Reflections of Central (中環反影)

Central District always has a special meaning to me

|

A busy valley filled with memories

both good and bad.

It glimmers in fake gold

It glitters with the dull lustre of digital precious stones



It's a bridge to the flow of money



Even its floors are lit with that special gleam of a thriving financial market


 
People there can never be themselves

The only reality they can touch is that which they do with their own feet



their heads are as sharp as spikes and their bodies stiff and angular

they have lost their eyes

They have become mere reflections on the burnished surfaces of the giant columns.

So is everything else.

For the greater part of the day, you can have access to the world outside only through the thick of glazed windows of the tower blocks.



And the glass is always tinted

Through them, you may catch a glimpse of wheel of fortune, forever turning: one day you are a millionaire, perhaps the next, a bankrupt. 

But how free the clouds above the towers

  

The sea gently washes the shores, as it has done for countless summer days centuries past.

If you wish to look at the sky, the opportunities are fairly restricted



Motion is automatic in the murkiness: maybe it fits the automatons commuting there

Maybe, but perhaps not for children.



who have not yet lost their craving for colors and for hand woven nets.

But there's hope yet: a staircase to a digital heaven peopled by Pokemons in a realm where the lines between reality and illusion have become increasingly blurred?