This story happened more than twenty years ago, so much has happened since then in my life and in the world, I cannot be certain that my memory of the story is completely intact. At any rate, I will try my best to recall all the details. If I have forgotten something, I will try not to use my imagination to fill in the gaps, but no one likes reading a story with gaps, do they?

I studied in a very small school when I was a kid, for most classes, the same group of students would progress all the way from primary 1 to 6. In my class however, someone joined mid way at primary 4. He and I very quickly became the most competitive students on and off school, we were always the first two in our class – he was much more mathematically talented than I was, so he would help me with Maths and I would help him with humanities subjects. As for his name, his initials were the same as the most well-known fried chicken fast food chain, thus he was known as KFC.

I left home to study in the UK midway through secondary school. I went on to study Physics and Philosophy in university, while KFC stayed in Hong Kong and did Maths and statistics. Now I think about this, our choice of subjects said so much about our personality. KFC was a very practical person, always thinking and talking about efficiencies, whereas I have always had a deeper interest in how things work, how life works. While we were playing a game of Go once, he asked me, in the most casual way possible, if my grandmother only had an hour more to live, how much would I accept to terminate her life myself? I said I wouldn’t, not for a hundred thousand, not for a million. He said what if she only had a minute left? What if it was just a random person unknown to me?

I picked up a stone from the bamboo bowl between my index and middle finger, trying to decide where to place it between a few very similar points, that probably wouldn’t make a difference to the game at the level we played. “I wouldn’t” I insisted, “I know what you’re getting at, but I don’t equate lives with material things. A minute of life doesn’t make the slightest difference to an hour of life, and one hour of my own life wouldn’t even make a difference to anything after a hundred years, all I’ll leave behind is a name shared with many people, stored in a book somewhere, if I’m lucky.” 

“So the answer is close to 0?!” KFC said. 

“Where would the money come from anyway? Who would see value in terminating a life a few hours sooner? Just about everyone knows that there’s no value in life, I know you don’t like reading history but you know for sure that you can just about count all the people who have made a difference to the world with these stones.” I changed the topic ever so slightly, grabbing a handful of stones from the bowl.

“Well it depends on what kind of insurance these people have bought I guess.” KFC chuckled.

“Turning it around, would you volunteer to die a little sooner to give someone a donation?” I placed the stone on the board, setting up to sacrifice a small group for a positional advantage.

“Looks like you are trying to!” he pointed at the stone I just placed. “I wouldn’t, what do I have to gain?”

“Just in case somehow you find out how grateful people are to you after death, perhaps you’d get a medal for it from Jesus?” 

“I really don’t think so.” KFC said dismissively.

“Well I’m pretty sure that more people believe that there’s a life after death than there isn’t, is that not good enough proof? They can’t be all making it up right?” I said slightly sarcastically.

“Flat earth!!” my friend protested, slamming a stone on the board. “Let’s try to prove them wrong.”

“Oh yeah? If you die before I do, will you come knock on my window to tell me?” 

“Like this: knock knock, knock” He knocked on the table deliberately and rhythmically. “We need a special pattern, or else you might think it’s someone else.”

We let the conversation run wild, devising a full plan to cover all sorts of scenarios – what if it took time to learn how to physically knock on something with just a soul; what if it’s too crowded since so many people are dead, that it’s impossible to get to the window; What if we forgot each other’s address; In the end, we had a plan, be that a very silly one.

KFC was one of the very few friends I kept in touch with constantly when I was in the UK, we’d play many games over video calls – Backgammon, Go, Reversi – you name it. This went on almost every weekend, even some weekdays. Until his 30th birthday.

It was a Friday evening, I went home after work as usual. I had a call from a good friend in Hong Kong. It was the first time I understood the opposing feelings of what must be true, and what I didn’t want to be true.

I put the phone down, I had dinner, I went about business as usual, as if nothing had happened. For a long time, I couldn’t talk about it, until I went to Hong Kong a month later, when there was a memorial service, when I was asked to share my thoughts, my memories – the memories that would stay static from then on. I met a lot of people at that service, his mum said that she had no idea KFC had so many friends.

I went home that night with a heavy heart, I stood in front of a traffic light, and a bus went past at speed. What would people say about me when I couldn’t hear them any more? Was there anything I would like to say to anyone when they could not hear me any more? 

By the time I got to the block of flats I was staying at with my mum, it was already late evening. There was no one in the lift lobby except the half-awake guard, somehow he did not register that I came into the lobby, but the sound of the bell from the lift arriving woke him up.

He looked into my direction, yawned with his mouth wide open, perhaps he recognised me, perhaps he just did not care who was going up the building, at any rate I disappeared into the mirrored cubical. 

There was a slightly unfamiliar smell when the door eventually opened – a very subtle difference that was enough to trigger me to be wary of my surroundings, but not enough to pause. I walked out of the lift towards the direction of my mum’s apartment, I could hear a couple chatting through the door, someone was playing the piano rather nicely in another flat, indeed, strangely enough, the piano seemed to come from mum’s apartment. I stopped to listen, and soon realised that I was on the wrong floor. I must have gone into the lift that only stopped at odd floors but mum’s apartment was on 32. 

I backtracked to the lift, it had long gone to ferry another person presumably. I dragged my feet to look around for the stairs  as it was just one level to walk up. The flats were laid out in a u-shape, with the lift in the middle of the u with its door opening towards the bottom of the u, and the two long corridors symmetrically running either side and extending behind the lift. I shuffled towards where the sound of the piano was coming from again, as I turned the corner, I was right outside the piano flat. I saw the big black door that led to the stairs at the end of the corridor. 

I was by no means a classical music connoisseur, but I instantly recognised the piece the person was playing – Nocturne no 1, and it was definitely a person playing because at times, they were playing in such a way that sounded as if someone was speaking in my second language to me – deliberate, slow, clear – so I could understand every meaning of each note and phrase. 

I stopped right outside the door of the piano flat, I did not want my footsteps to interrupt the music. The couple who were chatting stopped too, perhaps they were also listening. It was so quiet, so unusually quiet, which made the piano so inescapable. 

That evening, I was very emotionally drained, the melancholic music took whatever was left in me, and filled it with something even more hollow. I did not know whether I was standing or sitting against the wall, or where I was for that matter, I was simply connected with, or a part of the music. 

The piano paused, I heard the person turning a page, I heard him breathe, I heard him studying the scores, I heard him begin to struggle, but he continued, as though he knew that there was an audience. “How could he possibly know!” I thought to myself; Then I figured that he wasn’t playing for me, he was simply trying his best to extend what was left of Chopin, some 200 years on after his physical existence. 

At first, I was grateful that this person in the flat helped to continue Chopin; As he struggled and stuttered, I began to feel that I was less connected with Chopin, but only a very distorted version. At any rate, Chopin was fortunate, 200 years on, his life still lived on, thousands of people can perform his legacy for many more 200 years to come; I was struck by a sense of sadness again – what about KFC? Who is going to remember who he was in 200 years’ time?

I gathered myself, I heard the couple chatting again, I heard the TV from the next door flat, I saw the big black door at the end of the corridor again. 

I pushed open the heavy door, it slammed shut behind me, it made a dull, deep echo around the stairway. I walked up the first flight of stairs, my footsteps echoed behind me as if someone was following me. On the wall directly in front were some graffiti, it was too dark to make out what they said. I turned to my right facing another wall, with more graffiti. My eyes were adjusting to the dark enclosure, so were my ears, so was my mind. I wanted to see what was on the wall, surely the person or people drew and wrote because they wanted someone to read it? 

I took my phone out of my pocket, turned on the torch light, illuminating a colourful jumble of patterns on the wall. I looked closer, I tried to follow one colour at a time, to focus on one stroke at a time, yet no matter how hard I tried, I could not discern any meaning from the wall, as if it was a noisy and crowded restaurant where everyone was raising their voice, competing  to be heard, but every single voice was drowned out by all of the others. 

I wasn’t sure for how long I stayed staring at the graffiti, long enough that I began to be able to see through the layer of dust and filth, and began to see names, shapes, drawings of hearts, sketches of faces, running tears of some lonely neighbours, movies of short-lived  and passionate romance, each and every one of them wanted to leave their mark here in a well-hidden place, yet screaming to be discovered at the same time.

I found a marker pen in my bag, I wanted to write something on the wall, I wanted to write something for KFC, so that there was one more place in this world where there was a trace of him, even if it  was my expression of him, like the person playing Chopin downstairs. I held the marker pen in my hand, I didn’t quite know what to write, I did not know whether it was even the right place to make the mark, for why should his mark be hidden? At any rate, KFC did not leave any manuscript, scores, for me or anyone to follow. 

I finally made it home. I sat on the sofa by the window, mum made some small talk, I didn’t register what she said. It was a very quiet night, the air was still, the TV was not on, the neighbours were either asleep already or they were not at home. I heard a sound on the window, “knock knock”, it sent shivers down my spine. 

I turned to the window, nothing was there, except a moth, standing as still as if it was frozen. I leant closer to the window, I moved my hand closer to the moth, it did not move, I moved closer still, it still did not move, its wings spread out either side of its body. My hand was centimetres away from physically touching it, but I stopped; I did not want to disturb it in case it’d fly away, although it wasn’t looking like it would. I sat watching the moth for a while, it did not move, and I did not want to move. I took this as a sign that it was expecting something from me, and I had to figure out what it was.

The next few days, I met with as many people close to KFC as I could – his friend from university that I did not know before, his mother who was always the one picking up the phone when I called his home, the girl he liked who was also someone I was in love with; I told his university friend how much KFC respected him for his knowledge in playing contract bridge; I told his mum how much he disliked the experimental dumplings she made but KFC could never tell her because she put so much effort into making them; I told SuYi how much KFC and I avoided talking about her. They laughed, they cried, they told me stories I knew before, they shared his secrets with me that I did not want to know.

A week later, I sat by the window at home again, a moth was here again, I practised on a piece of paper what I conjured up to be a representation of KFC’s short life, I threw the first draft away, added more details, threw the second draft away, until I ran out of paper and started drawing and writing over my own drafts, the whole thing began to look just like the graffiti downstairs.

I took a marker pen, went out of the apartment and headed to the stairs down to the 31st floor. The heavy door closed behind me as I walked down the first flight of stairs, I stood in front of the wall, adjusting to the darkness. I squinted, waited, but not a single soul was left on the wall.