Ferekeeko Lives & Conquers!

( Cont’d from parts I and II .) After a year in town the sounds of the street which I once thought sensuous became nothing more than endless streams of noise. Once again I couldn’t manage to fall asleep. Rhappy, V. E. and Co. were at it right outside my bedroom window. I considered getting up and roaring from the balcony, fist pumping like Il Duce, but finally could not bring myself to do it. It will only make things worse, I decided, because then they will start to take pleasure in annoying me in subsequent 3:30 am sessions, talking even louder to mock my fury. Better to let them remain oblivious to my suffering, to do it in silence. At length I became so tired that their voices seemed sufficiently muffled to act as a white-noise machine . When I got up later that morning I took a closer look at the pine tree whose branches shaded my window. It reminded me of a tree I had seen near a chapel at Kodjori, a town in the foothills above Tbilisi with a ruined fortress that

Beijing the behemoth. At the airport I’m beat from being up some thirty-odd hours, but too sentient to think of sleep, the hotel be damned. Throw me instead into this sea of concrete, bemused smiles and unabashed stares. In the taxi with Chris, the school’s recruiter, Iphigenia and I watch the towers of concrete repeat themselves for miles. I command myself to take in every detail, no matter how small. But I’m fading fast and when the city center at last comes into view, she’s too late. The fatigue has unfortunately set in and I can’t make out much but the obvious: taxis, bicycles, rickshaws. . . . And so the hotel it is for us, because anyway I’m just too damn worked up. I don’t have a map, I don’t speak Mandarin, I haven’t changed any money yet. I promise myself a good random stroll the next morning, one which will enlighten me as to the way of the street, the dao of the hú tòng.  But the morrow brings nothing so edifying. Only a short walk with killjoy Chris, who clams