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She
stands in front of a long mirror, hanging on the back of her bedroom
door. She looks at herself. She focuses on how the buttons of her
gray jacket tighten the jacket around her waist. She tries to judge
whether she still looks thin and sexy through her corporate-style
skirt. Her mom bought her this suit after she graduated from college
in the hopes that she would wear it to job interviews. She never
bothered explaining to her mom her passion for techno and trance
music, her dreams of DJing, manipulating and mixing electronic
sounds triggering a rainbow of emotions in a throbbing crowd. She
knew her mom would laugh, or worse. She’d grow concerned
that her daughter was taking drugs. It has been three years since
that day, and today is the first time she will wear the gray suit
out of her apartment and by choice, no less. She is filled with
anticipation. A honking car on the street below restores her attention
to the moment. “Move on, asshole” she hears from the
street. She looks at her pink Hello Kitty wristwatch: It reads
7:15 AM. She decides she has no time to retouch her makeup. She
doesn’t want to risk being late. She is glad she looked at
her watch. It reminded her to take it off before she leaves for
her appointment. She already has her keys in her hand. On her way
to the door, she jerks backwards and freezes in front of the bathroom
mirror to look at herself one last time before leaving. She smiles. “What
a costume” she thinks. “The things people do to hide
themselves everyday.”
She exits her apartment. She bumps into her Chinese neighbor in the stairwell.
He barely recognizes her. Her red dyed dread locks are pulled back into a ponytail.
She is wearing a cream-colored silk blouse with a suit skirt, stockings and elegant
high-healed black shoes. He gives her an apple from his grocery bag. She says
thank you, she must run, she can’t be late. She knows he doesn’t
understand a word she is saying. He has probably been living in New York for
a few decades, but in this bubble world of Chinatown, where their building is
located. He is more secluded and remote in his world than her Lower East Side,
stoned, squatting |
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