had no medication. I resolved to stay like this, rocking back and forth or wrestling the clean white pillow, digging my nails into its painless flesh.
When I finally mustered the courage to ask for painkillers the woman stared at me like I had two heads. I had scraped my hair into a frizzy bun but my eyes must have looked wild. We stumbled through broken sentences before she called to her son. He was tattooed and gorgeous. He retrieved the medication and I crawled off to bed to sleep once more.
I awoke ready to hit the town and look for a doctor. I walked through the streets in a daze. Someone bought me a condensed milk bun and some sweet tea- mostly because I was stammering when I tried to order. I spent hours on mall escalators, up and down and around, in skate shops and supermarkets, towards magical non existent medical practices that turned out to be either permenantly closed or cosmetic surgeries that smelt like a dentist’s waiting room or European pharmacy, faintly minty. I ate Tom Yum in a restaurant that was filtering people in and out like an ant colony, wedged up next to a silent businessmen, flicking red specks all over myself as I slurped, overly apologetic about my presence, squeezing myself into as small a space as possible, elbows tucked inward.
When I turned up back at the hotel fruitless I was kicking myself. My pseudo mother at the desk looked at me concerned and asked me if I had been successful. When I shook my head a twinge of pity crossed her brow and she handed me the pack of medication from the cupboard. Please take, she said.
The next morning I had a plan. I would walk to the nearest hospital and demand treatment. Using the bathroom had become excruciating and it couldn’t be put off. I pulled myself together, slipped into my purple dress and waved to mother on the way out. Her son smiled at me from his position slouched on the couch, head in his phone. His arms looked great. I looked a little crazy, the humidity not treating me so well.
It took me a while to get to the hospital and I spent too much time walking along the wrong streets. When I finally arrived someone told me to follow a yellow line. Feeling like Dorothy, I walked up and down flights of stairs, through carparks, past units and around desks. I took a number in the waiting room and watched a TV screen play a game show intercepted by news channel interruptions. A boy around my age tried to entertain his daughter before giving up and letting her roll around and cough on the floor while he scrolled RedNote. It was two hours before someone called me.
The doctor told me tiredly that he had lived in Australia and had met his fiancee there. He would have stayed but the pay in HK was just too good. His skin was smooth and flawless. He took my temperature and rapid-fired questions at me, irritated by any pause I gave due to discomfort or embarrassment. When I told him to hang in there his face broke into a rare, weak smile. He gave me a number and told me to collect my medication, and then someone would call me to a third location to pay. While I waited in line a man ahead of me began to scream obscenities, first in a frustrated grunt, and then a full bellow. Patients whipped their heads to look at him in irritation. A second line at the counter began to form. Using google translate I asked a woman what was going on, but she just stared at me like I had shot her.
When I got to the counter there was a kerfuffle to find someone who spoke english. I turned red with embarrassment. The woman monologued the medication usage at me and I left the desk reeling and stumbled into the sunlight. I bought a bottle of electrolytes- Sweat Pocari to be exact- and gobbled down my medication. I looked around for food, which had to be taken with the pills.
It wasn’t till I was celebrating my win at the front desk of the hotel that I realised I hadn’t paid for the medication. I thought about all the surveillience cameras crammed into every corner of the city. This is East Asia, I thought. This is almost China. They have rules and regulations here.
I awoke the next morning feeling better. I could piss a little easier. I was thankful that I had booked solo accommodation for the first few days of my trip even though it was more expensive than a hostel. I skipped into the sunlight and decided that I would go to the beach. I jumped onto the red minibus and sat right behind the driver, all of God’s Green Glory coming up in front of me as the bus pranced out of the city centre and into Hong Kong’s backyard.
The guy to my right laughed with the driver all the way through the journey. I blasted Single Gun Theory through my headphones and walked down the harbour, staring at the white eyed fish as they swam in circles or floated semi-lifelessly at the bottom of fingernail sized tanks. A bunch of guys shoved pamphlets at me and I asked around for prices, knowing the company I’d go with anyway because I’d done my research on what was cheapest. Never underestimate a miser who sits on his treasures.
The ferry lurched through the sea. A family sat round a table in the centre and all the little boys had their heads in their hands. I raised my own hand along the side of the boat, letting the water spray little flecks of foam onto my forearm. The beach lay out like a white diamond and the heat of the day was at its climax, beating down on my head. We disembarked and I walked onto the long walkway and down the path to the beach. Sharp rocks ground my feet after creeping through my sandals. Although nobody was watching me, I slipped off my dress in embarrassment, the whiteness of my ass cheeks apparent in the midday sun. The water was hot and I saw bits of trash floating in it. I swam further out and lay floating on my back, feeling the gentle tug as small boats pulled in and out of the island. I closed my eyes.
The sun lit up my eyelids a dull red. I suddenly felt my heart lurch and when I opened my eyes again my vision swam and flickered. I wavered, unsure, and then swam determined toward the shore. My knees hit the jagged rocks first, leaving small scrapes. I stood shakily, trying to navigate the rocks while my vision slipped and fell away in pieces. I stumbled and a shard went through my hand, leaving a stain of bright blood.
I heaved myself onto the beach and collapsed under a tree. The cut on my hand looked pretty bad but it was just superficial. A kid began throwing up a mere meter away from me while his mother patted his back and tried to soothe him. I began to laugh deliriously. I mean, what kind of bastard leaves the house- let alone travels- in the midday sun without a scrap of food or a drop of water? I’m a fucking idiot!
I was laughing, but I was seriously unsure how I was going to muster the strength to sit up and then walk back up the steep path to the bodega selling an overpriced and limited snack selection. Whatever, I thought. I’ve got to. So I did.
I bought a bottle of Sweat Pocari and sat at the harbour sipping while I waited for the last ferry. The family from before were crouched sorting through buckets of sea snails they had collected. The boys now looked animated. On the boat ride back the sun hung low in the sky and the restaurants along the water winked and glittered against the sunset. I swallowed a lump in my throat. How could I have done this? How could I have worked for this and paid for it and how was I here? How could I have come out to this harbour alone- just on my own- when I had spent so much of the past few months afraid of the open expanse of sleep and dreading the long day? What magic had led me here?
I thanked my lucky stars, and I thank them again and again and again.