Headspace: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department write about a place or space they go to write, read, study or create. [Read all entries.]  [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.]

It’s like 4 o’clock in the morning. What is it watching? I ask myself. What does it feel? Looking into an empty corridor, a place of emptiness—transcending the definitions of place and non-place—a place that can hardly be defined as a space. That’s literally my headspace, the only space for my head. I wonder what more can be drawn out of this space. It’s a lavatory. Nobody wishes to work here, alone. Why are some people going home so late? Why are others waking up so early? Why does insomnia exist? The gadget is trying to figure out the answer, I know. It records the footage of humanity, within a lavatory of desires, where people buy snacks, drinks, condoms, boredom, companionship, happiness.

What does it feel like being a camera, not being used by a famed photographer to create epic movies, or by the military to coordinate daily civilian life? No rationale behind it, no stakeholders, no “for the sakes of…”. Recording demeaning matters out of an empty space. Does reading novels enrich the meaning of this space? Yeah, this is the precious setting for reading novels, especially sci-fi. I finished most of my reading as an undergraduate here; this is no doubt a space for reading. Hmm… No… Then it is meaning attached to this space, imposed upon it by an external interpretation. I looked into the parallel sequences of fluorescent tubes, hello my friend in between, you have an answer, huh?

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Buster Leung is a graduate of the Department of English (Class of 2016). [Read all entries by Buster here.]