Free The Train to Lo Wu by Jess Row

taken in the last six years: taking out hundreds of his best negatives and recasting them with every possible shade and filter. The third bedroom was webbed with drying lines, and the whole apartment reeked of developing fluid. He spent thousands of dollars on paper and chemicals, bought a new computer for digital editing, and still all the new work fell short somehow. In his sleep he twitched and groaned, and Melinda made him move to the couch; then he began working later and later at night, and sleeping in the afternoon. One night, in a fit of rage he kicked the side of his desk, putting his foot through the particle board, and smashed his favorite lens, a 75mm, three-thousand-dollar Leica telephoto. He collapsed into a corner, weeping like a child, and then fell asleep there, in the dim red glow, his head between his knees. Melinda woke him in the afternoon of the next day and pulled him out into the living room, where he sat on a chair with a blanket wrapped around him, trembling.
    You need to leave, she said. Sitting in their narrow window seat, her arms wrapped around her chest, as if for warmth, she looked haggard and frail, as if she’d aged thirty years. Go back to Boston if you have to. Or go on one of those retreats you told me about. Two months, absolute minimum. After that we can try again.
    Hong Kong isn’t the problem anymore, he said.
I’m
the problem. I’m useless, can’t you see that? Sending me away won’t help.
    She leaned back against the window glass, resting her weight against it, as if daring it to break. Her eyes were horribly bloodshot,
like blood in milk,
he thought, for no good reason. I don’t know what to do with you, she said. You’ve got one more chance, Lewis. Do whatever you have to. This paralysis—whatever you want to call it—it’s
temporary,
can’t you see that?
    I can’t, he said calmly, scratching his three-day beard. That’s why I’m finished. I can’t
see
.
    Days pass. He sits quietly, following the course of shadows across the floor. At night he tumbles exhausted onto his bedroll and sleeps without dreams. At meals he eats what is given and takes nothing extra, hardly noticing the burning taste of kimchi, the piquant sourness of preserved spinach. He cleans his bowls with tea and drinks the dirty remains without hesitation.
    On a certain bright, cloudless day, the warmest yet, the monk who sleeps next to him gives him a note.
Bathe.
    The men’s washroom consists of a short hallway, where clothes are left on hooks; a room with spigots protruding from the wall at waist level, low plastic stools and small mirrors, for washing and shaving; and beyond that, closed off by a door, a room with a huge bathtub that stands empty. A sign in Korean and English says,
Conserving water, no use.
It is the middle of the day, and no one else is there. Removing his robes, Lewis winces at the cold, then reaches for the nearest faucet and turns it to hot.
    A strange sensation, looking at his nakedness for the first time in weeks. His legs are skinnier than before, his ribs showing slightly. When the water touches his shoulders and face, tears spring to his eyes, and he remembers Melinda showering him in their tiny bathtub, pouring body wash over his head, to his protests, working his shoulders with her loofah sponge. His muscles feel rubbery; he nearly slips from the plastic stool.
    A few minutes later, when he turns off the water, he hears someone breathing hard, and close by. A plastic bag rustles. No one has come in, and the door to the outside is closed. He rises from his stool.
    Hello?
    He stands and opens the door to the cloakroom. Hae Wol looks over his shoulder and starts, dropping a white plastic bottle. Little orange tablets scatter everywhere across the tile floor.
    Hey, Lewis says, Joseph—Sunim—I didn’t hear you. He moves forward and stoops, suddenly conscious of his nakedness, gathering the pills and dropping them into his palm. What are these, anyway?
    Shhh.
Hae Wol