Léa AbaroaChinese City Dying Flower

It’s maybe eleven o’clock at night. A man disappears into a building and she follows. An elevator ride, another floor and another man in a suit. Down the first, long, narrow corridor, groups of young people sing karaoke behind glass doors. At the end of the corridor - the rooftop, it’s dark out. Backlit by giant neon ideograms, a line of girls in micro-dresses queue up for the second corridor. Yes, a dance party, she says. She takes the corridor, identical to the first, but for the opaque doors and bouncers with headsets stationed in front. The line of girls stops outside the last door. A bouncer takes each girl’s telephone one by one. Through a gap in the door - three large men. I grab her arm, let’s go.

Another day in the elevator a business man, Sylvio, hands her his card. Back in the room, she writes him an email, she thinks we don’t have enough money. Later, one morning, she gets a call from reception. He’d left an envelope with notes, 300 renminbi, 43.62 dollars in total. She laughs.

Another day she says,

I always wanted to be beautiful.

We’re in a taxi, the humidity thickens the night. The city is red and blue; fuchsia, our pink and black skins stick to the leather interior. A sentimental song floats out of the radio. That same song was playing at the 7-Eleven check-out this morning, and years ago in a bus driving to Tianjin. It carries that feeling of solitude in which whole worlds emerge. .

Later in the hotel room, she is sprawled on her bed. I see her stretched out, isolated in a dim halo of white led light, and that same feeling returns.