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5 October 2016, 9:15 am CET

____A____Hexagon by Cheng Ran

by Cheng Ran October 5, 2016

Introduction

The height of the main tower, made of stainless steel, is 198 m.

The circumference of the oval is 15 cm.

Stand at the center of the equilateral hexagonal platform made of fine copper with a perimeter of 200 m.

There are six pig-iron scaffolds evenly distributed around the bottom of the main tower. Each of them is 24 meters long and leans at a 42-degree angle toward the tower.

On the top of the scaffolds, mouse hairs and crane feathers are planted in a similar density.

On the top of the main tower, there is a 2000 Hz radio head inserted and painted all over with pink nail polish.

1

It’s long been dark. Maybe certain physiological responses are generated by the sensation of the cold light in the dark. Sometimes the excitement of first love is indeed requested. At this moment, the fine film on the cerebral cortex must be very soft. It’s getting wet as the adrenaline ticks off, bringing lubrication. If we use an antenna, fully covered with mucus, to touch the tower in the breeze and rain, at 4 degrees, to lick the sweet yet stinking feathers under the moonlight, it will defeat every exciting wedding night.

2

On the left side of the platform there is a small river upon which floating water hyacinths are everywhere. There are attached by chemical products that could easily suffocate fishes. There is a boat in the middle of the water. It’s rusted enough to sink. Sometimes I doubt the vitality of the water, life or non-life, biological or non-biological, cellular or non-cellular, tissue or non-tissue. If the differences really exist, the standard perhaps is a sling with rouge. The flow is not necessarily life. Even though it runs slowly, poetically, lyrically and nostalgically through the dark green pipelines between the first and third floor, it is a pity that it’s still not life. Maybe it needs a certain medium, such as a drop of secretions, a spiral shell stained with milk, a bone from a braised fish or whatever to wake it up. Overall, when sewers are inserted deep into the hinterland of the pond, a means of communication comes into force through a fish by searching, rejecting, digesting and accepting. It penetrates into its gills, scales, bladder, spine, fin and muscular tissue, so that it becomes a fish, climbing up on the small boat, and chewing the old rust crazily, long-lasting like Durex.

The boat at night seems a bit more gregarious.

3

Wait to depart at a certain time. A feather falls on the lilies with shimmering light. Some sound is needed to kill the noise. The air swirls in the abnormal nose for a long time after inhalation. A crow caws three times after the sun shower. The magnetic field on the top of the iron tower twitches while it flirts with a gas pipe that gradually gets humid.

4

A girl often passes this alley that is full of mud at dusk. She should wear a pale pink tight winter jacket, with a purple and yellowish loose-knit turtleneck sweater decorated with fine blue lines. A dark red scarf with long tassels surrounds her neck. Below it is a pair of pale sky-blue jeans with twisted creases. She matches her outfit with a pair of black sneakers with red lines on the surface and white uppers. Her face is covered by the darkness. Only the blue hairband on her delicate ponytail can be seen as she takes her footsteps. The mud is taught to be cultured by her slow pace, splashing in a methodical and even dull way on her rolled cuffs, socks and a small part of her exposed legs. Then the mud flows irregularly according to different textures and their permeability, like honey that generates imperceptible bubbles in a hive made of hexagons.

5

It is a 30-minute walk to reach the field by the river. It’s no longer the age when scarecrows exist. The wreckage is the best warning of nostalgia. After crossing dozens of ridges, I take off my shoes and socks and walk in the paddy field to feel the chill on my bare feet. I wait for a repeated scene. People remain nostalgic. The nostalgia for and recall of the past is irrational. Often through a magnetic tape, a bunch of reeds in the jam, or a horse laden with a bathtub of diesel, people can return to a certain time period. The moments you keep recalling, like a proud award ceremony, or a warm ambiguity lying in the interrogative vacuum zone, become ordinary arrangement in details and background music during foreplay, until memory remembers.

When the moon rises, it’s better to have a ridiculous and unmeasured angle with Sagittarius. The tower therefore becomes the well-deserved sinner and slut making exchanges with the night. The thick smell of feathers in the air scratches the petty cheeks of each peeper. The strong metal column stretches toward the depths of the sky. Just above the intersection of the six scaffolds, there is a ladder covered by greasy wrappers and perhaps the smell of cream waiting —————— Come on, dear.

6

The transparent tissues full of lace patterns create an organic cell. They need nutrition. They have to grow and thrive. They have their mission.

(Excerpted from Cheng Ran’s The Sponge, unreleased. Translated from Chinese by Yang Yang.)

Cheng Ran (b. 1981, China) is an artist living in Hangzhou.

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