Sarika Mahbubani, 9.4
‘
What happened?’ I managed to whisper, although I think I already knew the answer.
‘
His workload was too much. He just collapsed’, somebody murmured.
Of course. We kept going, going, going all day. Drudgery was no foreign term to us. Ever so often
someone couldn’t keep up, and they crippled under the tremendous weight of forced labor, like a drowning man,
pushed deeper and deeper into the sea by a force too powerful to be reckoned with. Then soft prayers are
muttered, the body buried, and the memory left to rest in an endless sea of the dead, left to rest in the abandoned
ocean of people who gave their life for this nightmare of a Wall.
I never expected my dear friend to take the same route as the millions of others who dedicated their
entire beings to the Great Wall. Life had dealt me a cruel hand, and it seemed like fate enjoyed toying with me;
gracing me with my dear brother and then snatching him from under my nose.
‘
Xue Li. You better get back; the general is coming’.
The words snapped me out of my reverie. The general’s wrath is not something anybody wanted to
encounter. Although it felt like a wedge had been driven through my chest, I selfishly feared the physical
punishment he would inflict on me.
As I trudged back to my own station and began working on my section, I understood that I shouldn’t
have grieved the loss of my friend. It seemed hypocritical somehow; I was traitorously working for the same
cause that he lost his life for. I was striking a truce with the devil itself. It also seemed somewhat cruel to grieve
for the loss of one man when I barely gave the death of millions of other men any thought.
I lifted my last slab of concrete and heaved it onto the heavy rock, and I could have sworn that at
contact with the structure I felt a connection to the other labourers who worked on the wall. I could hear the
whispers of death and sadness, of blood, sweat and tears, of pain and exhaustion, circling the structure, fighting
to be heard.
My eyes drifted over towards the corpse of my friend, and then flickered to the worker who was
beginning to lift him from the ground. With a silent understanding, I approached him bravely and we began to
dig a grave for our lost warrior.
‘
That was my last stone’, he remarked as we worked.
‘
It my my last one too,’ I confessed. ‘I don’t know what to do now’.
We began to shovel the earth over the body, and I tried not to look at the vacant eyes of the lifeless
figurine. ‘There have been whispers of an invasion,’ he said, then looked around as if scared someone had
overheard. ‘I heard they are recruiting soldiers in Beijing to prepare for war’.
The thought of escaping this city sent shivers of excitement through me. To the grand city of Beijing,
of all places; where spices and silk were piled in high mounds and whispers of song were present on each street.
‘
You want to leave for Beijing? When?’ I asked him, fighting to ward off the dangerous hope I felt
rising inside me.
Sarika Mahbubani, 9.4