Title: Railway China

Author: John Newton

In: Sport 39: 2011

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, 2013, Wellington

Part of: Sport

Conditions of use

Share:

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Sport 39: 2011

14

14

In an undersea cavern I clung like a limpet to the glass of a bubbling tropical tank.

Butterfly fish and blazing fire fish (ichor their hearts’ blood, champagne their element) flew through the corridors of coral like shards of pure spirit.

Deeper, the trim silhouettes on the dance-floor finned to a gelid metropolitan groove.

page 140

My breath was a drool, a soundless song, as I hung there in heaven. But what was this?

Suspended upside down in the foam, sliming the glass with its viscous hide, some bovine mammal. Manatee? Dugong? ‘Kurosawa,’ I wailed, ‘In God’s name, what is it?’

‘Why that, my blubbery gaijin friend, is you.’

My cry was swept up the by the music.

‘Me? Am I dead, is that what you’re saying?’

My guide put his kindly arm around me.

‘Death? Of course there is always death, but all in good time, not today. No one is about to eat you! Come, there is more you need to see.’