Jack's Short Stories

32nd Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre

She woke up in dark morning. She had slept on a small mattress without a bedframe, she was close to the floor, cold, still in her work clothes from the night before. On her dusty wood floor was a dead fly, lying on its back, legs bent. Do bugs have eyelids? She wondered. If they do, do a bug's eyes close when they die? Do people stop seeing before they die or right when? Her sleep deprivation prevented her from thinking like other girls, her brain was all spastic and cut-loose. She wanted more sleep. She knew she couldn't be able to rest like she used to; not with all the incredibly loud war machines: tanks, jets, trucks, she swore she could even hear the men yelling from their base, perhaps it was just her imagination swearing along to the constant tubble outside her family's home. It was too early; it was summer. She had to study, but she didn't have to start this early, she'd sleep first. Sleep as well as she could while the streets she learned to ride her bicycle on became tracked and marked with machines carrying god-knows-what.

Dandan unbuttoned her blouse and took off her jeans. Shorts and a tank top, she was colder but she didn't care. She went to sleep as if she was being hugged by one thousand little dumplings.

She had a dream. She was standing in a field. In theA distance she saw a line of tractors. As she spun around, she realized that there was actually a large circle of them, and she was in the middle. All of them started up at once and began to move towards her, slowly. Maybe it was because they were still so far away from her, but Dandan didn't panic. But then they began to move closer, faster, their engines were so loud and she just now noticed how big and terrifying tractors could be. They plowed up all the crops so easily, they ought to have no problem plowing her too. Tearing her body from her legs like they tore stalking crops from their roots. She crouched down, the tractors kept coming, roaring.

Then, they stopped. Above Dandan, stood a scarecrow. It's arms were straight out on the cross. The scarecrow was her guardian, it scared the tractors away. They started to reverse, going backwards, scattering. She looked at the scarecrow, she felt the need to thank it. It had been a cheap thing; straw hardly being contained by the pillowcase for its body. Its head was a plastic bad filled with straw and tied loosely at the bottom. The head began to undo itself from the body, all the straw inside came loose, so now, it was just a plastic bag, light, still her savior. The wind picked it up and it blew away, twirling in the sky as it went. She never had said thank you to the scarecrow, but it was too late now. It was now a decapitated corpse slumped in the middle of a field without reason. She wonders where the bag was going, she wondered if the head would go to save someone else.

She woke up again a few hours later to the sound of Jazz music. Dandan's father had bought a record player for New Years' a while ago for their family. Her mother played her favorite music every morning, it created an ambience for her while she cooked, cleaned, and fed the cat. Bai Chen, Dandan's mother, loved mornings. It was the time for productivity and peacefulness. She worked during the day. She didn't hate her job, but she loved her home more than anything, and she loved her family. She cooked them breakfast every morning. Her husband and her daughter were the most important people in her life, the least she could do to tell them she loved them was take time to make their day as great as it could be from the very beginning.

Dandan walked into the kitchen where her mother was working, still in her shorts and undershirt. "Dandan," Her mother said, "Good morning! You better put on a jacket and pants, you'll get hypothermia dressed like that."

"It's summertime, Mama."

"It was summertime when all the mammoths died in the ice-age too, you know."

Dandan rolled her eyes and made her way over to the counter. "What can I help you with?"

Bai Chen held up her hands and shook her head, "Absolutely not, I am cooking for you."