“
Life’s Edge”
Brandon Mok,
ou can’t take those things that stalk your dreams and invade your reality and possess your family
anymore. You have tried everything, from sharp pain to shaman-aided purge. You don’t care about
anything anymore; you just want peace.
spre
Group 4: Fiction, West Island School
Y
You walk. Your breath comes out as short-lived clouds. Sunshine kisses your face and
ads a buttery glow over the stone.
You walk on.
You pause, turning back and smiling as you realize that all this will end soon. Then you keep going.
You enter a tower and make your way up crumbling stairs until you emerge into the air. You revel in
the stillness of a predawn world. From your lofty perch you imagine yourself as a feather-light spirit twirling
through the unsullied air.
You feel as though the world is oddly muted; as though the arrival of the sun should be heralded by
bursts of music that have only now been silenced.
You hear birdsong and you decide that that will be your herald.
You walk on.
And you keep on walking, even as beneath your feet the ground becomes eight meters of empty air,
and you realize that your body is not a feather, but a stone.
*
“
I am dying.”
The man rolls the syllables in his mouth. They have a particular flavor.
“
I am dying.”
There is something liberating about saying it aloud.
“
I am dying!”
That sends them running, sympathy plastered on their faces like cheap makeup. Father, are you alright?
Father, don’t say such things; you still have a long life left. Father, you must fight.
If there’s one thing he’s certain that he has taught his children, it’s how to lie.
They don’t do it very well.
He waves them away and they scuttle out, fearful that their intrusion will have diminished their
inheritance. A dry chuckle escapes from his lips. He has had seventy years of hale life, surviving war, revolution
and famine. It is anticlimactic that his own body is his killer.
He can still remember the energy as he marched as a Guard, waving his little red book and chanting
slogans. It all seems another life.
He is dying. And there’s nothing he can do. But his death is of no importance. Ever since Doctor Wang
said he had forty-eight hours left, only one thing matters. A memory. A haze of a memory so far into the past
that he himself is unsure whether it is true or not. But its verity does not matter – what matters is he remembers.
This memory was his anchor. It was something so naked, so touching, so raw that it shook him to the core.
He curses himself for his failing mind. If there is one thing worth living for, it is this.
He searches, but cannot find.
*
He had been playing hide-and-seek with his sister when his cousin had come running. He was crouched
beneath the chicken coop, watching the roosters strut like emperors.
A scream rent the air. He saw his aunt stumble out, clawing the air and crumpling to the ground. Her
body heaved. His father walked out as though in a dream, his arms slack. He saw his sister run out of the house.
“
Hey, I won!” he shouted. But she had already fled. He thought he heard her sob. Wondering at the
strange turn of events, he waddled to the house. As he neared, he heard someone say:
“
They found her at the bottom of the Wall. She just jumped.”
Who had jumped? Hadn’t he been at the Great Wall today? He couldn’t remember…and he would’ve
definitely remembered if someone had indeed jumped. In fact, he couldn’t remember anything. It was like he
had simply woken up into the game of hide-and-seek.
It was nearly sundown: time for dinner.
He trotted in. The two aunts who had been chatting stopped and stared.