incomplete story

Blogs falling from the 5th story


Outside I hear children laughing and chatting and chasing each other in a small parking lot within a neighborhood. The apartments and structures around them are poorly build concrete towers now building walls inside their brains. Only their imagination can take them to a field large enough for a city wide game of tag. They belong in a valley. They should be skipping along mountain tops.
I’m staying with a family in a different city from whence we last spoke. This family owns this house which is really more like an apartment. Five floors. But each floor is petite, maybe three rooms.
I’m sleeping on the top floor (on the roof you could say) overlooking the city. It’s 10pm and it’s beautiful. The neon Chinese characters. The honking cars. The ringing bells from bicycles.
City chatter after hours you might say
A city that doesn’t sleep you might call it

earlier we were sitting in the living room drinking tea when one of the sons came in and spoke something in Chinese to his parents. His face was stern, his stature unshaken. His parents, I’m going to say, harshly whispered a string of unknown words towards and my translator companions.
“We need to get upstairs”
before a second thought, I saw everyone was grabbing their bags, scurrying into the dark like mice.
“come bee-lee!”
We were moving rather quickly up the dim lit staircase. There was just enough like to see your feet finding their next step.
When we got to the top, Tom told me,
“some of their relatives had just arrived and they are not believers. We didn’t want to risk anything.”
It is not uncommon for family members to turn in their own kin because of house church felonies.
that happened right before I started typing this post. (which, along with the others, I hope to post tomorrow)