Pro patria mori
Sophie Li, Group 3: Fiction, Chinese International School
e remembers, in no particular order:
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mottled, bruised flesh, a breath away from collapse
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flames licking at old paper
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swallows, heads pointed east and hopeful
H
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a sensation of falling.
The last one may not be a concrete memory, more a combination of endless ancestral matter and
dreaming, what his brother would’ve called a prerequisite of existence—would’ve said, isn’t that true for all of
us—aren’t we all just built up of tradition on top of tradition—curse upon curse upon curse?
He doesn’t even remember most of it, which is—a mockery, or a relief. What he does remember is cold.
Oh, but he didn’t know cold until he got to the Wall, cold like the fingers of Death coaxing him from the ground
in the face of a new sunrise, one day, one more day. What he does remember is the faces of the workers as they
fall, the cold digging into their bones and staying there, tortured birds nesting in their hair.
What he does is remember is the voice of the whip that spurred them onwards: it is sweet and right to
die for your country. It is sweet and right to die for your country.
He thinks the statement was made for war, not this kind of bone-breaking labour, but the sentiment,
really, is the same.
It goes like this:
The first time he sees the flames burn, he is nineteen and bright-eyed and he has a sister about to be
married, arrayed like a robin greeting the sun.
The first time he sees the flames burn, he is nineteen and in love and she is the most beautiful thing he
has ever known, all shining eyes and smooth cheeks and laughter, and he takes her in his arms and it is the first
time and the last time and he lives small infinities in his numbered days. She is called Muoling but he calls her
angel, and teasingly she asks him if this means she’s incorporeal, and he inhales her scent and presses her close
and whispers that she is real and that is his greatest blessing, she is real, she is real, she is real.
It’s thunder and lightning and a hurricane all around them, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses
her and kisses her. This is what he has.
The first time he sees the flames burn, he is nineteen and on the edge of the precipice, and leaves the
room when his father falls to his knees, a scroll still clutched in his hand.
A breath away from wet paper: begging to tear.
It is honourable to serve the First Emperor and your people.
—
There was no honour in his death.
Three months and fourteen days and seven deaths later, he stands on the ramparts of what is built of the