Conjunctions 65: Sleights of Hand

by Sleights of Hand- The Deception Issue (retail) (epub)

  I was being roasted. I couldn’t open my eyes. Could they be treating my virus? Those who were like my kin were glaring at me. My eyes stung, and I shed tears. I couldn’t see. The old man swept under the bed again with his club, and my kin ran out. He pressed me against the wall with his club. “Go ahead—just try to run!” the old man said. I heard myself cry out twice from the pain. My voice sounded like that of a house mouse. How could I sound like a house mouse? I struggled, but the club didn’t budge. I would suffocate soon. Everything went black before my eyes. Was I going to die? It was so hot. But, suddenly, the man loosened his grip on the club and said, “A snake can’t warm up.” I touched the blister on my nose with my claws. Indeed, my claws were ice-cold. No wonder he had said I was a snake!

  Had I been disinfected? I had no idea. I slowly emerged from under the bed and once more heard Auntie Shrimp’s voice: “I’ve never seen such a clean mouse before! But he’ll be dirty again tomorrow and he’ll have to be roasted again. Huh! If he were like the others, I’d take him back.” By “the others,” I knew she meant the ones who were supposedly my kin. They had become burning pieces of coal, so of course they couldn’t have viruses. But how had they gotten like this? Auntie Shrimp didn’t seem to be planning for me to go back. She stared at me coldly from the window. Did they really intend to roast me like this every day? Even if they did, how could a snake turn into a red-hot coal? My kin who had been swept out from under the bed lined up along the foot of the wall. The old man swept across with the club. Routed again, they scurried under the bed. Tired from hitting them, he stood with arms akimbo in the middle of the roomand said, “You sluggards! Watch out—my club means business!” I looked under the bed: Those little things were trembling! The little rooster flew from his shoulder to midair, then dropped down and set off a heat wave in the room. I fell back a few paces when the wave struck me and leaned against the wall. I noticed that the landlord wasn’t emitting heat, and yet he wasn’t afraid of it either. How come? He set down his club and took something to eat out of the kitchen cupboard. He seemed to be eating little black balls. Judging from his table manners, the food was hard. A cracking sound came from between his teeth: Was he eating something metal? What strong teeth he had! Just then, a ray of sunlight flashed in from the open door, and all at once I got a good look at his face. A huge tumor on the left side of his face pulled his mouth and nose to one side. The tumor was so red that it was almost purple. To my surprise, a brass ring was pierced through the top of it, and pus ran out from that ring. Damn, his body was so toxic, and yet he devoted himself to disinfecting animals! People, huh? Oh, people. No way could I understand them! He chewed and swallowed down all those little balls. His teeth were like steel. “Yi Tinglai! Yi Tinglai!” Auntie Shrimp was standing at the door. Why was his name “Yi Tinglai”—“Instant Responder”? How weird! Auntie Shrimp said, “I won’t feel better until he’s as clean as you. He always gets dirty!” The old man gave a devilish laugh. I couldn’t see even one tooth in the dark cavity that was his mouth. How had he bitten those little balls? “Are you leaving now? You aren’t taking him with you?” the old man asked Auntie Shrimp. “I have to go. The road will be blocked soon. As for the little mouse, I’ll leave him with you. I’m sorry to give you so much trouble.” “Has the plague reached here yet?” “Yesterday. Two died. I was afraid the little mouse would get sick, he’s so dirty.” I was alarmed by this talk.

  Once more, the man took a large plate of black balls out of the kitchen cupboard and put it on the floor. This kind of ball was much smaller—only a little larger than a house mouse’s poop. My kin crowded around and ate in a hurry, making creaking sounds. I wanted to eat too, but I was afraid they would scald me. The man said, “You little snake-mouse, it isn’t time for you to eat yet. They’re eating pieces of coal. Can you swallow that?” Naturally, I wasn’t interested in letting coal burn my stomach. I didn’t think I needed to be disinfected that way. Just then, he carried out a bowl of black liquid, saying I should “wash my innards” with it. Noticing the bubbles on the dirty black water, I hesitated. He bellowed, “Hurry up, or you’ll die!” And so I started drinking. After drinking it, I felt dizzy and my heart swelled with longing for my hometown. That pasture, that sky. Snowflakes swirled in the sky, and my kin hid in the caves. Would they all die soon? No, they were fine. They had diarrhea: They would get rid of all the dirty things they’d eaten in the summer! Their insides would be clean! Ha. I was the one with diarrhea. I’d gotten rid of a huge amount. The man focused all his attention on me. “Are your insides clean?” he asked. I twitched my tail to indicate I was finished. The man spread around some ashes and swept my poop under the stove. He seemed to think poop wasn’t dirty. So why was it necessary to wash my intestines? It was impossible to guess their thoughts. “Auntie Shrimp left you to me to deal with.” The oldman went on, “Stand up. Let me look at you.” I went weak in the knees; I couldn’t stand up. I lay on my stomach on the ground and couldn’t move. I thought I was going to die. “Can’t you stand up? Forget it then. You’re all like this. Your grandfather came calling one year and ate every last bit of my roasted pork. But when I told him to jump up to the stove, he couldn’t do it!” The old man chattered on and on and lay down on the bed. Then my kin who had eaten their fill left the plate one by one, lined up against the wall, and fell asleep. It was getting hot in the house again, and, meanwhile, strength was returning to my legs. I tried a few times and finally stood up. It was so hot! Really hot! The coal briquettes must be burning in the man’s and my kin’s stomachs. They were all sleeping, as if the high temperature had left them very content. All of a sudden, the three roosters started fighting in the middle of the room. The two big ones attacked the little one, ripping his crest apart. The little rooster’s face was a mass of blood. He squatted on the floor and tried hard to hide his head amid the feathers on his chest. The other two still didn’t let go of him: They continued attacking and pecked him all over until his feathers fell off. Blood gushed out where they had pecked. It looked as if he would die at the hands of his buddies. Just at this horrible moment, he flew swiftly upward. Spreading his wings, he flew like a bird and then dropped down heavily. He set off a heat wave in the house, and I was about to suffer a heatstroke. He struggled a few times on the floor, then lay motionless. The other two crowded around and pecked at his feathers, stripping him of one bunch after another. They worked brutally and rapidly, and soon the little rooster was absolutely bald. While the roosters were making an uproar, my kin were sleeping, but one house mouse emerged. He was exactly like one that I’d seen in another home in the past—also with a white spot on his left hind leg. He exerted himself to bite the little rooster on the back and ripped off a piece of flesh. He ate it right away. After eating one piece, he went back to tear off another piece, turning the little rooster’s back into a large cavity. By the light shooting in from the door, I could see the guts in the cavity. The house mouse came over to me with the flesh in his mouth, and—showing off—he chewed it. I smelled a strong, rotten stench. Was it the odor of this flesh? Hadn’t the little rooster just died? His flesh should have still been fresh, shouldn’t it? Oh! The little featherless rooster actually stood up shakily! The hole in his back was very conspicuous. He walked unsteadily over to me! The house mouse—still with the flesh in its mouth—scurried into the hole. The rooster’s naked body was pale, and the blood on the crest congealed. He stared at me with round eyes. I sensed that if he came a bit closer, I would be burned by his thermal radiation. He jumped a few times, and some little marblelike balls bounced out of the cavity in his back and dropped to the floor, igniting flames. They soon burned up, leaving no
trace. He jumped some more, and a few more balls flew out. I watched idiotically. He jumped and jumped, not stopping until his body was empty. Then he fell onto the floor. His thermal radiation vanished. I walked over and poked him. God, all that was left was one layer of skin! Even his bones were gone! As I considered looking more closely at this little pile of dirt, the man on the bed spoke.

  “He came here deliberately to exact revenge, and he died in my house. I can’t stand dead things. I hate the sight of death. I was afraid of nightmares for quite a while, and so I worked even harder at disinfecting the place.” With that, he got out of bed and squatted next to the little rooster’s remains. Shifting it with tongs, he muttered, “It’s the plague, isn’t it? The plague.” I thought to myself, he’s been burned out. All that’s left is a little empty skin. How can it hold the plague? Since this was the plague, why didn’t he throw it out immediately instead of moving it with the tongs? Suddenly, he turned to me, stared vengefully with his triangular eyes, and scolded, “You! What are you looking at? This is nothing for you—a snake—to see!” I was afraid he would stab me with the tongs, and so I scurried under the bed. From there, I saw him drop the rooster skin into a bowl and place the bowl in the kitchen cupboard. I was shocked! This person didn’t do what he said, but just the opposite! The other two roosters came out too. They circled the man and yelled. They flew up and pecked him. Were they protesting? And if so, what were they protesting? They had all (including the mouse) dismembered the little rooster, and now when the man had put his remains into the cupboard, were they unhappy with that? Why was this room so hot? The man stuck his head under the bed and asked, “Snake, do you want to eat? I won’t give you charcoal briquettes, because if you eat them, you’ll be burned so much you won’t even leave any ashes behind. I’ll give you this, OK?” He threw a big bunch of grass under the bed. I was no herbivore. When I left the grass in disgust and went over to the wall to sleep, the fragrance emitted by the grass drew me back. What was this scent? I tried a few bites. This succulent thing left green juice at the corners of my mouth. I was so excited! I was about to jump up! I wanted so much to jump to some other place, though I couldn’t say where. It seemed connected with shadows. And so I scurried to the shadows behind the big cupboard. Oh! The scent of the grass grew stronger. My longing for home tortured me. Why was I still staying in these slums that were like garbage bins? I mustn’t hesitate: I must rush back to my hometown. My brain was about to explode with memories of her. But my legs were so thin and weak: It took a lot of effort to go to the city just once. I didn’t know the way to the grasslands—it was thousands of miles away, so remote. I might die on the way. I shouldn’t think about these things. Covered all over with the virus, I could only stay in this garbage bin, cleaning up and being disinfected all day long. Why did he feed me grass from my homeland? Did he intend to shatter my longing to go back home? Was it all about what he was doing? Did he think this would be good for me? Oh, my home, my hometown—in this life, I could never return. I had never imagined that I would be able to eat grass from my home—sure, this grass was from there. I remembered so clearly: This was what my ancestors ate every day, long, long ago before I was born. Had this landlord been there? Or was an envoy traveling between the two places? While pondering this, I fell asleep. Someone was talking in my dream. It was Auntie Shrimp. Auntie Shrimp said I could walk to the grasslands. “You just need to try, and your legs will get stronger.” What did she mean? I’d better get up fast and try this. I opened my eyes with an effort and saw the landlord look under the bed. His staring triangular eyes freaked me out. He said, “Over there on the corner, two snakes were burned to death. The entire region is being disinfected. How could they escape? Huh.” He told me to come out.

  I walked out shakily and saw that he had once more placed the dish of the little rooster’s remains on the floor. He told me to eat that little thing. I didn’t want to. He struck me in the head repeatedly with the wooden club. I passed out and then came to. After a while, I really couldn’t stand this. I decided I’d better suppress my nausea and swallow this little thing. After doing that, I felt ill. I rolled my eyes. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn’t stand up. I lay on my stomach on the floor. The house mouse stuck his head out of the hole in front of me and looked at me with a weird expression.What? Was he waiting to eat me? Just look at his expression! I was nauseated again, and everything blurred before my eyes. Oh, he was nipping at my face! I was losing my mind and stood up. He kept biting me and wouldn’t let go, as if stuck to my face. I thought he must have bitten through my face. I couldn’t move. If I moved, a piece of skin with fur would be ripped from my face. From above, the landlord said, “Snake, oh snake. This is testing your endurance.” I smelled sewage on the house mouse’s body. He was so filthy, and yet the old man let him live in his home and run about as he pleased. All of a sudden, he let go of my face. I rubbed my face with my front claws. It wasn’t too bad—he had probably just chewed a few tooth cavities. The odd thing was that this fiend immediately fell over in front of me, his belly swollen and black blood running out of his mouth. He’d been poisoned! My body was hypertoxic! How come the old man’s disinfectant hadn’t worked? Had he really wanted to rid me of poison, or had he wanted to turn me into a hypertoxic substance and use me to poison the mouse? He was sitting with his back to me. The view of his back resembled something I was familiar with. I gave it a lot of thought, and at last I figured out what he reminded me of: He was like the rock shaped like a person in my hometown! It had come to the surface out of the mud and stood straight up in the center of the pasture. It was like a person, but it wasn’t one. Many of my kin loved to run around it. “You mustn’t stare at me all the time. I came from the pasture,” he said without turning around. Lined up against the wall, my kin listened attentively. Now I saw that all of us had come from the pasture! I remembered the harsh climate, the crystal-clear blue sky, the summer that passed so quickly that it seemed unreal, the countless secrets concealed in the underbrush, the eagles circling in the sky all day without tiring … These recollections were killing me. I wished I could abandon my physical body and blend into that place … I had no idea how I could remember things that happened in the era of my great-grandfather’s generation and even his father’s. Those things could appear in my mind at any time and be compared with the shape my life had taken now. I knew, even if it were possible to go back, I would be unable to adapt to that climate. More than half of my kin died there every year just as early winter descended. If I were there, I’d surely be the first to die. There was no plague in the grasslands. You just felt bone-penetrating cold, and then your heart stopped beating. And so my kin didn’t say someone had “died,” but said someone had “chilled.” Although I wasn’t there, I remembered that black-tailed guy. He lay there facing up, watching the gray clouds massed above him, opening his mouth slightly, and not moving. He was as cold as ice—rigid. I remembered too that year after year, even though new kin were born, our numbers were decreasing. I didn’t remember whether we had fled later. We must have. Otherwise, how could these kin, including me, have come here to the slums? “Let me take the little mouse home, let me take the little mouse home, let me …,” Auntie Shrimp kept saying this outside the door, but she didn’t come in. Maybe she was afraid of the heat.

  The slums were my home. This home wasn’t exactly what I wanted: Everything was difficult, and perils lurked at every turn. But this was the only home I had. My only option was to stay here. I used to have a homeland, but I couldn’t go back to her. It was useless to yearn for her. I stayed in these slums of mine: My eyes were turbid, my legs thin and wea
k, my innards poisoned over and over again. I endured, I endured. That gigantic eagle in the sky over my native place appeared in my mind—and brought me strength.