I remember what it was like to run through Taipei parking lots, the gravel biting into my feet. There was no real reason, except to make it an endless July. I was supposed to be sentimental but you forgot to pick me up from the garden of the 2000s, old men gently pushing their hands outward, slowly moving through daybreak, a single browning water lily on the vast pond.

Or the time we went shopping for groceries, taking the bus south past Yanping Road. We woke up early to avoid the mosquitoes, churning the air with nervous excitement. You haggled vendors for the freshest fish while I held onto your lined hand and eyed the nearest basket of fleshy mangoes. I’d stand in basketball shorts and flip flops, while the sweltering city enveloped us.