Imelda Wei Ding Lo
On my thirty-third birthday, I eat fishball soup noodles in a food court in a dingy Shum Shui Po[1] mall. The fluorescent lighting buzzes overheard. Beside me, a family unwraps buns. A delivery man slips a packed lunch into a thermal bag and fastens his helmet, soon vanishing down the escalator.
It’s peaceful. For the first time in a long time, I’m alone, finally able to just marinate in my thoughts about myself, my role in the universe, and what’s next.
Over the past three decades, I’ve learned that birthdays are for more than just celebration—they’re also for reckoning. Looking back at all the selves you thought you were and had shed before now.
And for me, that means thinking about Atlas. Atlas Aw. The man who had turned my life into a “before” and “after”.
I. Same Delta, Different Ocean
I first talk to him in 2015, during the winter semester of the first year of law school at Osgoode.
He’s not tall, around my height, 170 centimetres. He’s lean, with cautious body language and large, flickering eyes that looked still at first, but hid depths of anxiety. He usually sits hunched at the back of the class, silent as a shadow. I sit up front, always talking.
During the icebreaker, he introduces himself as Atlas Aw.
“Aw,” I say during break. “Singaporean or Malaysian?”
He half smiles. “Aw, as in ‘Ng’ in Cantonese and ‘Wu’ in Mandarin.[2] It’s the Hakka spelling. From Burma, actually.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“My great-grandfather was Hakka from Huizhou[3],” he says. “Went to Burma for work in the early 20th century. Laid track and set up a Traditional Chinese Medicine practice. We spent three generations there. Now, we’re in Canada.”
“My family’s from Shunde,” I reply. “My great-grandfather worked in Madagascar. Coast work. Went back to China, married, and my grandfather went down to Hong Kong before the Second World War.”
He nods.
“Same delta,” he says.
“Different ocean,” I finish.
I don’t remember the lecture. I remember the silence after our conversation—how I replayed that phrase like a line from a poem I hadn’t realized we’d co-written.
He disappeared from the class soon after. I didn’t find out why until years later.
II. Atlas A
At thirty-two, I find him again on Reddit, on a thread for “wrecked” Juris Doctor (JD)[4] graduates.
Someone posts: “Anyone else feel like law school ate your twenties?”
I chuckle. Yes. Law school hadn’t just eaten my youth—it had devoured my soul.
A reply catches my eye:
AtlasA: Luckily, I left before it ate me.
AtlasA? On impulse, I DM him:
Tort law? Osgoode Hall Law School? 2015?
He replies almost instantly:
Yeah. You always brought the all-day breakfast to class, right? Hash browns and sausage smell. You sat by the window.
III. White Coffee
We meet at a diner near Dundas, the type that calls itself Southeast Asian-inspired without being specific or authentic. White Singaporean coffee, roti john, laksa, fishball noodle soup, egg tarts, and pineapple buns share the menu with chilli fries and sambar.
He looks the same, but broader now. Shoulders like someone who supports others for a living. Realer than the ghost in my memory.
We catch up, but not with timelines. Just presence. Heat. Silences. The spark between us is the same as before, only now it’s finally allowed to land.
He now runs logistics, coordinating operations for small businesses, including his parents’ restaurant.
“Thai,” he says wryly, doing air quotes. “You know how it is. People want something they can name.”
As it turns out, he left law school because he admitted what I couldn’t: it wasn’t right.
“I only went because of my dad,” he says. “Classic immigrant logic. Law, engineering, or medicine. Anything else is failure.”
“Before my JD,” Atlas continues, sipping his white coffee, “I tried a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. But it was a disaster. Took time off and decided to finish in sociology. Useless, as my parents would say, but hey, I got my degree. Just two years later.”
His eyes drift to the window, his voice tightening. “My marks were fairly decent. So, I took the LSAT. Got into Osgoode. But it never felt right to me. Everyone had a plan: litigator, human rights lawyer, corporate drone, hell, even will-writer in a Mississauga strip mall. Me? I bullshitted my way through the application to please my dad.”
He sighs, gritting his teeth. “So, I dropped out. When I told my dad, he lost it—screamed for hours. Called me a loser. Said I was cut out of the will.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, though it’s not enough.
“Didn’t think he meant it,” Atlas continues. “But then he told my siblings. Said he’d cut them out if they were disobedient like me.”
He shakes his head. “My cousin and I then started this logistics thing. It saved the restaurant during the pandemic. Eventually, my dad thanked me and offered to put me back in the will.”
“And?”
“And I told him no. Told him to leave it to my siblings. My brother’s still lost in undergrad, just obsessed with video games with no career plan in sight.”
He shrugs. “Otherwise? Life’s mundane. I cook for my mom once a month,” he adds. “Nothing special. But…it’s honest. If a bit aimless.”
I pause. “My life’s been simple too. I finished law school. Class of 2017. But…it didn’t really get me anywhere.”
He waits.
“I never got hired,” I continue. “I applied everywhere, but I only got a few interviews, and even those didn’t go anywhere. Like you said, you can’t succeed without connections, it seems.”
He winces. “That’s brutal.”
“Yeah,” I shrug. “But I managed to survive. Wrote white papers and compliance blogs for clients abroad. Never did real law. Still don’t.”
He looks at me, quiet, observing.
“And socially?” I add. “I’ve just been invisible since graduation. No office, no colleagues. Friends drifted. Just me and my laptop in my parents’ house.”
His eyes darken. Then, he says it: “You don’t deserve any of that.”
“What?”
“I always thought Toronto would reward someone like you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re honest. Smart. Charismatic. You think I didn’t notice how you got all the classmates and professors listening to you? Yeah, maybe you didn’t have connections, but I thought you would be able to make some. You were always good at talking and socializing with people, unlike me. And you pushed through. You didn’t flake, unlike me.”
He grimaces, overcome with shame again.
“But Toronto still gave you nothing, huh? So, maybe there isn’t hope for any of us.”
IV. The Sink
The second time, we meet at his place in Mississauga, near that dilapidated Chinese mall across from Square One.
His apartment is sparse: a shelf of books, a rice cooker, and a desk for his laptop.
We talk about everything and nothing, in glances and suppressed heat. For a while, life doesn’t feel boring. It has momentum.
He makes mohinga. “It’s the national dish of Burma.” He pauses. “I know it’s Myanmar now. But my parents always said Burma. They left before the change.”
I help him prepare, digging up lemongrass, onions, rice flour, garlic, black pepper, and banana stems from the fridge.
We move quietly and efficiently, peeling the garlic and preparing the other ingredients. His forearms flex while chopping, not showy, just solid. Functional, just like the rest of him.
But every so often, our hands brush. Once at the cutting board, then at the sink. Water ran over our hands, his fingers a little calloused at the tips, like someone who lifts boxes more than pens.
We eat on the couch. No TV, no music, no distractions. Just the low hum of his fridge and the soft scrape of spoons.
We eat in silence for a while. Then, I say it—the thought that’s been on my mind since our first meeting: “Do you ever feel that life just…stalled?”
He sets his bowl down. “What do you mean?”
“Like we finished university, did what we were told, but nothing came.”
He pauses. “It’s a money issue. If I were rich, I’d probably know what I’d want to do with my life. But I’m not. So I work and support my parents.”
“At least you have work. I don’t even have that anymore.”
He blinks. “What happened? I thought you were writing those white papers for Singaporean NGOs?”
“Used to. This month, though, most of my clients have disappeared. AI has eaten most of my jobs.”
I sigh, stand up, and put the bowl in the sink. “I’ve never had so much free time in my life, Atlas.” I turn on the tap. “But it doesn’t feel good. It feels like I’m wasting my life.”
I turn off the tap. “It’s like I’m too old to start over, but too young to give up.”
Suddenly, he’s beside me, watching the water spiral down the drain.
“You’re not old,” he finally says, his words coming out slow and tender. “You’re just tired. Like me.”
I whisper, “Do you ever wonder if someone would just…carry you for once?”
He exhales. “All the time.”
I look at him.
“But it never happens,” he adds. “Not for people like us.” We stand like that for a few seconds, close, not touching, but deeply aware of each other. My hands are still wet, dripping into the sink.
He reaches for a dish towel and hands it to me. Our hands brush, not accidentally this time.
While drying my hands, I say quietly, “I’ve never been chosen by anyone. Not by institutions, friends, or…men.” Tears sting my eyes. His eyes flick to mine, but he remains silent.
I continue. “I was a brain in a hoodie my whole life. Focused on school and then work. Then the pandemic hit, and no one talks anymore. I’m not even sure how I can find love.”
I head back to the couch. “But love feels like the only thing that matters now. Work has collapsed. No one else talks. I’ve burned through two degrees and become a lawyer. So…what now? Just love. That’s the only thing I haven’t experienced yet.”
He follows me to the couch but doesn’t say a word. But his eyes, wide, wet, startled, sad, and tender, meet mine, as if saying, me too.
Later, when he asks if I want more tea, I nod.
We don’t speak again. But something buzzes louder beneath the silence.
V. The Sentence Ends
The third time, it’s late summer. I bus to Mississauga under grey skies.
Atlas meets me at the door in a polo and khakis. His hair is mussed, and his face slightly flushed. The air smells of fish bone soup and stir-fried vegetables.
We eat slowly. I sniff.
“I’m leaving Toronto.”
He glances up.
“In three weeks.” I bite my lip.
He puts his spoon down quietly. “Why? Where?”
“Hong Kong. My parents already went back. I don’t know if I have any reason to be here anymore.” My lip trembles. “My gigs are gone. No one’s hiring. Everyone’s ghosted.”
He listens.
“I thought if I stayed long enough, Toronto would finally reward me with something—a career, a social life, a man. But now, I’m out of reasons.”
He’s quiet for a while. Then: “You don’t have to explain.” But his voice is tight. “You’ve served your sentence. But you gotta admit you’re privileged.”
I blink. “What?”
“I don’t mean rich. But you can leave. You’ve got another place. Me? Just one citizenship: Canada. I don’t read Chinese. Don’t speak Burmese. Hell, I’ve never even been to Burma.”
He looks down at his soup. “You think I don’t want to leave the GTA?[5] You think I’m not sick of the grey skies, the performative people, the deadness of it all? I just…can’t.”
The air hums with something raw.
“I…didn’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I try.
“You didn’t,” he replies. “It’s not your fault. It’s just that Fate has locked me into this city.”
What can I even say to that?
We finish eating in silence. He pours me tea—Iron Goddess, my mother’s favourite.
When I stand to wash the dishes, he joins me, but I notice that his gait is awkward, stiff. He rinses the bowls, passing them to me with wet fingers. We don’t speak. The air is thick with tension.
His arm brushes mine as we reach for the same cup. Not by accident.
After drying the last bowl, I turn to face him. He’s already watching me. I want to say something about loneliness, about hunger, about how strange it is that finally, after all these years of being ghosted by employers, friends, institutions, and life itself in this goddamn city, he’s the only person who feels real.
But now, I’m about to leave. I’m about to lose what has just started blooming. For what?
I touch his face. His skin is warm, slightly dry, like he’s been drinking too much tea and not enough water.
He doesn’t flinch.
I trace the edge of his cheekbones, then his jaw. Tears prickle my eyes.
“I…don’t know why I’m leaving,” I confess. “You’re the only real person I’ve ever met. It’s just…I…don’t know if I can stay any longer in Toronto without losing my mind. Too much has happened here, and I need a break.” My voice breaks, and suddenly, he closes the space between us. Before I know it, he’s kissing me, cautiously at first, as if testing whether I’ll disappear.
I don’t. I kiss him back, and the moment deepens. For a moment, there’s nothing but pressure, breath, and recognition.
VI. First Time
Later, his shirt is on the floor. Now, his body is unadorned. No tattoos. Just smooth, pale brown skin stretched over a frame clearly shaped by functionality—lifting, driving, walking, delivering, cooking, surviving.
His chest isn’t broad, but it holds memory, fatigue. Hell, even resentment. I trace the plane from his sternum to his stomach. The skin is taut, the faintest shadows or ribs rising and falling underneath.
His neck tightens when I kiss him below his jaw. He exhales, slow and reluctant, like he’s trying his darndest to stay inside his body instead of disappearing inside his head.
He doesn’t move, just watches me with those cautious eyes. But beneath the stillness, I feel it: a pulse straining against years of restraint, of being trained to hold back, serve, and carry others instead of choosing himself.
I think about what he said earlier, about not having a second passport, about not being able to leave. I think about how people like him are born not to desire, but to endure.
And suddenly, I want to be reckless for both of us. When I finally climb over him, I pause, memorizing the weight of him under me. He lies back, not passive or limp, but open. Like an offering he doesn’t know how to make but is still trying anyway.
There’s no performance. No porn-scripted gasps or theatrical moaning. It’s my first time, but it doesn’t feel like it. I always thought I’d be self-conscious or awkward in bed, but it turns out I’m not. It’s just breath, friction, and living in the moment. For once, my head is quiet, emptied of regrets, spirals, and all the useless thoughts I usually drown in.
When I climax, I give a sharp cry, tears flowing down my face. Like something in me had finally cracked.
Afterward, he doesn’t say anything. He just hangs my clothes in the bathtub.
VII. Bright Sun
We lie on the floor, limbs tangled. Neither of us speaks for a while.
Then, I ask, “What’s your Chinese name?”
He groans. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Why?”
“Well, my parents didn’t pick something poetic. They went to English-medium schools in Burma. They didn’t learn literary Chinese, can’t really read it well either.”
I wait.
“Ng Ming Yat,[6]“ he says eventually in Cantonese.
“Like, as in ‘Bright Sun’?”
“Yes.”
I whisper it again. “Ng Ming Yat.”
Something shifts in his face. “You’re the first person outside of my family who’s said that name,” he murmurs.
“It feels weird, doesn’t it? In Canada, these names fade into obscurity. No one ever uses them. It’s almost like they don’t exist.”
He nods. “Yeah. For the longest time, I didn’t even really think of it as my name. It was just something whispered at home. Barely.”
“So, how do you pronounce your name in Hakka?”
“We don’t really speak Hakka anymore. It wasn’t efficient in Burma. Most people around us were Cantonese. But yeah, it’s Aw Min Ngit.” He frowns. “But no one here in Canada would get that.”
“Still,” I say, trying the syllables. “It sounds…genuine.”
“It sounds like something lost. Something faded,” he says. “Just like my name. Just like my whole life, really. My name sounds like an afterthought my parents gave me because they didn’t think it was important. Maybe they thought I’d just stay in Canada forever, where no one would ask for it anyway. It’s not even on my official documentation. Just a name whispered at home, now and then. And even that’s fading.”
I touch his chest again, over the sternum—that smooth, solid plane of him.
“Still,” I whisper. “It means ‘tomorrow,’ too. They wanted a future for you.”
***
Later, I ask if he believes in charts. “Zi Wei Dou Shu.[7] Chinese astrology stuff.”
He squints at me. “You serious?”
“Completely. I’m a huge nerd about that stuff.”
He shrugs. “Well, my mom took me to a master in a Scarborough strip mall when I was fifteen. Paid 300 bucks. I guess those guys can make a killing.”
“What’d he say?”
“That my career palace had malefics. Said I’ll be poor for life. That I’d try really hard, do well in school, but still be poor.” He laughs harshly.
“And?”
“Sounds like he was right.”
I reach for his hand.
“What do your charts say?” he asks.
“That career would be difficult for me as well. That I’m stubborn and rebellious. That…love may never come, but if it did, it would be delayed, fated…and hurt like hell. And maybe too late.” I sniff.
He is silent. My arms are draped over his chest, fingers splayed like I’m reading him in Braille.
He exhales. I feel it under my hand.
“You really are leaving, aren’t you?” he says.
I nod.
VIII. Memory
On my thirty-third birthday, I’m not working. All my clients have dried up, with a few exceptions. I currently live with my parents in Hong Kong in Sha Tin, in a tall building overlooking a plaza. They cover rent, and I pay for groceries.
My parents say it’s okay to live like this, that I’ve struggled long enough in Canada, and I deserve a rest.
But this doesn’t feel like rest. It feels like…deferral. I thought Hong Kong would give me motion again, or even some semblance of a social life.
But really? It’s just another city that doesn’t need me.
Sometimes, I wonder if I should go back to Toronto.
Not to the dead economy. Not to the buried LinkedIn messages or the dried-up job leads. Not to the crumbling infrastructure, the rising crime rates, or the friends who never replied.
But to him. Atlas.
To the quiet warmth of his apartment. The fish broth. The bed. The way he hung my clothes out to dry without speaking. The fact that he held me, like someone real, not a ghost drifting aimlessly.
Maybe that’s all I ever needed. Not a future, not a career, not a group of friends, just someone who could stand by my side, even when life didn’t make sense anymore.
Coda
That night, I open my laptop. I stare at the screen until the light turns my reflection into a ghost.
He’s still there on WhatsApp. The last message we exchanged was from eight months ago.
“Are you okay?” he had said. I had just written, “Yeah,” as a response.
Nothing since then.
I type one letter. Then delete it. Then I just sit there. Then I try again:
I’ve been thinking about you. A lot. Listen. I left because I didn’t know what else to do. Toronto was suffocating me. But I never stopped remembering us. I know I didn’t say it before, and maybe it’s too late, but…I love you. Still do.
I pause. Then add:
You don’t have to respond. I don’t expect anything. I just wanted you to know.
I hit send. And for once, I don’t brace for a reply. I just close the screen and sit, watching the city lights blur outside the window—none of them as bright as the name he barely spoke aloud.
FOOTNOTES
[1] District in Hong Kong.
[2] He is referring to 吳 .
[3] City in Guangdong Province, China.
[4] Juris Doctor (JD) is a Canadian/United States postgraduate law degree. In Canada and the U.S., you can only go to law school after finishing a Bachelor’s degree.
[5] GTA stands for Greater Toronto Area, which includes downtown Toronto and suburbs like Mississauga, Markham, and Richmond Hill.
[6] 吴明日
[7] 紫微斗数 or Purple Star Astrology.
Imelda Wei Ding Lo is a Hong Kong–born writer based in Toronto, Canada. Her fiction explores displacement, silence, and the afterlives of ambition. She previously co-edited the zine The Unconventional Courier and hosted the podcast The Nuts and Bolts of Writing, where she interviewed emerging literary voices. X: @IWDL_Writer; Substack: https://substack.com/@iwdl
