Precious island
2024-
Kayla (12years old, Aquarius ) walks into the stage in Taipei in a hot sweltering summer in 2024. She is about to sing a song called love me blue with all the other girl band members. They are a new cantonpop band called sweet dream baby. They are performing at a street where a watch store called precious watch is located on the day of matzu festival. She kicks up a leg as she belts out the ballad of love, justice and peace written by the euro-centric producer max martin. Other three girls, matzi (11 years old, cancer), Lila(8 years old, Scorpio ) and north (6 years old, Gemini ), who are like her all under the age of 14 years old, crowd around the corners of the stage, get jealous and will not sing. The men, boys, women, children and youths around the stage taking photos start to become upset and throw bottles on stage yelling obscenities, what the fuck? Sing! Sing! Kayla jumps around on the stage and dances with another hand snaking in front of her like a Buddha, screaming the song with the back of her throat, as sweats drip from her eyebrows, where are you now? Where are you now? Matzi, Lina and north walks onto the centre of the stage and starts to sing along. Kayla Lin sneers, whatever. A lightning strikes the sky mid performance as people holding up the statues of the mazu float with lamps, food and snacks on the streets. A fat and sudden rain comes into the city billowing the crashing sounds at the Taipei radio towers and Taipei 101. The performance is soon reported on the New York Times as a part of celebration of the Taiwan mazu festival. Kayla eats dorito chips and drinks coke after the performance in her apartment reading the article sent by her manager, a man in his 40s, Steven cheung who works on Donald j. Trump(the 45th and 47th United States president)’s presidential campaigns, on her phone. She feels upset immediately because she sees a blemish on her face in the New York Times article photos. It is shot by the photographer lam yik fei with a special light held in his right hand to highlight the interior of the shop he is in. Kayla messages Steven immediately what’s up with that photograph? Can I get that photo edited or replaced with a new one? Matzi comes in from outside, from the living room with north holding hands on purpose eating cherry flavored jellies, pretending not to see Kayla’s cat, Mercury, a Scottish fold, with one eye removed, lying around on the floor like a cotton candy, and screaming out loud, what are you doing? Kayla looks up at her unhappily and says coldly, what’s the matter? Do you need some water? Matzi bounces around and sits on Kayla’s bed forgetting to hold hands with north who finds a puff seat , a spinning chair, near Kayla’s desk, to crouch on. She plays the Barbies and American girls on the bed for a few seconds and lose interests. Matzu props her chin on her hands. She smiles and asks, how about we compete who eat the chips faster? Etc.
Yuling Chen 