SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

I spot a mother clinging to the image of her dead boy, his face proliferated ad infinitum, plastering an entire wall, in protest.

Here, at Massacre Market, death is a political act.

[Note to self: People need the historical and political background of the story to make sense of any of these. Start with an interview instead? Also, explain Death Meditation.]

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Death is certain.

There is no way to escape death.

We start dying the moment we are born.

The body is a husk, a shell, an overcoat. It must be left behind.

Imagine you are performing a vivisection on yourself.

Imagine every detail.

Concentrate on the repulsiveness of the human body.

The corpse, swollen and bruised.

The skin, peeled back.

The fat, removed.

The muscle, shredded.

The organs, shrivelled and gone.

The bones, pulverized.

The corpse, festering. The corpse, fissured. The corpse, gnawed. The corpse, dismembered, fragmented, scattered. The corpse, bleeding. The corpse, eaten by maggots and gone.

You remain.

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one of the leading protestors at the November Massacre

Part I [PLX1.vf]

Q: What is Massacre Market?

A: Images of death, disease and violence are forbidden by the regime; they are not good for foreign affairs, for the economy, won’t bring in investments. So now there’s a black market for that. It’s not about money, though. We believe in an exchange of gifts with and for the dead. At the same time, it’s a political thing. Because the government and the military want to hide the dead, when we photograph them and share their pictures, when we circulate footage of the massacres, we are exposing the true face of the regime. It’s a form of protest.

Q: A protest against what?

A: Against the regime’s suppression of the fundamental truths of life and death. Of poverty and suffering. Against the state’s cover-ups of its core practices, the terrorizing and massacre of its own citizens when they dare to speak out or deviate in any way.

Q: Then how does Massacre Market survive? How come they haven’t shut it down yet?

A: They have tried; they do raid it from time to time, but it pops up again after a while. Some people believe it is allowed to exist, or even that it has been set up by the government, as a safety valve, you know? To serve as an illusion of resistance.

Q: Do you believe that?

A: I do not.

Q: Can you talk about the November Massacre? I know this is the most recent one, but there have been others.

A: Yes, that is correct.

[He hesitates.]

Q: Can you recount the day of the Massacre?

A: [Pause] In the morning, the General was scheduled to appear at the city centre, very near the University. Attendance was, of course, mandatory, for students and first class citizens alike. So everyone gathered as planned. The General delivered the formal greeting and raised his arms in the usual salutation. The masses cheered, as expected, as they should. They couldn’t do otherwise, you understand. But then, then, they kept on cheering. And clapping. Just cheering and clapping as loud as they could, whistling and cheering, and waving. And they wouldn’t stop. After a few minutes, it became evident that this was no enthusiasm. It was super-conformity, you see? By cheering, they did not allow the General to speak. He literally couldn’t get a word in. But what could he do? We were only applauding, he couldn’t possibly punish us for that. So he mumbled the end of the speech he never managed to actually deliver, got off the podium and went back to wherever it is the General goes back to. And then the crowd was allowed to disperse, but the students and some others lingered. They were still not allowing themselves to talk, but they were smiling. They were shaking hands, not yet daring to speak about change, but that feeling, you know? That feeling, it was there. I felt it.

But then the trucks and the tanks appeared and sealed off the main square around the city pillar with the students still in it. We were surrounded before we realized what was going on. Some of us managed to slip through and save ourselves. Some holed themselves up inside the Polytechnic School at the University. They got them, though, eventually. They got them all.

Q: What did they do to them?

A: Why are you asking? You know very well what they did to them. You’ve seen the pictures, no? [Kneeling under the sun, hands tied, some behind their backs, some in front of their chests, beaten with steel batons and shiny black boots. Taken with a fisheye lens, they look like a human ocean. Innumerable, uncountable, and unaccounted for.] You’ve seen the footage. [Herded onto cattle-trucks by the back of their necks. Taken to that off-camera place from where no-one returns.] At four o’clock, it rained. The streets turned red.

[Pause] Of this, we will not speak.

[He takes a moment to find his bearings, he seems truly emotional. Then he adds:] They even destroyed several androids—most of them sex workers and cleaners—and later reimbursed their owners. I should say "bribed," to keep them from making a fuss.

Q: You said androids? Why were they there? Were androids part of the protest?

A: Yes, android guerillas have always been on our side, and uni students are often particularly drawn to them. There are several reasons for this. On the one hand, androids are part of the oppressed. They are low class, second rate, not even citizens. Most people don’t even consider them persons. But there is also something about them that speaks of truth, not least their perfect, infallible memories. It’s the human machine’s trap: the freedoms afforded to them by what little flesh they possess and command, the failings of that same flesh…these are not so easy to tell apart. They do not decay, too, while our whole culture is premised on decay and death, or, now, on its concealment. Why do you think people are so crazy about those nacre patches? You’ve seen the ones?

[Note to Self: Transcribe the rest of the interview from voice file PLX2.vf]

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Getting people to talk is difficult. Brigitte and Dick work hard to find me the right contacts. But it takes time, and I know so little. I understand so little. This investigation is going to be long. We need to be discrete.

I often sit and watch Brigitte when she thinks I’m in my head, working, not paying attention to her.

She seems restless in her own skin, walking from the door to the window and back again. She stares outside at the smog—you can’t see anything out the window, just grey and brown. Well, at least I can’t. Maybe she can see something, maybe she can see everything. I don’t know.

Her nacre has been multiplying the past few weeks. There is a new patch behind her left ear, and one on the back of her right hand—her most prominent still. It makes her look adorned.

When she catches me looking at her, the programming kicks in and she responds with her standard line, every time: "What can I do for you, honey?" Then she lowers her eyes and looks embarrassed.

She’s always lived here, and yet I can detect a faint French accent when she says this. Like some guy’s fantasy of what a French whore should sound like.

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There is some uncertainty about the translation from the local language of what I have called "Massacre Market." Other possible translations include "Atrocity Place," "Massacre Fair," or, and that was the most confusing aspect of this, "Pearl Fountain," because even though each of the two words means something different, together they create a new compound which, as Dick and Brigitte explained to me, could rather clumsily be interpreted as "a fountain whence pearls flow," "the breeding ground of oysters," or even "the plane of sublime imperfections."