Aparty

In the Filipino canteen at the bottom of the apartment I watch a Bruce Lee film on a Sunday afternoon, eating beef and salted rice. A week later I’m back alone and order a frozen ice with beans and milk. I read a book, eat facing forward. On the screen is a show with karaoke kids and dancing girls. They compete with radical fury for, and I kid you not, vitamin supplements. It's night now, as I walk back upstairs the neon sign outside the apartment is sputtering and fizzing. If I were a song right now, I'd be a harmonica break. My flat is filled with a hundred people, music pounding the walls and people I've never met fill the air with their smoke and jokes. At the door an ex-RAF pilot has his arms around two sublime Kenyans. His mustache spreads across his cheeks, extending for balance, a pair of Rayban's swell his eyes to goldfish bowl proportions. He talks off centre, you ask him a question, he shoots the reply over your shoulder. He struggles to navigate a kitchen, how he managed a thousand feet under I wonder. I walk past them all, I grab a towel and head to the pool. I swim beneath the night sky, the water suspends me beneath the stars.