Background:

Gray Reveries was originally written about the onset of monsoon season in the middle of May 2015. It was intended to be part of a short story but the idea was scrapped and instead it became a stand alone flash fiction piece. In February 2020, it was submitted to the online publications Nymphs and was published on the website. In the piece, it is mentioned that the Allied powers were in Seoul after the Second World War ended, and then it states that they weren’t. In fact, the former was correct. The imagery in the piece is largely about Seoul and Korea in the mid-2010s, though it’s not fully specified and seems to hint it is about northern China.

 

 

Gray Reveries

By David Kute

 

 

It’s 2014. Summer rains have hit. It’s June. East Asia.

 

Rain smothers the rear seat window. I look out. The wetness has muted the neon lights. Its colors reach me a blind man, distorted, vague, shaped like dahlias.

 

Warm weather drops towards the cool side.

 

Uh-di? The driver asks. I can’t sense his tone. He wipes sweat off his brow.

 

Radio blares news bulletins in the foreign language. I’m too lazy to learn the language of the antiquated metropolis. I can’t catch most if it. Cheap cologne. That’s what I sense. I think about it. It’s been a long while. A department store kiosk wouldn’t have it on display.

 

I mentioned I’m too lazy to speak the language. And it’s a good moment. Now. The cab takes me along. Rainwater pounds down upon the metal frame of the car. I feel lazy, and the comfort should be described. It always struck me as odd. Laziness and comfort were two arms on the same torso. Tonight, antiquity walks with me. So I’ll call it two sides of the same coin in her venerable, dated spirit. I’m lazy because I’m attached to the comfort. I feel good and I continue to seek that sensation, not a death to my ecstasy.

 

The rhythm of the windshield scratching back and forth grabs me. I’m at ease. Boisterous summer heat, cool rain, and mysterious, amorphous air. Neon manipulated to a hypnotic aesthetic.

 

Pleasure upon pleasure, that’s this moment in the scheme of infinity. I was born. I felt pain. This moment is far removed. My lifetime can be a stack of cards, one representing a moment, a second. Now. Let’s talk about it. It’s an anomaly. The stack of cards representing these few minutes of time got lost. Pleasure pouring down on pleasure, in a bubble of heat and cool air from northern Chinese skies. It has enveloped my boat of steel. I’m a baby again.

 

My driver has come to a stop at a light. A large bus veers across the intersection ahead, making its way with the traffic. I feel removed from my time. I can’t remember the year, don’t remember my past, can’t imagine my mother’s face.

 

During the last great generation, the Americans that fought a global war against the Axis powers, they too were here. No, they were not. They were in the region, and as victors they were here, on streets like these, with radio and bland cologne.

 

My voyage has come to an end. The taxi stops. Time to pay and get out. I am comfortable. I won’t get out. A baby of a Chinese dowager, blanketed and bound in goodwill and wonderful sentiments, I know that’s me. My imagination tells me it. Even the winds and elements have surrounded my body in pleasant ease.

 

The emperor steps down. Off the vehicle platform. Out into the night.

 

#

 

She said wait next to the tourist information booth.

 

So I wait. I’ve got the best companion. Ten minutes of warm, light rain.

 

I don’t have to think about paying my bills, the tasks I’m supposed to do at the company, or the woes of my baseball team.

 

Are you coming, I ask her.

 

A group of Chinese tourists get off a bus. The garden bed blossoms. I’m choked in their warm embrace. Umbrellas kiss my umbrella.

 

I get a text. She gives me directions and says it’s a ten minute walk.

 

The rain has ceased. I look above. The heavy clouds are gone. Winds pushed and scattered them afar, broken to pieces like a fortress gate smashed by a heavy battering ram.

 

The umbrella is down.

 

My leather shoes roll and press the ashen street.

 

Something’s not right. I’ve left it behind.

 

The blessed ease. The sweet rain. The motherly skies. The antiquated taxi, too. They’ve made a run for it, abandoned the weathered slab of concrete, the one my soles turn on.

 

 

A video with narration for this piece is now available on this page and on Youtube. 

 

 

 

 

Background:

Gray Reveries was originally written about the onset of monsoon season in the middle of May 2015. It was intended to be part of a short story but the idea was scrapped and instead it became a stand alone flash fiction piece. In February 2020, it was submitted to the online publications Nymphs and was published on the website. In the piece, it is mentioned that the Allied powers were in Seoul after the Second World War ended, and then it states that they weren’t. In fact, the former was correct. The imagery in the piece is largely about Seoul and Korea in the mid-2010s, though it’s not fully specified and seems to hint it is about northern China.

 

 

Gray Reveries

By David Kute

 

 

It’s 2014. Summer rains have hit. It’s June. East Asia.

 

Rain smothers the rear seat window. I look out. The wetness has muted the neon lights. Its colors reach me a blind man, distorted, vague, shaped like dahlias.

 

Warm weather drops towards the cool side.

 

Uh-di? The driver asks. I can’t sense his tone. He wipes sweat off his brow.

 

Radio blares news bulletins in the foreign language. I’m too lazy to learn the language of the antiquated metropolis. I can’t catch most if it. Cheap cologne. That’s what I sense. I think about it. It’s been a long while. A department store kiosk wouldn’t have it on display.

 

I mentioned I’m too lazy to speak the language. And it’s a good moment. Now. The cab takes me along. Rainwater pounds down upon the metal frame of the car. I feel lazy, and the comfort should be described. It always struck me as odd. Laziness and comfort were two arms on the same torso. Tonight, antiquity walks with me. So I’ll call it two sides of the same coin in her venerable, dated spirit. I’m lazy because I’m attached to the comfort. I feel good and I continue to seek that sensation, not a death to my ecstasy.

 

The rhythm of the windshield scratching back and forth grabs me. I’m at ease. Boisterous summer heat, cool rain, and mysterious, amorphous air. Neon manipulated to a hypnotic aesthetic.

 

Pleasure upon pleasure, that’s this moment in the scheme of infinity. I was born. I felt pain. This moment is far removed. My lifetime can be a stack of cards, one representing a moment, a second. Now. Let’s talk about it. It’s an anomaly. The stack of cards representing these few minutes of time got lost. Pleasure pouring down on pleasure, in a bubble of heat and cool air from northern Chinese skies. It has enveloped my boat of steel. I’m a baby again.

 

My driver has come to a stop at a light. A large bus veers across the intersection ahead, making its way with the traffic. I feel removed from my time. I can’t remember the year, don’t remember my past, can’t imagine my mother’s face.

 

During the last great generation, the Americans that fought a global war against the Axis powers, they too were here. No, they were not. They were in the region, and as victors they were here, on streets like these, with radio and bland cologne.

 

My voyage has come to an end. The taxi stops. Time to pay and get out. I am comfortable. I won’t get out. A baby of a Chinese dowager, blanketed and bound in goodwill and wonderful sentiments, I know that’s me. My imagination tells me it. Even the winds and elements have surrounded my body in pleasant ease.

 

The emperor steps down. Off the vehicle platform. Out into the night.

 

#

 

She said wait next to the tourist information booth.

 

So I wait. I’ve got the best companion. Ten minutes of warm, light rain.

 

I don’t have to think about paying my bills, the tasks I’m supposed to do at the company, or the woes of my baseball team.

 

Are you coming, I ask her.

 

A group of Chinese tourists get off a bus. The garden bed blossoms. I’m choked in their warm embrace. Umbrellas kiss my umbrella.

 

I get a text. She gives me directions and says it’s a ten minute walk.

 

The rain has ceased. I look above. The heavy clouds are gone. Winds pushed and scattered them afar, broken to pieces like a fortress gate smashed by a heavy battering ram.

 

The umbrella is down.

 

My leather shoes roll and press the ashen street.

 

Something’s not right. I’ve left it behind.

 

The blessed ease. The sweet rain. The motherly skies. The antiquated taxi, too. They’ve made a run for it, abandoned the weathered slab of concrete, the one my soles turn on.

 

 

 

Background:

Gray Reveries was originally written about the onset of monsoon season in the middle of May 2015. It was intended to be part of a short story but the idea was scrapped and instead it became a stand alone flash fiction piece. In February 2020, it was submitted to the online publications Nymphs and was published on the website. In the piece, it is mentioned that the Allied powers were in Seoul after the Second World War ended, and then it states that they weren’t. In fact, the former was correct. The imagery in the piece is largely about Seoul and Korea in the mid-2010s, though it’s not fully specified and seems to hint it is about northern China.

 

 

Gray Reveries

By David Kute

 

 

It’s 2014. Summer rains have hit. It’s June. East Asia.

 

Rain smothers the rear seat window. I look out. The wetness has muted the neon lights. Its colors reach me a blind man, distorted, vague, shaped like dahlias.

 

Warm weather drops towards the cool side.

 

Uh-di? The driver asks. I can’t sense his tone. He wipes sweat off his brow.

 

Radio blares news bulletins in the foreign language. I’m too lazy to learn the language of the antiquated metropolis. I can’t catch most if it. Cheap cologne. That’s what I sense. I think about it. It’s been a long while. A department store kiosk wouldn’t have it on display.

 

I mentioned I’m too lazy to speak the language. And it’s a good moment. Now. The cab takes me along. Rainwater pounds down upon the metal frame of the car. I feel lazy, and the comfort should be described. It always struck me as odd. Laziness and comfort were two arms on the same torso. Tonight, antiquity walks with me. So I’ll call it two sides of the same coin in her venerable, dated spirit. I’m lazy because I’m attached to the comfort. I feel good and I continue to seek that sensation, not a death to my ecstasy.

 

The rhythm of the windshield scratching back and forth grabs me. I’m at ease. Boisterous summer heat, cool rain, and mysterious, amorphous air. Neon manipulated to a hypnotic aesthetic.

 

Pleasure upon pleasure, that’s this moment in the scheme of infinity. I was born. I felt pain. This moment is far removed. My lifetime can be a stack of cards, one representing a moment, a second. Now. Let’s talk about it. It’s an anomaly. The stack of cards representing these few minutes of time got lost. Pleasure pouring down on pleasure, in a bubble of heat and cool air from northern Chinese skies. It has enveloped my boat of steel. I’m a baby again.

 

My driver has come to a stop at a light. A large bus veers across the intersection ahead, making its way with the traffic. I feel removed from my time. I can’t remember the year, don’t remember my past, can’t imagine my mother’s face.

 

During the last great generation, the Americans that fought a global war against the Axis powers, they too were here. No, they were not. They were in the region, and as victors they were here, on streets like these, with radio and bland cologne.

 

My voyage has come to an end. The taxi stops. Time to pay and get out. I am comfortable. I won’t get out. A baby of a Chinese dowager, blanketed and bound in goodwill and wonderful sentiments, I know that’s me. My imagination tells me it. Even the winds and elements have surrounded my body in pleasant ease.

 

The emperor steps down. Off the vehicle platform. Out into the night.

 

#

 

She said wait next to the tourist information booth.

 

So I wait. I’ve got the best companion. Ten minutes of warm, light rain.

 

I don’t have to think about paying my bills, the tasks I’m supposed to do at the company, or the woes of my baseball team.

 

Are you coming, I ask her.

 

A group of Chinese tourists get off a bus. The garden bed blossoms. I’m choked in their warm embrace. Umbrellas kiss my umbrella.

 

I get a text. She gives me directions and says it’s a ten minute walk.

 

The rain has ceased. I look above. The heavy clouds are gone. Winds pushed and scattered them afar, broken to pieces like a fortress gate smashed by a heavy battering ram.

 

The umbrella is down.

 

My leather shoes roll and press the ashen street.

 

Something’s not right. I’ve left it behind.

 

The blessed ease. The sweet rain. The motherly skies. The antiquated taxi, too. They’ve made a run for it, abandoned the weathered slab of concrete, the one my soles turn on.