Work Text:
[ I ]
The days of vast free living had long since been liberated from my land in the name of a better way, one without greed or hatred or violence. All of which, seemed to hand empty promises that shackled us like helpless cattle to the republic of shattered hope. It was the way of Mao.
Not long before though, in a shell of our shattered nation, my mother had named me Buddha. An impractical name for the time, and one much less thoughtful if they had practiced Buddism as they to be their proclaimed their deity. His uncle, my father’s, was a great monk in Thailand, something which was, apparently, an inherent success with my grandparents and made us sudden devout Buddhists. It was an easy facade to line up, no one else around those hills had any question of the thing, even more surprisingly no more than a 100 or so in our commune now that would still follow. They said they had chosen my name with a great blessing in mind, that as their firstborn son I would bring a great change to our family.
However, my birth brought about an unfortunate turning in the nation itself instead. I think it was a curse, a punishment for my family’s falsehoods in religious endeavors left for all of our families over time to time to rot over in the field with the cabbages we’ve abandoned in our strive.
I don’t know what year I was born, it wasn’t so important in our new society to keep track of such things anymore, either that or we were far too busy to care much for birthdays. The sun toiled the land as much as we did, as far as I remember, because I don’t remember much, far too young.
Though, the famine overtook us in waves, that I can remember clearly; Not eating and crying to sleep with the grumbling pains. It was only something as a young boy that I could imagine, staying up at night lost in the thought of a fault for the new way of the people.
[ II ]
At some point or another, it was only natural for us young folk to start working the fields alongside our parents, just as intended by the hopeful industrialized valley we were soon to create. It was also only natural, then, that other nations would become jealous and would like to come see our hard dedication to our cultural revolution.
The capitalists came from the west, at first, bearing goods of earthly beauty that no one could bear to afford. They stopped returning soon after. I had never found much interest in anything they had to show, I learned well that I ought to stay out of the way of such a greed. It never stopped me from stealing a glance, however, as the heavily drawn carriages stopped along to another lot.
But, so much to my dismay as one day it happened, many years after the stop of that slow business that carried along, a small brown ox wagon carried over the hill of the plot I was tilling. It was all around a grandeur of shock and pleasure to have seen one of these foreigners to my peers, but I knew better. I kept to work, the other children stopped to stare, mouths agape.
A large man, scrawny with burly beads of bright red hair and a ragged beard made his way over to us small men of the field.
“We’ve no money, sir” I chimed, deciding that he had come too close, “You best be taking your business elsewhere.”
The man chuckled, I thought he hadn’t understood me; We were speaking, of course, a language likely very unfamiliar to his own tongue. I was shocked again as he explained his purpose with accurate movement.
All he wanted was a photograph, perhaps a video.
I shook my head and buried my nose with the land as many crowded around for their picture to be taken. It was a new experience and opportunity for many, they had never been photographed in their lives. It was an opportunity I wish I had taken upon instead of my poor choice number one.
She had hopped out when I didn’t notice, squeezed by the rowdy group of children and over to me. She asked why I looked filthy, the girl dressed in white and blue, with shiny black shoes, and stunning jewelry glimmering across her in silver of the old world.
Instinctually, I thought back to how my mother used to dress when I had been younger, much different yet all the same as the stunning porcelain girl. I begged to embark on that trail than whatever my companions had taken upon. She greeted me kindly, extending one hand gently into the shaken grasp of my own.
Suddenly, I was afraid. She bore no resentment, anger, or malice towards me, but I couldn’t help but feed that thought that she wasn’t to be entirely trusted. Soon though, I chased the thought and began to wonder when I had become propagated to Mao’s beliefs.
[ III ]
The flames danced around brightly as the ashes chugged along the sky. They came, and they took. We arrived and we gave, they claimed. The pots were some of the first to go, easy things to toss into a melting furnace. But when that ran out, it was left to what seldom possessions we would have left to our name. My grandmother’s bejeweled broach was tossed to the left, my father’s heirlooms were tossed to the burning haze in front of me. The fire felt cold somehow, and I distantly wished it would catch loose and take us all away with it, to return to the earth with no sin.
As the red guards finished pillaging our few belongings, they began the search from person to person to make sure no greed had infected us. Discreetly, I reached for the shiny silver ring that hung loosely around my neck on a thin wire.
It had brought me back then; To horrendous mistake number two. Elizabeth had given me such a precious gift in exchange for, what I could only call, an experience of great value. She, much unlike us, had never been allowed to work, she was fragile and delicate, at least according to her father, and was much suited to be wed away like a nobleman’s possession. She said one of the few things to be admired about us, our great republic, was that, had she been born to it, she would have been able to work.
“Few?” I had inquired, “Certainly you can be no better off than us, we are thriving.” I didn’t quite believe myself, that was just what I was programmed to say.
She leaned in to whisper sweetly into my ear, it tickled as the words echoed around in the capsicum. It was a horrible notion, it shouldn’t have pleased me to hear such violent words from the forienger girl who knew nothing of my hardships; But the overwhelming guise of hope that what I already knew to be true in my mind, she knew from just hours of sitting here.
“You’re all dying…” She uttered.
I poked my head from the neatly lined comrades of mine, combing the section with my eyes as the guards patted an old man a few people down. The lot seemed so empty compared to when she had come, the ground was now barren and rotten, our efforts in farming were to be removed and instead focus on furthering industrialization. Of course, we needed metal, but we were no miners. Rather, we became scavengers of the gods, plucking our earthly possessions into pieces of uselessness until they were crumbs of sand against the rocky ocean.
The guard finished with the old man, he was now at my father. I took one more surveyed look, swinging my head to watch as every single guard let their blindspot succumb at once. I took my blessing, my third and final mistake, my beautiful mistake; I ran.
I took off, I wasn’t sure where I was going or how far I’d get as the marching and stomping followed suit. I heard shouting in loud Cantonese that I had been rusty in, I raced down the clumps of dirt, over the dead and sick-near-dying that seemed to be littered everywhere now that I tried hard not to see.
I flipped my head back, instinctually my downfall, the guard was some 10 yards away. My footing gave way beneath me and I heard the crack of the gun as I barreled towards the false flames of hope.
The first and last time I ever saw freedom.