Andrew Kang

Flash of white and gray. Footfalls swift on the concrete. On Andrés Bello, you see him for a second on the other side of the Mapocho, its current pulsing weakly onto the cobbled walls with their painted red symbols. You see him for a second before he’s off. He takes the alleyway, dodging the morning’s black puddles that line the street, four, five blocks off the main road now, quick paws shuttering along the one-floor meat shops and Dr. Simi’s pharmacy, the gated gray-dust apartments, and the sleeping nightclubs of Providencia. Past the supermarket swollen with pedestrians, past the metal cars paused in traffic, past the bewildered tourists looking on—he’s more local than you are, and prideful about it. Follow west to see where he leads. With him, you are nobody: a light, freeing feeling. See how he sees, the towering naked trees, leaves and plastic cups soaking the sidewalk, sun cracking open every dark, dank corner of the city. How he eats, now tunneling into a sidestreet dumpster, the smell of leftovers mingling onto the open road.