"STREET STRANGERS"
Hong Kong 🌃 6.4.24
Dear Pen Pal,
The CCTV pixelates my face as I pause in front of the camera, with my nose as close as it can go, and I wait. I imagine the red dot in the middle of my forehead, recording me beg whoever may be watching to watch me. Can they see, in my cubed irises on their screen, how long it has been since I’ve been seen? I blink and blur as I turn and merge back into the traffic of the sidewalk and become a stranger of the street again.
I am a ship passing in the night. I am the Titanic that could not break the ice. I speak in stares of silent syllables. I am lost in translation. I cough and choke on hypothetical conversations. My teeth grind as I stalk serendipity and scavenge for human interaction. If any eyes accidentally lock on to mine I hold them hostage and hold my breath until they flick me away. I am a disposable dixie cup. I count backwards from 5, sans Mississippis, and before my mind can mouth zero my face has already been erased.
My soles stick to the spit gum on the sidewalk and I watch the current of anonymous characters diverge around me as if I were a rock in a river. I am a peripheral pedestrian desperate to collide with a parallel life, feebly attempting to forsake geometry. I have scanned a million faces searching for just one that I have seen before but apparently we are as unique as the DNA would have you believe. Eventually, I adopt apathy towards being acknowledged, and my eyes slide to the floor like a time-out toddler who tantrumed themself out of their chair. I focus on my feet and I try to forget about all of the faces forgetting about mine. Suddenly, my subconscious robs my bank of memories and projects haunting holograms of faces from my past. I step on smiles that belong to humans that knew me, mouths that spoke to me, that said my name. The sidewalk square frames the flashbacks like a film photo packed in the box in the attic. I skip over the smiles and land on the cracks on the concrete. I swerve down a shadowed alleyway to avoid the polaroids because the reminder of familiarity makes me feel more foreign.
There is a dumpster in the alleyway next to a metal door hovering above two crumbling stone steps. The CCTV that hangs over the hinges focuses on me. I breathe a sigh of relief and a smile escapes me. I lean against the garbage and slightly bend my knee. I pose and the camera captures me. I am a portrait - I call me; “The Street Stranger.”
Love,
Ryan Dube
*A Note from the Author*
In Hong Kong, I wandered the streets silently for 10 days failing to have a single conversation. I was desperate for someone, anyone, to speak to. I didn’t hear words just sounds. I said nothing. I begged fate for a chance encounter but the dice disagreed. I wrote this letter in my head as I rode the subway home from the harbor.
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Loneliness can be the greatest of the pains. It creeps in slowly to numb your mind, curb your enthusiasm and break your spirit. The longer it goes on, the more comfortable it feels, but don't despair, it can and will be broken as quickly as glass shatters when someone says hi.