Wan Chai Long
Oil 24×18″
Exploring this foreign city one wanders through winding paths that lead to spiraling roads, passing cars curtly braying as they brush by. Walkways vein beneath buildings, wrapping the base of towers made of hearty brick sheened with scales of glass. With legs sore one climbs chipped stone stairs nearly vertical, fueled higher and higher by the curiosity of the next bend. The ascended air grows cooler, thickened by a haze, fogging the way back. There is a myth that this city, albeit shrouded in brick and metal, built and rebuilt by the hands of uncles and grandfathers, is in fact secure entirely by the good grace of centuries of quiet. For should a sound break the stillness, a sound with more force than a chorus of sparrows or a street lined with honking trucks. The tenor to be wary of is shared by deep sea whales and colliding comets, for were it to echo forth, this town would find narrow alleys widened into colossal eyes and subterranean pipework ripped free into cliffs of bared teeth. For it is told that the mountain sleeps, dreaming of life as a man and not a dragon.
