That’s right folks, time for more tea, check out these lovely little crumpets from our gals D and K below!

Dena Rash Guzman – All the Tea in China

Katrina Hamlin – New Home

By Katrina Hamlin

The small blond girl opens the door, and steps out onto the landing. She drags a big suitcase with broken handles. She’s late.
A Chinese man – timid stance, mid-50s – is standing at the top of the stairs.
He is shocked to see a small blond girl on the landing. He spills a “Hello” before he can stop himself.
“Nihao,” she replies, and turns to rattle the keys into the lock. She’s used to her own novelty, and those looks, which come with a reflex “Hello”.
“You live here?” he asks, watching.
“Wo zhu zai zheli. Wo de jia.” She zips the keys into a hand bag, and moves to push past, to the stairs. The plastic wheels rumble on the concrete floor.
He doesn’t move. “This is your home?”
She notices for the first timet that he is addressing her in English, without effort. “Yes. I live here.”
“You live here.”
“I live here.” She looks at her watch, frowns, and tries again to go past him.
“You borrow the room, or you own it?”
“I rent it.” She is trying to angle the broken suitcase past him. He doesn’t move. She can’t pass. He looks like he can’t decide how to hold himself.
She decides there is something wrong with this man. He doesn’t fit. “Do you live here?” she asks.
“I lived here when I was a child.” He points to her doorway. “That is my room. Then we went to America.”
She is surprised, and likes the coincidence. She allows herself to forget she is late and watches him, watching the door. “Do you want to see my room?”
My room?
“Yes…”
She unzips the bag, and rattles the keys back into the lock. The door swings open and the man walks in before her. He acts like he owns it, she thinks. But he doesn’t fit.
He takes in her things, a mess of books and jumpers piled on the sofa bed, a still-warm half-cup of milky English tea on the wooden table.
They are quiet, and the door swings shut.
Then, he strides over to the window. “I used to lean out of this window when I was small, to see the street. My grandmother would shout at me. What have you done with the door?”
“What?”
“What have you done with the door? There was a door here,” he says, pointing at the wall. “They must have filled it in. Do you have water? Running water? Gas?”
“Yes… yes.”
“Can I see?”
“The bathroom’s there, in the corner….”
“A bathroom!”
“Yes… A bathroom.”
He studies the plastic loo seat, the cheap fittings, and the shower curtain with the rain cloud pattern. He looks at the bathroom for three or four minutes.
The girl was curious, but now the man is boring her, and it is her room, and it is time to leave. She checks her watch again as conspicuously as she can, and picks up the keys. The man is staring at the plastic toilet seat, in a reverie. “I have to go,” she says.
“I have to go,” she says, a little louder.
He blinks. “You have to go.” She holds open the door and waits for him to walk out ahead of her, back onto the landing.
She locks the door again and turns to find him holding her case, clutching the broken handles. “I’ll help you.”
“Thank you.”
They go down the stairs together.
“Have you been here since you were a child?”
“This is my first visit in 50 years.”
“Oh.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“I moved in this week.” His face twitches, and she feels him taking possession of the room in his mind. It’s more his than hers; he wants that to be true.
They reach the ground floor, and step outside.“But I’ve been in China longer than a week,” she tries to reassert herself, “Over two years in China”.
He’s not listening.
She is about to say something else, but he speaks over her. “You know what to do now?”
“What?”
“You see that car?” He points down the road. “The one with the lights? That’s a taxi.”
“I know,” says the girl, who was already lifting an arm to wave it down.
“You have to wave it down,” he says.
“I know,” says the girls. The taxi is already slowing, now stopping. He hasn’t noticed or he ignores the tone of her voice. “I live here,” she repeats.
He puts the case on the back seat for her.
She speaks more quickly: “It was nice to meet you. I’ll look after the room. Good bye.”
He nods slowly and closes the door for her as she climbs in. He stands very still on the pavement, watching her through the window as she tells the driver, “Hongqiao jichang.”
“Airport?” he replies.
“Yes, thanks,” she says, and he revs the engine.
But before they can move away, the man is at the window, rapping on the glass, flashing urgent eyes.
She winds down the window, checking her watch again and swearing under her breath. “What?”
“You have to tell him where you’re going.”
“I told him.”
“Tell me where you’re going, I’ll tell him for you.”
“I told him, I’m going to the airport.”
“Shifu, jichang. Jichang. Jichang.” The man is gabbling, and his words sound strange in Chinese, even to her. The driver nods, impatient.
“Zhidao. Airport,” says the driver.
“I have to go,” says the girl.
The man looks at her. “He will take you now,” he says, and steps back onto the pavement.
He watches as the car disappears down the road.
She sits back, and wonders why she didn’t ask more about her room, and what it had been to him.
He watches as the car disappears. Then turns back to his house, and his room.

Superman Down - Photography - Jillian Brall of Unshod Quills

We at HAL are happy and proud to inform you that our sexy sister site in Portland has released the second edition of Unshod Quills, containing art, fiction, videos, and more; all the finest in hip literature in pandemic format. A good amount of HAL authors are including in this issue (you remember the China-US cross-writing exercise we did at Groupthink? You see people, there’s a plan with everything we do, promise!), look out for Jason Lasky, Lucinda Holmes, Ginger wRong Chen and Catherine Platt, just to mention a few. Oh, and your favorite HAL editor debuts as a photo artist. In all modesty as always, needless to say. Big congratulations to Dena and UQ, HAL loves ‘ya!

B.

Letter from the editor of Unshod Quills

September 2011
back at home on the farm
somewhere near Portland, Oregon

Dearest Reader,

Let’s get to the the art and literature, shall we?

What do we have for you? Funny you should ask.  We always feature writing and art based on themes assigned by me, because I am the editor, and I like to assign themes. This issue’s themes include America, fire, rapture, villanelles, “Somewhere Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond,” and red shoes.

In this issue, we have a very special feature: a literary and art based exchange program between China based English language publisher Haliterature and the United States based Unshod Quills. HAL is UQ’s sister site, and something of its mothership, even. For this effort, members of each publisher’s writing group shared writing or art based on the theme of America. Perhaps my favorite contributions to the mix come from Katrina Hamlin in Shanghai, with her story about white teeth and incomplete cakes, and New York City’s Jillian Brall, with her catchy line, “Yo yo yo, turn it up. This is the best part.”

Please click here to read the full Letter from the Editor, and click here to go straight to Unshod Quills.

by Katrina Hamlin

My name is Xiao Yu. I am nineteen.

I have eaten KFC fried chicken and onion rings, washed down with milk tea. Then I ate a doughnut, which is an incomplete cake with a hole in the middle.

I have heard rap, which is when you have a song but you don’t sing. I can do that at the KTV.

I have seen their TV show series, which are about real life, but with shiny teeth and hair and perfect love.

So I already knew quite a lot about the Beautiful Country when I met my first Beautiful Person.

The Beautiful Person, whose name was Sam, was still in some way not what I expected.

He was quite shiny in his teeth and hair, and his clothes were Famous Brand clothes. He said he sometimes liked a doughnut, and no, he was not upset that there is a hole in the middle. But he did not eat chicken burger because meat, because he felt sad for the chicken birds, and he said milk tea was maybe more English like British English.

He could rap or sing, and he did not speak like Wu Tang Klan, which was a pity, and many of my friends felt he was boring at KTV. He also said whisky and green tea made him sick. Then it did make him sick.

It was after the sick night, when we found he could drink beer ok, that I really came to know the Beautiful Country better than any of my friends because the Tsingdao helps him to speak more true.

Because we were talking about why he must leave the Beautiful Country and come to the Middle Kingdom, why the Middle Kingdom is ok. I said I thought he must like the bright lights, tall buildings, very modern technology places like Pudong.

He said he was a little sorry, but no, it was not for the development of our country that he came. It was more negative choice, because there was nothing for him in the Beautiful Country.

I asked him more about this, and told him to remember the famous brands and the television series. He said this is not really the Beautiful Country. But anyway, he said he meant more no girl friend, no job, no money. He was looking sad.

I told him clearly he can find these things in Shanghai, I could help him. So this is no problem, and he should not worry.

I said this because I wanted him to shut up about these easy to fix things, which made me boring to listen, to ask him about these not-Beautiful Beautiful things, the Famous Brands and KFC and etc.

So he explained that actually really life in the Beautiful Country is not always perfect and rich although people have very white teeth. He also explained that the KFC in the Beautiful Country does not sell the fried pumpkin cakes like they have here, which I think are much better than doughnuts since they have no hole in the middle when you buy them.

This and the Tsingdao, which actually I have not drunk so much of before, all this allowed me to see things much more clear. I told him he could live forever much more happy in Pudong, where I will help him to find a girlfriend and a job and a money, and also live in a very modern tall buildling with flashing lights.

He said thank you.

I said no need to thank me.

I said good night.

I will meet him again tomorrow.

The End.

Some time ago we started a project entitled Hard Seat from Shenzhen to Shenyang. Basically stories about a train journey from one end of China to another. One of those stories in paticular inspired us to make it into a running series. That story belonged to Katrina Hamlin and can be found as Part 1 linked below. The general gist was to create a collection of short stories penned by a number of different authors that form a complete story involving the main characters. Think of it as many authors writing a book one chapter at a time through the medium of short stories.

Our next chapter is by our own Miller Wey. You can find all four chapters by following the links below. To add to the narrative, check out the contribution guidelines. Good luck!

H.A.L.

Hard Seat from Shenzhen to Shenyang

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four – (NEW!) Different Lines by Miller Wey

by Katrina Hamlin

Ocean Park Themepark, Hong Kong, 1993.

“Scallywag,” said Mummy.

“Scallywag!” said the Hong Kong Granny in Cantonese as the peppermint ice cream slid down her face. But she smiled, licking cream from her hairy chops.

She reached out to touch his hair again, still smiling, green cream gathering in the wrinkles around her eyes. “Little gold-hair boy! Such good luck.”

He had nothing left to throw, and this was stranger danger just like they told him at school. Why did she want to touch his hair? Why was Mummy on her side? Why was she angry with him? Why was the woman not repelled by the well-aimed ice cream?

Overwhelmed by Mummy’s injustice and seeing that the world didn’t make sense, he turned and ran.

“You Scallywag, come back,” screamed Mummy.

He felt a knot tightening in his stomach and knew he couldn’t ever ever go back. He ran faster.

The Hong Kong Granny at another Granny in her tour group. “Did you see the gold-hair boy? I touched the gold for luck, and now he is running.”

She turned to the boy’s mother, “You will need help to catch him.” She gestured to the tour group, “We must help her!”

The Grannies whooped and began shuffling in pursuit, a wall of chiffon florals.

The boy looked over his shoulder and saw the pastel monster moving towards him in a shrieky mass.

A Granny grasped his mother by the sleeve and pulled her into the crowd. The boy saw her subsumed by the floral hoard, and felt panic rising. He hesitated; should he save her?

But she had just betrayed him to the wrinkly woman. No, he wouldn’t go back. He kept running.

He passed the ice cream stand. “No run,” called the ice cream seller in English. The boy ran on.

The grannies passed the ice cream stand, pulling the boy’s mother with them. “Don’t run”, called the ice cream seller in Cantonese. The grannies whooped, and shuffled on.

The boy reached the crowds milling around the gift shops. He darted through their legs, zigzagging.

He swung round a pair of fat legs in baggy jeans, past hairy legs in shorts, and behind skinny legs in hot pink leggings. He jumped over a pair of long red Converse and ran smack into a little girl wearing a brand new Ocean Park teashirt.

She staggered back a few steps and breathed in, sharp. She caught herself and breathed in, deeply, her eyelashes fluttering. She exhaled, breathily, then gulped back another lungful. She was about to bawl, loudly, in a gust of wails and tears, he could feel it – he turned and ran.

Behind her, the girl’s father pushed through a queue in the gift shop doorway, “You Scallywag,” he hollered, as the little girl finally let loose the opening scream and launched a tantrum that would last the rest of the weekend.
‘Scallywag.’ They’re all after me, he realised.

He slipped into the gravelly gap between the gift shop and the hot dog stand, into the scrubland behind.
There were no peope here. It is safe, he decided.

He held himself very still, and felt his heartbeat slow.

He could hear the swishing feet and chattering on the other side of the hot dog stand, but he knew they couldn’t hear him.

He squatted down on the gravel and looked around.

This would be an ok place to live forever. He could probably steal hot dogs sometimes, and if he stayed in the bushes, it would be quite dry.

He hoped there were no snakes.

He was sure there were no wrinkly old women, they didn’t like this sort of place.

His heartbeat was normal again now, but he felt a funny kind of sick in his chest. He had never experienced such injustice before. It was sort of like an inside-out bruise. He kept thinking about the word ‘Scallywag,’ sort of like when he had a real bruise, and he would push it, amazed that one part of him could feel so much more intensely than the rest.

He remembered that the last bruise he’d had, the big greenish brown one on his left knee, had gone away after a eight days.

He couldn’t imagine this feeling would go away.

***

On the other side of the hot dog stand, the Grannies were fanning out through the crowd. The boy’s mother was getting worried now. A Granny squeezed her arm tightly and said something in Cantonese.

“I don’t understand,” said his mother.

***

Teatime came and went, and the gold-hair boy was still missing. The Grannies gathered at the ice cream stand to ruminate. One of them bought his mother a peppermint cone with a flake, to cheer her up.

She held it in silence until it began to melt.

The little girl approached with her father, still bawling.

He bought her a strawberry ice cream cone with a flake, to shut her up.

The little girl crushed the wafer cone in a tight fist, and the ice cream oozed through her fingers. She wiped her palm on her fathers chinos.

“Scallywag,” he muttered and strode off, pulling her along by her clean hand as she dragged her feet.

The boy’s mother watched them go. Peppermint ice cream was dripping out of the cone and onto her lap.

***

Behind the hot dog stall, the gold-hair boy fell asleep.

In the morning he would begin the first day of forever, living in the scrubland behind the hot dog stall, occasional muttering ‘Scallywag’ under his breath to remind himself why he could never ever ever go back.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

More from Katrina Hamlin

More from H.A.L.’s Groupthink

by Katrina Hamlin

It was her 123rd birthday party, a century after she’d first come to Shanghai.

They gave her a silver walking stick. They also promised to take her to the tailors to have another cheap qipao fitted, though they were all certain that she would never wear it out of the house.

Some of the neighbours came to pay their respects. She thanked them with bare, toneless niceties; then, flustered, she returned to the backroom.

“So rude,” her great-grandson complained to his mother. “Why does she do that?”

“You know, when they arrived, almost all of them were illiterate, and most of them couldn’t tingdong,” said his mother. “Sometimes it’s still a bit much for her.”

That was the first time he’d thought about her arrival. Suddenly, his great-grandmother’s life seemed like a bad fit.

After a hundred years, the qipaos were still only costumes; this wasn’t her real home.

***

Later that night, her friends came round. She came out from the backroom, gabbling in excited English.

They ganbei’ed large quantities of imported gin.

Someone had dusted off the second hand KTV machine. They put on an old track.

The bleepy electronic chorus was piercing. She tried to follow the words in wheezy shouts.

Her friends bopped in their armchairs. One of them tried to light an old-style cigarette with a birthday candle, but the American ayi stopped him, cussing in fluent, unselfconscious English that made great-grandmother smile.

Her great-grandson tried some of their foreign liquor, and felt his cheeks redden, like hers, with a strange heat.
Her friends cheered and poured him another. She rattled her silver walking stick on the tiled floor, and beamed. “Jia you, dear.”

He emptied the glass. He felt more daring than usual.

He sat down next to his great-grandmother. He straightened his back, ready to speak as one adult to another. He was sure she could feel his new understanding in the certainty of his movements. He hoped she couldn’t see the pity, too.

He told her that he knew this wasn’t her home. He hoped that she didn’t miss the old country lao jia any more.

The party quietened. Her cheeks turned redder.

She hit him hard across the shins with her stick.

“This is my home.”

His mother took him to one side. “These first generation laowai are sensitive about that. What are you thinking? On her birthday!”

His great-grandmother settled back into the cushions, and watched them with narrowed eyes and ferocious scowl. Then someone put another gin in her hand, and the party went on.

***

The next day, as he brought her midday rice and warm milk to the table, he apologised. She pursed her lips and made a show of manipulating the chopsticks with the dexterity of a century’s practice.

“The lao, laowai,” she mumbled between mouthfulls, “were the first waiguoren to belong here.”

“Yes, great-grandmother.”

“We were.”

“I know,” he said, without real conviction.

Her hand shook with contained rage, or perhaps age. A few grains of rice fell on the table top.
He swept them into the palm of his hand without saying anything more.

by Katrina Hamlin

Once upon a time someone had told her not to go out into the dark, dark city when the sun went down. Shanghai was full of monsters after midnight, she was warned.

She was told not to go out into the dark, dark city. But she went out.

She left a trail of rice behind her, so she could find her way back.

She followed the music in the air, towards the bright, distant lights.

She found a city built from the Frankenstein shards and splinters of other places and peoples. She couldn’t understand what she heard and saw, because they didn’t make sense, together or apart; red rabbits and Father Christmas and pink tinsel and gold characters and toneless speech and sing-a-long, ghostly laowai and rosy cheeked Shanghairen slamming glasses on the table, dancing on the bar, sleeping on the floor, falling out the door and blowing smoke into the night.

Still she listened and she watched until someone noticed her, listening and watching, and passed her a drink. The bottle said ‘Drink Me;’ her companion said ‘ganbei;’ so she did.

She kept listening and watching, wide eyed and open mouthed. The bottle was a magical one, and magically it replenished itself whenever she thought it was finished. Her eyes grew wider.

Her companion asked her if she felt alright. She told him she was scared,she’d never been here before, but she’d left a trail of rice, so she’d find her way home. He looked at her sideways.

They drank their bottles empty again, and again they replenished themselves.

The lights and the tinsel were melting into shimmering blurs at the edge of her vision, and the people were all at sea, swaying and lurching in the night time breezes and the blossoming clouds of smoke.

She could feel fire rising behind her cheeks as the liquor soaked through her. She slipped from the high stool to move through the smoke, towards the doors and the cooler, darker air outside. Her companion watched her go, swaying on his stool in the smoke. Behind him, the bottles replenished themselves.

She stood on the pavement, breathing deeply. Another redfaced girl offered her a cigarette, and she accepted it. The girl lit it for her with a lighter that flared high in her face, filling her dark eyes with fire.

She tried to take a drag,  and coughed. She tried to take another drag, and coughed again.

The other girl took a drag on her own cigarette, and exhaled as she spoke; “Are you alone?”

She looked around at the people stumbling and singing and falling around them. “No. Neither are you.”

The girl looked uncertain.

She took a third drag, and didn’t cough. She inhaled slowly, watching the cloud grow and thin and vanish.

Then the girl raised a balled hand in between them, and opened her fist palm up to show her two pills. She looked closely; in very small characters, she read, “Eat Me.”

She hesitated.

“Is it past midnight?”

“I heard the clock chime two minutes ago.”

She inhaled too fast and choked on her smoke. “I must go.”

“Go where?”

“Home.” She looked around for the trail of rice. “I left a trail of rice…where is it?”

The girl seemed to understand. “The street cleaners will clear it away every time. Never mind. Have this.” She passed her the pill.

***

In the morning, she walked the streets of Jing’An as the sun came up, searching for a trail of rice. The street cleaners watched her go by; no one tried to help her.

The sun was more golden than she’d ever seen it before.

She walked until the sun had reached its zenith.

Her feet hurt.

She looked down. She saw that she’d lost both her shoes. She didn’t remember that.

She walked for hours more, until the sun sank and died behind the gleaming emerald towers.

She saw the street cleaners creep back to the streets for the night shift. One of them had shoes very much like her own.

At last, at the end of a long dark street, she felt something familiar; bright night lights and the pulse of too many too loud songs.

She gave up on the trail of rice and went towards the lights.

by Katrina Hamlin

She looked up from the pocket dictionary. Hard, sleeper; “Ying, chang. Ying chang. Yingchang.”

The ticket seller looked back at her. “Yingchuang?”

“Ying, chang.”

The next lady in the queue repeated her, concentrating on each sound. “Ying chan.”

An impatient teenager behind her hollered, “Yinchuan,” and then in ragged unison the entire queue shouted, “Yinchuan.”

Relieved, the girl thanked them and smiled. “Yes, a hard sleeper.”

The ticket seller nodded and pressed some keys. She proffered a train code for approval; the girl shrugged. The ticket seller prodded the arrival time with one finger. 4AM. The girl frowned. The ticket seller shrugged. There were no options. The girl sighed, and handed over the money.

The little pink ticket slipped under the window, and the girl took it. She turned to leave.

She stopped on the steps to put the precious ticket in her wallet, and to sigh again over the 4AM arrival.

She looked closely at the ticket:

Depart Day 1 Month 2 13:00 Arrive Day 3 Month 2 04:00;

Hard seat.

To Yinchuan.

She went back into the waiting room to try again. No, yingchang, a hard sleeper. Where is Yinchuan? Nobody knew. Could she return the ticket? No. Not at the local office. Only at the train station – two hours north, if the traffic was normal.

She went home with the ticket. She didn’t tell Luc she hadn’t bought the right one yet. Since he wouldn’t be meeting her at 4AM after all, that seemed alright.

She would return it tomorrow.

***

But she’d always had a soft spot for one way tickets, even to the wrong place at the wrong time.

She’d never had a one way ticket to a place she’d never heard of.

She thought about Yinchuan, and held back from checking any maps or books that could tell her something more than the sounds of the name.

It was only days until the holiday now. What were the chances that she’d be able to buy another ticket? Maybe she’d rather go to a somewhere or anywhere than a there.

But duty and habit made it hard to keep thinking like that. She took the bus, and stood through all the stops and the red lights and the traffic jams until the terminal, at the train station.

She queued patiently for 20 minutes, then again when she was given brusque directions to a different desk, and then once more when she found she had misunderstood the directions.

She handed over the ticket, and explained her mistake. The old man at the desk gave her money in return.

***

She paused in the middle of the station, and missed the ticket to Yinchuan. A tickling regret was already gathering somewhere inside.

She went to look at the departure boards and the timetables, and scanned the lists of places she’d never been to, or heard of.

She joined a new queue.

When she reached the window, she counted out four red notes, pointed to a date on the paper calender, and asked for one ticket. She didn’t bother to request a sleeper.

“To where?” said the ticket seller.

“To Xining,” said the girl.

The ticket seller pushed a few keys and checked her dates. The girl nodded.

The ticket seller slipped a pink ticket under the window. The girl smiled.

Later, she told Luc that she’d bought a ticket. She didn’t tell him anything more.

by Katrina Hamlin

She woke up to the smell of chicken bones and fangbian mian. She tried to sit up.

Her head hit the thick metal springs. She had been sleeping underneath the seat.

The night before, she had met an American boy celebrating the end of his teaching tenure and the beginning of his winter travels. He’d been gifted two bottles of baijiu from the school. They finished the first one together.

She remembered being very sick, and declining his offer to share a joint in the squat toilet.

He had left the train at one of the small dark stations in the early hours.

She had tried to sleep in the carriage aisle; but the rice trolley couldn’t get by, so the other passengers rolled her under the seat, with the chicken bones and discarded fangbian buckets.

***

She rolled out from beneath the seat.

She sat up in the aisle.

“Good afternoon,” said a portly grandmother, leaning forward to unstick a candy wrapper from the girl’s forehead.

“Are we nearly there yet?” said the girl.

“Shenyang? Maybe 36 hours to go,” said the grandmother, cheerful.

The girl closed her eyes.

“Get up. Up. He’s coming again,” said the grandmother, prodding her. The trolley was on its way back through the train.

All that was left was cola, and dried white rice in sagging polystyrene boxes. She bought some and ate with concentration, washing down every desiccated mouthful with a measured swig of flat cola.

She tried not to wretch.

Someone had taken the seat she’d had, before the boy and the baijiu. When she’d finished eating, she lay down in the aisle and rolled herself back under the seats.

She stared at the springs above her. She wanted to remember what they’d talked about last night.

Some shit about the weightless anonymity of travelling alone: They could do anything; they would never see anyone on this train ever again; they would never tell anyone what had happened.

They talked about the trips they’d made before. He’d been to see the wall and the warriors.

They started an argument about the traveller and the tourist. He’d booked a halfway decent hotel in Shenyang. She said that was cheating. He got pissed off and said he was a real traveller, a gypsy snail, carrying his home on his back.

Not that he needed any of it. He could live on his wits.

She had giggled at his sincerity, which was cruel, but it was four in the morning and she was drunk.

Then the train stopped at Xia- something, somewhere.

“I’ll prove it,” he had said, and he got off the train.

***

The girl opened her eyes again. She still felt sick, she decided.

Hair of the dog might be a good idea. She would look for his backpack.

It was where they’d left it after he’d looked out the first bottle of baijiu. A burly passenger helped her to take it down, “Your friend’s,” he said with a stiff nod.

She opened it up in the corridor between the carriages, and sifted through the upper layers of sweaters and socks. The second bottle of baijiu was nestled in the dirty laundry.

She sat on the pack, unscrewed the bottle and sipped.

This wasn’t a normal hangover, she thought. She felt lucid.

She sipped some more, and watched the fields blur past.

She couldn’t remember why he’d wanted to go to Shenyang anyway. Was it just the impressive distance from Shenzhen?

She sipped again and sifted her memories.

She found that the baijiu made her thoughts fall in a rhythm she couldn’t quite follow.

Why had she thought it was a good idea to go to Shenyang? She didn’t know what the fuck she’d find there.

She drank more deeply.

The grandmother passed through on her way to the squat. She squinted at the half empty bottle, made a sleeping gesture and pointed back beneath the seats in the carriage.

The girl shook her head and took another sip.

By the time the grandmother came back, there was an inch of baijiu left.

The girl felt a funny sensation as the old lady wobbled by, and wondered if she was going to be sick again.

Then something fell into place; she understood that the train was about to stop.

The girl put a hand on the grandmother’s wrist as she steadied herself against the wall. She gestured that the baijiu was for the grandmother to finish, and stood up with the clarity of purpose. She zipped up the pack.

“Not Shenyang,” said the grandmother. “Wait a little. Maybe 30 hours.”

“I’ve arrived,” said the girl.

The train stopped.

She turned to fumble with the heavy metal handle.

The door swung open.

She threw the boy’s bag to the ground.

She clambered down the steps.

The door swung shut.

As the train moved off, the grandmother waved her farewell.

Swaying in the early evening breeze, the girl watched the train slip away.

This is part of a ongoing collaboration between HAL writers.  It continues here.