Shanghai, 2011

BILLY LOOKED AROUND the carriage and surprised himself with the realisation that despite feeling nothing, he was actually floating. He couldn’t articulate, even to himself, why he was in Shanghai, so he tried not to think about it. It was pointless to catch the maglev train from the airport, and Qiang, in one of his many brief emails, had called Billy ‘decadent’ for even considering it. This was quickly followed up with a text message: My silly boy. Billy hadn’t replied, unsure what he should do with those sweetly possessive words, so characteristic of Qiang and so confusing given everything that had passed between them. He sat back and looked out across the station hall; a bleak grey light filtered through the glass roof and onto the platform. A European couple boarded the train and sat across from him, nodding hello and looking around the carriage with excitement. Billy closed his eyes and started to bite at the skin on his left thumb. My silly boy. In the past he’d liked it when Qiang spoke to him in that way but that was, what, four years ago now? A blurred haze obscured everything that had happened since then, and now, somehow, he found himself on foreign soil for the first time.