[FICTION] “Take Me to Hong Kong” by Kim Christine
Editor’s note: This flash story is inspired by Charles Aznavour’s “Emmenez-Moi”. We suggest listening to the song while reading the piece. A YouTube link is provided at the end of the story.
She puts the earbuds in her ears and closes her eyes as the faint cymbals fade in beneath the swooning violins. The music wraps around her, carrying her out of herself, as though she were a solitary soul floating through a symphony hall. She imagines herself standing at the foot of the city’s highest peak, her feet at the edge, peering into a valley that mirrors her future against her past. The wind blows, almost lifting her from the ground, and for a moment she reigns over the hills. The Peak welcomes back the woman who once left and has now returned.
The train, accelerating only seconds ago, begins to slow, and the blurred purple resolves into square purple tiles. Her warped sense of space begins to expand as the tunnel comes into close view. Her reflection whizzes past the bystanders, who suddenly look awake, their guarded expressions merging with hers in the glass window like strangers catching fleeting glimpses of themselves in one another.
The train jolts to a stop. Her body recoils like a rubber band snapping back. She is propelled out of the MTR, stepping across the dark divide as the voice saying “mind the gap” dissolves into an echo in her mind. Her feet move faster, her heart thumps, and wisps of hair fly in the underground rush of air, movement erupting from a body that had been still only a few heartbeats earlier.
She turns right and heads towards the exit tunnel, passing pendant lights that sway amid the rush of commuters and signs pointing towards Causeway Bay. Her hands brush against her black skirt and she straightens her back as the soles of her feet press into the heels of her boots. A sweep of strings rises through the melody in her ears, while a scampering piano dances across it like dainty ladies swinging their dresses in a waltz. “Emmenez-Moi”. Charles Aznavour. The first song on the mixtape her lover had made for her.
She climbs the steps one two three, one two three, at twice her previous speed, as though trying to outrun the song and its memories. She had wanted him to chase after her. She curves around the corners of the hall before stepping onto the final escalator. She charges upwards as the fullness of the French crooner’s voice begins to trill its r’s in her ear. She replays the memory of leaving her lover’s apartment, the door, the click, before the moving steps rise to reveal a city speaking in sound and colour, footsteps and light.
Take me.
She is in a city by the harbour, a harbour of incense, fragrance, and centuries of trade. Junk boats spread their red wings and double-decker trams trace their routes around the island. The Frenchman begins to sing in suspension, his syllables held within the push and pull of each measure. She remembers how they danced, drunk, past midnight in his apartment. She sways through the streets, a pendulum once drawn towards him but now returning to the city’s tastes.
On her left, the storefront glimmers Bonjour. On her right, it smiles Wellcome. She hears the crunch of an egg waffle and the slurp of sugar cane, and catches the scent of pork bak kwa drifting from a corner stall. She walks towards the main crossing, and as the Frenchman’s low vibrato lingers on the A note, the traffic light turns red and the buses and cars begin to slow. The world holds its breath for a moment in anticipation of the chorus, the grandeur, for her.
Ah meh neh moi, he sings as the pedestrian light turns green. Ah meh neh moi, he bellows as the tide of converging crowds pulls her in. Adrenaline surges through her heart and blood pulses in her head. Throngs of bodies press against her shoulders as she is carried by the drift across the street.
Ah meh neh moi. Her feet stop in the middle and she looks up. Ah meh neh moi. She spins in place, eyes wide. She is hypnotised by the profusion of billboards and neon lights, by cigarette smoke and the heavy clouds above. She misses the boy and the music they danced to, but here, in this city of footsteps, she knows that she is finally home.
La la la la la dee la la la, la la la dee da la dee da la la…
She spends the entire night at the Peak, as she has many times before. She watches flashes of light flicker out as the heaviness of night descends, then gradually lifts as the la dee das come to an end. The remnants of the tune linger in the air like the memory of her lover, his touch, his arms around her. They will continue to reverberate in her mind, but for now, there is only sunrise.
How to cite: Christine, Kim. “Take Me to Hong Kong.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 24 Sept. 2026. chajournal.com/2026/09/24/take-me-to-hong-kong.
Kim Christine is a Filipino-Chinese writer born and raised in Manila, the Philippines. She graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Journalism and a second major in Economics, and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Bennington College, with a focus on fiction and poetry. Kim writes about leaving and returning home, the darkness within us, the cyclical nature of life, and finding love in unexpected places. Her writing has appeared in Island Arc and Litro Magazine. Visit her website for more information.
