Cold Food

Ethan McTavish, Scottish analyst adrift in the glittering canyons of Hong Kong, began documenting the ‘episodes’. Not in his meticulous Moleskine for market analysis, but in a cheap notebook hidden beneath invoices. He needed structure, a way to dissect the impossible. Perhaps, he mused, his mind sorting experience like files: facts first, then feelings, the risks, the rewards, the sheer, unsettling inexplicability of it all, and finally, maybe, some sense.

The facts were stark, illogical. He arrived in early November. It started exactly six months after arriving, a holiday, and the first day of Spring, when drifting towards sleep in his cramped Mid-Levels flat. An intense vibration, then a sudden, sickening separation. Reality fractured. He’d find himself floating near the ceiling, looking down at his own still form. Below, the familiar city glowed – the Peak tram ascending, Star Ferries crossing the harbour, the relentless thrum of a million lives – yet he was utterly detached. Initially lacking control, he read voraciously online, finding fragmented accounts – echoes of others lost in the same strange sea. He even found an old Chinese book, the tragic story of Jie Zitui, which felt eerily familiar.

His first reaction was pure, Highland terror. Was it a stroke? Madness induced by the city’s pressure cooker environment? The loneliness was a physical ache, sharper than any homesickness. He couldn’t tell Ruòxī, his closest confidante; how could he explain floating above Wan Chai? Slowly, painstakingly, as control flickered into existence, fear yielded, slowly, to a consuming curiosity. The sights beyond the physical veil were breathtaking – patterns of light above the South China Sea, shimmering energy fields defying explanation, clean and bright. He felt profound empathy for flickering shapes he encountered – lost souls perhaps? – adrift like him. Yet, there was also deep sadness, a sense of loss when encountering barriers or discovering the shimmering ‘memory-place’ of his Glasgow childhood home wasn't a destination, just an endlessly repeating loop. Love, too, flared unexpectedly – a connection to Ruòxī felt stronger, deeper, when he 'visited' her apartment non-physically, a silent watcher filled with inexplicable warmth.

The risks felt immense. He feared getting lost, unable to return. The city’s psychic static – Hong Kong’s sheer density of human thought and emotion – felt like a deafening noise he had to push through, a band of anxiety and desire woven through the fabric of the city. He encountered areas of disturbing energy, chaotic and vaguely threatening. Conventional explanations failed him; doctors offered check-ups, friends suggested stress leave. The limitations were frustrating: he couldn't touch, couldn't interact with the world he observed so clearly. Sometimes, after intense ‘dreams’ or encounters, he’d wake with phantom aches or jarring anxiety, his body echoing the journey. Belief, he began to understand, was its own kind of cage; he saw shimmering structures that seemed to trap consciousness, built from shared conviction.

But the rewards… ah, the rewards were transformative. The fear of death, that constant background hum beneath the market’s roar, evaporated. He knew, with a certainty anchoring itself in his very marrow, that he was more than Ethan McTavish, more than flesh and finance. He learned navigation. He learned to command the separation. He ‘met’ his ancestors, years gone, not in a memory, but as a vibrant, distinct consciousness in a peaceful garden-like space, confirming survival beyond doubt. He began to understand his own complexity, the layers of self, he contained echoes of other lives, other Ethans. Hong Kong, the Earth itself, revealed itself as a profound 'teaching machine', its challenges reframed as lessons. There was an astonishing freedom in this expanding perspective. Freedom that could not be taken from him.

This demanded new maps, new language. He started sketching his own ‘freeway’ in the hidden notebook – routes through shimmering dimensions above the familiar harbour. He encountered intelligences – not little green men, but guides appearing as serene monks or pulsing fields of light, their communication a silent stream of pure thought. He conceptualised the dense psychic energy of the city as his playfield. He found his way to different states of consciousness with distinct experiences. He discovered a tranquil space resembling the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau, an architecture of compassion designed for easing transitions. He even felt drawn to help others – flickering consciousnesses snagged near the physical – guiding them upwards, a tentative step into his own unreal life work. Kite flying, he was building his own different overview.

Sitting by the window, city lights painting streaks across the glass, Ethan closed the cheap notebook, knowing the journey wasn't over; perhaps it never would be. He hadn't found a simple answer, no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Instead, he’d found complexity, paradox, and a breathtaking expansion of reality. He was still Ethan McTavish, Scot in Hong Kong, facing deadlines and dim sum. But he was also the Seafarer –resonant fragments held within the vast library of himself. He understood the fear, the challenges, but also the profound joy and the undeniable truth of survival. He carried the city’s noise and the silence beyond it within him now. He had learned to live in two worlds. The journey wasn’t about reaching a destination, but about understanding the infinite seascape of the self, right here, amidst the neon glow. And perhaps, he thought, tracing a condensation trail on the windowpane, writing it down – this story – was the first act of sharing the map. Would he share the map with Ruòxī?

Of course he would!

He reached for the tea, wine, and rice.