With a cup of not-so-hot coffee clutched between my two frozen hands to try and extract what little heat I could, I was on the third-floor balcony outside my front door, looking onto the sports field below where the kids were playing in the last, feeble slivers of sun, supervised by a few dedicated parents.

There is a regular following of parents who spend half and hour or so with their children on the school’s field every afternoon before taking them home. This field is one of very few open areas of land that actually has grass-cover that people are allowed to play on.

One particular, little girl, a gymnast gonna-be, receives regular guidance from her ex-gymnast (I think) mom. Her mom is beautiful and hard to miss, even in a crowd and from a far-distant 3rd floor balcony.

Today she wore a white jacket, contrasted starkly by her long, flowing, raven black hair, which cascades down her back and splashes about far beneath on the top part of the rounds of her bum. Her dark hair transported my attention along it’s flow and subconsciously rested my eyes on her curves. For if my attention should flicker or fade, she had perfected a flick of her hair. This action replays before me in slow motion, every time I think of her.

It’s like a butterfly flapping it’s wings before it lets itself be taken by the wind when her head dips slightly down and to the left and then whips up to the right. The ripple trickles down her hair and for a brief, but pleasurable, moment the un-exposed parts of her neck and back are revealed and veiled again as quickly as the butterfly bats its wings. The ripple continues down the length of her hair, drops running down the face of a rock, and shatters at the ends where it wants my attention to be. Where the drops crash on the rocks, my eyes linger.

Her damp-rock coloured pants, made from a fabric which, across the distance I was unable to identify, hugged her curves like a second skin and made my eyes draw along the outlines of where they were now resting. Her bum, full, firm and curvaceous, unlike many Chinese women in this part of the world, held my attention like a shiny rainbow formed in the spray of magnificent waterfall.

Between the vivid brightness of her white jacket and equally white, tall boots, there was really only one area of darkness my eyes needed to explore. It struck me, by contrast of the other mothers around her, how voluptuous her figure really was.

As my fantasy grew and I was reminded of how isolated I’ve been, longing to dance naked underneath that waterfall, a deep guttural sound polluted my river and turned my waterfall gray. I realised that she was emitting this sound and I cringed, as I knew the ritual that would follow.

The guttural sound moved up her throat and reached her mouth. And, as I’ve witnessed on so many pavements, in so many restaurants and on so many buses before, this signified the next stage. The guttural sound now became a hocking, coughing sound, a cat trying to dislodge a large piece of sponge it had swallowed, which absorbed too much moisture and was now thrice it’s original size.

At last the grating agony of the throat cleaning climaxed into a higher pitched, slime-gathering as her cheeks moved inward, her lips pouted and she tightened her stomach muscles, preparing to project the fruits of her labour onto the plants. As she spat with the grace of dog licking its genitals, with it she spat my fantasies. My river became mucky, my waterfall slimy sludge, and the shape of the rocks it was falling on didn’t matter anymore.

With still unpolluted memories flowing through my mind, I rapidly ran in-doors to try and separate myself from this grim reality, but alas, it had been another pleasant ogle-session prematurely terminated by the dreaded Shiyan Hock.

The above account, although slightly dramatised, is an actual event as it happened. No names were mentioned, not to protect the innocent, but because I know no names. Beware the Shiyan Hock. It lies in wait, on any road, on any floor and yes, even restaurant carpets!