(diaryland) November 26, 2012 - 9:27 p.m.

Holiday Memory.

Xi'an, China, 7:00AM.

I open the curtain. It's still basically night. In the university courtyard below, there is a huge fir tree. And under the fir tree, in the stillness of the pre-dawn, there is one lone silhouette. And it is not exactly human.

You know in zombie movies, how the first few undead kinda stand around a lot, not really walking, and there's one who slouches slightly and swivels their head really slowly, and it gives you the creeps?

Here was that guy.

I felt a panicky zing, like when you think you're about to drop something fragile.

I never saw him out there again, but I looked every morning. There were a lot of people walking backwards, out there in the mornings, though, and people who crouched down and stood back up a lot of times. They like to exercise eccentrically there.