story – Abroad Mind

Bar Flies

We were monkey kings; street dogs running through familiar streets at full tilt, howling and bounding from one scent to the next.

The Emei Mountain Adventure

“Impossible,” he laughed. “It’s 60km. It will be dark before 7 o’clock. You will stay there tonight, and tomorrow you go.”

Two months in. I’m lying in bed wrapped in two blankets and a duvet. I slide the balcony door open , kangaroo jump to the bathroom and dump the duvet and blankets on the dusty, tiled floor. Soap in hand, I flick on the shower. It’s freezing. It has been freezing for a week andContinue reading “Haunted Away From Home”

Going Away to Get Lost

I’ll never live abroad, he said. Twenty-two years old and passing through baggage checks at Heathrow as quickly as I’d accepted the job. The chess pieces wrapped in boxer shorts suddenly feel ridiculous. One half space-saving-piece-protecting-masterstroke, one half inconvenient-lunatic-blunder. I am on my way to Chongqing, China. The city’s name almost sounds racist. Teaching inContinue reading “Going Away to Get Lost”