The Buried River: A Short Story

This is my first short story. The places are real, and some connect to things I’ve written about before, but the events are mostly not. It’s a little Murakami-inspired and I wanted to try writing fiction built on top of memory. The night before I left Hong Kong, I dreamed of a river. In the dream I was standing in the departures hall at Chek Lap Kok, next to the big windows that were designed to withstand a typhoon. Behind the glass, instead of the runway, a narrow river flowed silently under amber lamps. Green trees lined its banks. A single dog walked along the edge, a small Schnauzer with a lame back leg. His fur was the colour of cigarette ash. Every few steps he would glance up at me, as if checking that I was still there. I woke up in the Regal Airport Hotel. The room smelt faintly of industrial detergent and stale air. Outside, somewhere below the window, trucks beeped as they reversed. It was the kind of place with carpet designed for suitcases rather than bare feet. For a…