The Longest Cemetery
Oliver Overman, Group 3: Fiction, International College Hong Kong
he temperature was below -5, but that didn’t earn us a break. We lost five men today: two from the cold
and three from another block drop. Sadly one was my greatest friend Ding Wong. He had worked on
the wall with me for two weeks. When I came to the wall, he was the only man to greet me, and now he
is gone. The worst part is that I had to watch him get crushed with my own two eyes. It all happened so quickly.
One minute he was pulling the block up into the air, and then suddenly his eyes were cold and dead. We lifted
the block off him. I took him to a Plum Blossom tree and laid him to rest. He loved the Plum Blossom tree- the
pink, splashed over the flower, the way the tree grew and when the flowers opened up in spring. Deep down I
was screaming out. But that wouldn’t bring him back. Nothing would. I just have to get back to work and try
and forget about it.
T
None of the soldiers care if we die. Why would they? They do not know who we are; to them we are
just a number. After that I was put on the lifting team that Dong died on. You could see the blood red stains on
the rock and smell the decaying bodies from the pile in the distance. Some had been there for weeks, others like
Dong’s, only moments. As we began our first lift, I looked over my shoulder to see the general glaring at me
with the icy stare. I bowed my head to show respect, even though I had none for a man in his position.
We laid the block on the lifting instrument and pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled. The block was
up! I thought my arms would fall off! How did Dong do this? Still I had no break. We must have lifted twenty
that day.
Weeks have gone by since his death and I have seen many young boys come and go... I have lost all
will to go on. The wall has turned me into a dead, lifeless, empty human being. I have not seen my wife or my
young daughter for months. I wonder if the number of lives taken for this wall will be worth it? The smell of
death is all around me; it has engulfed the wall and the surrounding area. The Plum Blossoms that should look
and smell divine have withered and have made way for death. I now understand the look that Dong gave me
before he died. He had no intention of going on the way he was living. It was time. I did the same. We loaded
the block onto the lifter and pulled, and pulled, and pulled. On the final pull I looked over my shoulder, made
eye contact with the general, hoping that I would touch him in some way. I counted down in my head three,
two….one...
To whom it may concern. I am sorry to inform of the death of worker number 24601. Minimal
compensation of 50 RMB will be payed within the year.
Signed General Ping
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