We watched an old movie tonight, What a Wonderful Life, and we’re talking about what may come for us while we wait for Dun Che Lao Ren, the Christmas Old Man. All of us, the girls, who do not exist. I love the pretty faces, scrubbed, in clean blankets, sitting under paper lanterns and flowers. We hold hands, we sing ‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’ the way we know it. Everybody’s got a voice and even if you kill them you can’t take that voice away. Even the rain flowing down the gutter and on the street and from there into the Yangtze and into the sea, knows that. Our voice goes with the rain to the ocean and touches everyone else. And if they don’t hear us because we are little, they dream us.

From the new series: 24 faces of the Earth in 24 hours, Christmas Eve

From a new project – 24 faces of the Earth in 24 hours.

Done most of the Christmas shopping. A small portion of pudding by the window amidst puddles of love juice. The tree put up and decorated by the women like a coniferous corporal, glittering. Candles and lights: ornate fly catchers. All verbs fallen apart like last year’s twisty tongued cotton candy.