Walking Through Open Doors

Chapter 2 - The Zhou Family

"You have been telling me the exact same thing for months, years even. Come one Zi Shu Ge, when are you going to write a new book? Everyone is waiting! Sooner or later, reading your old books won't cut it anymore. People will move on even if you are doing book readings." The voice over the phone is loud enough to echo inside his office-even though he doesn't even have the speaker on-and wake up Nao Nao [1], who looks mildly irritated before snuggling back in his lap.

What is it about Han Ying's voice that just carries across space and time? Is it just to annoy him? He's sure that if there are aliens out there, Han Ying's voice it the first audio waves they will receive from Earth-loud and clear, without any static. And then they will invade and try to annihilate humanity simply due to the fact that our voices give them migraines.

"Who's waiting?" Zhou Zi Shu says absentmindedly and scratches Nao Nao's head, thinking that maybe his next book should be Sci-Fi? He's always liked the genre, but never found any inspiration himself in the unknown and otherworldly. He had mostly written from his heart, from what he observed about all the people he had met in his line of work as an undercover journalist. People seemed to enjoy his novels filled with real people with deep connection to the unrest throughout the world that they were living in.

If he wrote an editorial on the growing wealth gaps as a result of the Chinese economic reforms in the 70s, he would follow it up with a novel about urbanization and children in low income families forced to move away from their roots. Of course, those editorials were always anonymous to protect his privacy as well as safety. And his novels were written under his penname-Zhou Xu.

Han Ying plows on, always on a mission, "Your fans are waiting. I'm waiting. I'm even sure that Cheng Ling is waiting."

"Han Ying," he starts, his voice sharp in a way that definitely means that if his agent keeps this up, he will be met with the call ended tone shortly. "I promise, this time I have started to write on something. I'm just not ready to share it until it's taken shape. But honestly, I am writing."

"Hmph," is heard through the speaker and it's like his entire phone huffs at him. He can tell that Han Ying doesn't believe him. Not that he can blame the man, considering how many times he has said the same thing. But this time he means it. Though, to be fair, he only has about half a page of words written-the only page in the entire document-and most of those words are just bullet points of thoughts and ideas. But still. It is progress. Up until last week, he hadn't even put so much as a temporary title on a document in years.

Something had changed after the book reading. The expression in those dark eyes had left something tingling at the back of his head. Every time he thinks back on the book reading, an image of that child appears. A child that he has been thinking about for the past twenty years.

Irritated, both at the screen and Han Ying, he rolls his eyes, not that his agent can see it, "Okay, I'm hanging up now. You're ruining my mojo."

There is another huff at the other end, even bigger this time, "As if you have a mojo! At most, you have a 'mo' from not shaving since I saw you last."

"Ouch," Zhou Zi Shu says and tries not to look at the reflection in the window in front of him that does, indeed, show a stubble that can probably even qualify as a beard. Though technically, it isn't a moustache. "Okay, I'm really hanging up now because I need to get A'Ling to school on time."

Zhou Zi Shu thinks that he hears a "Ge-" as he swipes to hang up and the then 'drops' his phone-face down-on his desk. As if that will somehow make the man and his requests go away. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.

He stares for a few more minutes at the cursor, which is blinking slowly at him, as if taunting him for each word that he is not writing. A spark of something is more than he's had since his last assignment, so he suppose that there is hope.