I Live in the Slums

by Can Xue

  The very next morning, the incident that I described above happened. Even now, I have no idea what Auntie Shrimp’s real idea was. Yet, when I ran out of Auntie Shrimp’s home, I realized that it was indeed filthy outside! These were the slums, after all—what could you expect? I seemed to be stepping on human waste with each step I took. The side of the street was filled with human waste, dog shit, and puddles of urine, heaps of decomposed vegetable leaves, the guts of animals, and so forth. Swarms of mosquitoes and flies were fluttering around and entering your nostrils. I couldn’t put up with it anymore, and I climbed up that blockhouse. I sat on top of the blockhouse for a long time without recovering my equilibrium. I didn’t understand: How had the outside environment worsened so much in the few months that I had lived in Auntie Shrimp’s home? People said that the slums had never been clean, but I had been almost oblivious to that. Now the filth had completely polluted the air—so much that I wanted to throw up. Even though I was on top of the blockhouse, I still felt that everything below was a huge garbage dump. The stench rode the wind. The people on the street looked down at their feet, covered their noses, and hurried on. I seldom went out during the few months that I stayed with Auntie Shrimp. And even when I did, I went no farther than the neighbors’ eaves. Otherwise, Auntie Shrimp would have constantly told me to wash my feet and she would have scolded me mercilessly. And so, was it simply by comparison that I finally realized how filthy the slums were? Had Auntie Shrimp been training my senses over the last few months? Maybe I had never before noticed that passersby covered their noses as they walked past. Maybe the sides of the streets in the slums had always been heaped with dirt, and I had simply never noticed. Thinking back on the past few months of Auntie Shrimp’s slavelike life, putting myself in her shoes, and then thinking about myself, I couldn’t help but shudder. However, I still had to thank Auntie Shrimp—for in the past, I was covered with pus-filled pimples, I was toxic from head to foot, and I had eaten filthy food. But after spending a few months in her home, I had no pus-filled pimples and I understood the importance of hygiene. People of the slums were too apathetic. How could they have grown so lazy that they let the doorways become dumps for waste and dirt? Not only was filth overflowing into the air here, but it also seeped underground. The asphalt roads and the cobblestone sidewalks were stained by a thick layer of something black and greasy. Even the mud was dirty, filled with ash and oil. Why hadn’t I ever noticed this before? This blockhouse, though, was clean, as if no one had ever come up here and heaven’s wind and rain had cleaned it naturally. This granite structure must be very old. Plumbing the depths of my memory, I found no trace of it. Was it because no one had ever come here that it was so clean? Why hadn’t others come up here?

  I stood at the side of the pond, thinking of all kinds of things. I would soon freeze to death. My top priority was to save my life by finding a home to move into. I noticed a house with a door that wasn’t shut tight and thought I’d go in and deal with any consequences later.

  “Who’s there?” An old voice spoke in the dark. I curled up quietly against the foot of the wall, afraid the man would see me, but he got up unexpectedly, shone a kerosene lamp on me, and said, “Ah, it’s a snake.” How the hell had I changed into a snake? He poked me with a club and I took the opportunity to roll into the house. How bizarre this was: a heatwave rolled through the house, and I immediately warmed up. The stove wasn’t on, so where had the hot air come from? I saw that familiar mouse stick his head out of the hole. Three scrawny roosters stood under the bed. The man of the house was short and little. I couldn’t see him very well because his head was wrapped in a white towel. He drove the roosters out with the club, and they jumped up. One flew to the windowsill, scattering the smell of feathers all over. When the little red-tailed rooster passed by me, I was actually scalded! Its body was as hot as red-hot coals. Just then, the man squatted down and looked me up and down. His face was triangular, and his cruel eyes were hidden under bushy eyebrows. He swept my legs with the club, and I jumped away. “This snake is really odd . . . ,” he muttered. He still considered me a snake. Was this because I didn’t emit heat? What were these roosters all about?

  He suddenly gave a weird laugh and said, “Auntie Shrimp . . .” The sound seemed to come from a tomb. I looked around: sure enough, Auntie Shrimp’s face appeared at the door. She was laughing in embarrassment, but she didn’t enter. He waved his hand, and I still thought he was going to hit me, but his hand merely slipped past once and a heatwave dashed against my face. I blinked: Auntie Shrimp had disappeared. The little rooster jumped from the windowsill to his shoulder. The man stood up, and dragging the club, circled once around the room. When the two roosters on the floor dashed past me, scalding my nose, a blister appeared immediately on my nose. What the hell? This old man seemed to want to find the two roosters, but the roosters ran right past him and he didn’t even see them. He just struck the air with his club. The little guy on his shoulder gurgled, keeping time with his swaying. Its claws cut into his clothes. I scurried under the bed because I was afraid he would hit me. I had barely squeezed under the bed when something struck me in the head. I almost fainted from the pain. When I pulled myself together, I noticed a lot of little animals that were similar to me. They formed a circle around me. Their thermal radiation almost prevented me from opening my eyes. Were they my kin? How had they become so heat-resistant? In my hometown in the past, our pasture was icebound most of the year. We hid in dugouts. We never knew what “high temperatures” meant. What was going on now? They turned into balls of fire, and yet they could endure this! Were they surrounding me in order to destroy my physical being? If so, why weren’t they taking action? At the door, Auntie Shrimp was saying to the man, “Have you destroyed that virus? Where did he go? He goes all over the place and might spread disease.” She actually said I was a virus! The old man answered, “Don’t worry. This place is for high-temperature disinfecting. We’ll take care of his problem.” “Then please do that.” Auntie Shrimp seemed to really be leaving.

  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. Soon I would suffocate. 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. Indeed, my claws were ice-cold. No wonder he said I was a snake!

  Had I been disinfected? I had no idea. I slowly came out 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 out from hitting them, he stood with arms akimbo in the middle of the room and 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 heatwave in the room. When this wave struck me, I fell back a few paces and leaned against the wall. I noticed that the landlord wasn’t emitting heat, and yet he wasn’t afraid of it, ei
ther. 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—“First 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 arrived 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 old man 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 heatwave 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 creating 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 shakily over to me! The house mouse—still with the flesh in his mouth—scurried into the hole. The little 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, okay?” 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 l
onging for home tortured me. Why was I still staying in these slums that were like garbage cans? 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 can, 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.