‘
Today. If I don’t leave soon all the job opportunities in Beijing will be snatched away’.
I nodded and silently pleaded with my eyes for him to accept my companionship. A look of silent
understanding passed through him. ‘I suppose isolation isn’t what either of us needs right now. Loneliness ruins
the best of men. You can accompany me’. Relief teared through me. After decades, I would finally escape the
city of Shangxi.
We trudged up the mountain, grinding our feet against the gravel and panting with exhaustion. We had
been walking for the past three days, and already our food supply was diminishing; already our limbs were
stretched and our muscles sore. But I didn’t mind; with each step we were traveling away from the dreadful city
of Shangxi, away from the death place of a brother I had sworn to protect.
‘
Let’s take a rest. I’m exhausted,’ my traveling companion panted. I nodded twice, and turned around
to admire the landscape from this viewpoint. An enormous brown structure snaked its way through the hills,
bobbing in and out of focus, huge and intimidating. It dumbfounded me how easy it was to let go of my life as a
labourer. Suddenly the years of labor behind me seemed pointless. The thought made me feel hollow. The Great
Wall would go down in history as a miracle made possible by emperor Jiajiang and the generals, not one
thought would be spared for workers like me who gave their lives for its abundant beauty. At first sight, the
world would marvel at its brilliance and strength, never would they see the ghost of sadness and evil that
surrounded it, invisible to them. We were all fighters, us workers, and although I would lay forgotten in their
minds, just one of the thousands of insignificant workers, I would still be a warrior. An invisible warrior.
The heron flew past the bright ferns and thatched huts, and as she flew over the strange, brown
structure, she felt her wings droop downwards, gravitating slightly towards the ground, burdened by something
beyond her intelligence. But she ignored this: she could feel the answer to her qualms ahead of her. Somewhere,
in the distance, was water.
* * *