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ACOUSTIC METADATA

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• Timestamp: Summer, 2022

• Location: Shichahai (The Back Lakes), Beijing

• Subject ID: 01 (Senior Writer / Resident of 60 Years)

• Acoustic Range: Skeletal friction, Glandular flow, N95 sonic damping

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I didn't hear their sweet talk. I only heard the mechanical friction of two skeletons—412 bones in total—grinding against each other.

 

I heard the kinetic frequency of the boy’s large hands kneading the old woman’s buttocks. She was at least thirty years his senior, clearly intoxicated, thrusting a leathery, thick-fleshed arm into the boy’s crotch. The sounds of lust’s chorus surged into my eardrums. I could hear the shifting of joints, the revelry of internal organs, the viscous flow of glands, and the chaotic pulses of veins throbbing.

 

Four lips were rubbing vigorously. Two black N95 masks lay discarded by their shoes. For the past thirty months, those had been the mandatory masks of the Chinese people—expressing not resistance against microbes, but obedience to the will of the state.

 

The people passing by kept their expressions hidden behind masks, yet they could not hide from my ears: the shifting pulses and the low-frequency churning of hormone particles.

 

The audacity of that couple held some aesthetic value. Here in the Back Lakes, once dense with royal gardens and private estates, they had tossed traditional majesty into the water. My legs dangled over the surface, just as they did when I was a child. I wondered what else was left in this city where I’ve lived for sixty years that was worth taking with me.