May Chronicle by Qiaoling Cai and Zhuang Leng
When trapped within one's own circumstances, when any visible, direct action against the reality one inhabits becomes a target for suppression and erasure, is it acceptable to persist in a kind of enduring, far-reaching action that grows like root systems in that land where you are stretched thin and unable to fight with full extension—without rushing to lay yourself bare completely in language? Meanwhile, in other battles not initiated in your name, to practice muscle memory in more visible ways, rehearse strategies, and create space for solidarity through collective struggle?
Sometimes, a position of deviation is necessary—a forced displacement, a spatiotemporal* accompaniment that remains possible.
We have not stopped inviting action from such predicaments—actions in the plural. Some battles do not capture the territory they desire, but this does not signify the failure of the fight; leaving ruins is itself part of the mission. Ruins are not a denial of existence; ruins exist at the boundary of possibility, at the knot of time, at the crater of energy.
We are not necessarily passively falling into predicament—at least this time, as we are about to part ways, we actively invite each other to look toward the predicament.
There are no answers. No simple path exists without raising doubts.
From an invitation to action to an invitation to actions, we need a kind of trust—trust in those who share the path but don't necessarily walk together. Plural actions can grow beyond you, beside you, sending out vibrations in ways you cannot name but can perceive. Can we, as Yasmin El-Rifae reminds us, turn our attention to our own networks, toward thinking together, resisting together, supporting each other— openly?
We no longer attempt to escape the predicament, but understand it as generative geological conditions within which we practice connection not aimed at victory, strategies not premised on naming, politics not mediated by representation.
It is time.
A practice.
A rehearsal.
An invitation
to pause,
to walk,
to wait,
to return,
or to arrive
as we promised to each other.
We stepped away
from the room,
from the screen,
from the institutionalized time
not to escape reality,
but to unfold.
To listen
to the world around you,
and to the timing within
that fragile, embodied knowledge of when it feels like now.
Acknowledge difference
in rhythm,
In noise
in laughters,
in silence,
in pain,
in orientation.
Begin with the acknowledge of what you cannot know.
Act from the ground beneath your feet.
Seek your passage.
We are walking together, not necessarily side by side, but
to be present and responsive — sincerely, in relation, and in one’s concrete conditions.
The moment does not arise from clocks,
but from a shared gravity
that moves through us.
And only when everyone arrives,
do we arrive.
It is time.
“The Walk of Multiplicity”
“The Other Walk”
“The Other Is Walking”
“Walking with the Disappeared”
“what is miraculous is not to walk on water,
but to walk on earth.”
“Walk through the fissures of history”
“Each step taken is a link, in the history of walking, with those who took the act into the political sphere, vowing…”
“Learning how to walk anew.”
A visible walk
An invisible walk
Walking in ambivalence
Walking in ruins
A Walk in between
1 walk…… 3…. 9…..12…..
walks
* “Spatiotemporal accompaniment” (shikong bansui) was a data-driven term used in China’s pandemic management to designate individuals who may have been in the same time and space as confirmed cases. Here, the term is repurposed as a counter-concept to describe the possibility of co-presence and coordinated action under constraint.