Batakliev's Bloc

Notwithstanding, Alma decided to keep the coin. The trophy that the typhoon washed ashore on the edge of the West Lake. That token of providence in the devastation. Earlier this morning, Alma was walking Lupa, her faithful four-legged female companion. Toppled trees with their exposed roots, tangled and wiry like Medusa heads, framed the shoreside road - a dismal reminder of nature’s ferocious spectacle. Suddenly, a scraping sound woke her up from her pre-caffeine reverie. Metal scraped against gravel underneath her ballerina flat. Alma bent down to remove the unwanted object and froze in what may have appeared as a static seizure to the onlooker. For a few seconds, she blended with the Medusa head tree roots, her eyeballs popped out in disbelief, her wide open mouth suppressing the miscarried gasp that was about to become a lump in her throat. The unwanted object was a 10 lire Pegasus coin from the 1950s, Republica Italiana. The coin her mother wore on a pendant around her neck until

I can’t begin to tell the world how many beautiful and soulful humans I met in the two days I’ve been in Beijing. Yes, I did arrive with a tiny chunky prejudice fed by early-life memories, the tone of news articles and the sheer limitations of our binary world views.  So far, I visited four neighbourhoods in this colossal twenty-one-million-resident city and I haven’t registered any other white expat. The treatment I received everywhere has been heart-touching. In spite of the language, cultural, political and infrastructural barriers (or maybe because of them) the human connection has been triumphant, life-affirming.  There is something precious about communicating with our eyes and smiles. We cannot care less about political beliefs, sexuality or intellectual tastes. The message is the connection.  I can’t begin to tell the world how many humans caressed me with their eyes, waitresses mothered me with gleeful smiles, cabbies befriended me with apologetic, childlike grimaces. And we u

Now that Jesus has departed and ain’t returning to her Brixton queendom, I’ll attempt to tell one of the most intimate and moving tales of our extraordinary coexistence.  Around that time last year, I had already decided to move to Vietnam. It certainly wasn’t an impulsive choice. I had endlessly gone back and forth through all the pros and cons. One morning, around 4:30, I jolted awake, in the throes of a severe anxiety attack. I had ended a relationship, was about to move to another continent and my life was upside-down. This was proper anxiety with shortness of breath, heavy head and a constellation of creepy syndromes that I struggled to tame.  I walked into the garden and sat on my wooden bench. A thousand rocket ships were zigzagging in my brain. Then… the bushes opposite me parted and Jesus appeared. At that time, she was only visiting once day and she’d already had her supper. Confidently, knowingly, she started walking towards me, her eyes fixed on mine. Jesus picked a spot on