Peter Liu - Bald New World

Linda, you always joked Larry would get me into a whole lot of trouble, but I never imagined it would be like this . I would rather die than live a life of forced subjugation. That’s the household I grew up in, forced to repent for imagined crimes. I struggled so hard to leave that life behind. Nick. You fought to get out. Now fight to stay out .

I knew my teeth were upset. I implored them: I know it hurts a whole lot, but help me now. Help me and I swear I will get you the best dental treatments in the world. I’ll drink a hundred bottles of wine and only pick out the most select teas in the Chengdu chaguans. Want ice cream? Which flavor? Warm broths, huo guo, mapo tofu, anything you want, you’ll get. I wish I could have taken more calcium for you guys, given deeper fortifications to you laterals and cuspids. Canines, I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been pointy fangs, but I need you to clench as though we were in the wild. I need you to be ruthlessly bestial on this rock and obliterate it .

The villagers started throwing fruits at me. A tomato hit the side of my head. Apples, which were much harder, started coming my way. I decided to take a risk. I let the rock fall out of my mouth. Two lashes hurtled against me.

“Do you repent?”

I got down again, but this time, rather than the rock, I picked up one of the apples and took four rapid bites. I swallowed without chewing and by the time Mardi realized what I was up to, he tore the apple away and yelled to the crowd, “Don’t throw any more food!”

An apple had never tasted so sweet and savory. I felt energy swell from within. It was the best apple I’d ever had, even if it was covered with dirt.

“Thank you,” I whispered to the crowd.

I put the rock back in my mouth and stood up.

Five, six, seven, eight.

I clenched harder, felt saliva dripping over the rock. Only I saw red slithering over the rock and realized it was blood. I heard a chip, felt my teeth compact.

“We are a society that believes good morals are the foundation of a family. How dare you enter our village and try to corrupt everything we hold dear?!” Mardi yelled. “Look how hard he resists. Look how he struggles against the righteous path. All he needs do is repent. But he would rather die than turn away from his life of sin!”

If it was sin I was turning away from, I would have gladly given it up. Sign me up to be a monk. What did I care? I hadn’t even touched a woman in years. Priests and monks were guilty of every vice but sex, and even that, they often violated. I had no beef with God or their Yillah. I had a beef with the sun, with the religious freaks, with the gravity that was pulling on this stone. God had never done me any wrong. Only humans misusing God and every other idea in the universe to exact their petty creeds. I realized the only way for me to get to the end was clamp even harder and destroy my teeth. Break through until it was gums and blood to cement the rock so I could hold it in my jaws. No one ever said the American Dream was free.

I no longer tried to protect my teeth. I pressed down, pressed like I was trying to cause fusion in my mouth. My laterals gave way first and the pain nearly caused me to drop the rock as I felt the pieces tumble on my tongue. I let them leak out the side of my mouth and bit harder. Sanded as it was, all the blood and saliva was soaking in. They whipped me because I was standing still, trying to break my teeth.

“Keep moving!” Mardi demanded.

I complied and kept on exerting force until my cuspids broke and my canines shattered. The rock had more space in my mouth. The pain gave me an adrenaline rush and surged my exhausted body awake. I cursed the sun and at the same time, begged my feet for the energy to get to the end of the path. Shine your beams elsewhere!

I didn’t know why I fought with Linda so much when I never loved anyone as much as her. You and me were going to change the world . Instead, we became the butt of jokes, all the idiot friends who were secretly pleased that we’d become a car wreck just because their lives were the flotsam of selfish idiocies. Like any of them had such amazing relationships, like any of them knew what it meant to have family. I wished I could have been more patient. I wished I had a voice repressor that censored words that I’d program in beforehand. Any sentence starting with a but had to go. “Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up!!!”

I walked because I loved Linda. I walked because I loved Larry. I walked because I should have been dead but I wasn’t so now I had to walk, walk until I died. Accept that there was no future. Accept that I had nothing to look forward to. This was a matter of dignity. Self-respect. To die a worthy death, not scared like prey hunted down by wolves. Death made cowards out of the most courageous of men. I was never a courageous man. Not even close. I was a born coward. If I’d have had guts, I wouldn’t have left my destiny up to other men, executives and corporations that dictated the measurements of my life. If I’d have had guts, I would have prevented Larry from going alone. If I’d have had guts, I wouldn’t have let Linda leave that last night by herself.

“Mardi,” I heard. “He’s more than halfway.”

“No one else has made it this far.”

Mardi didn’t reply, or if he did, I didn’t hear it.

There was no bright light at the end of a tunnel. I was seeking the darkness. I was yearning for death. I waddled, I straggled, I pressed on, feeling the rock split apart more teeth. Pain nerves fired up and forced my muscles to contract violently. Let it never be said I died an easy death.

There were no more sounds. I saw figures walking ahead of me, translucent, white garbs. For a minute, I thought I saw Larry. He was flirting with some girl and I wanted to warn him to be careful, that the zealots might hang him up for it. He seemed amused. “Let em’ try.” Then went back to the cute girl with chubby cheeks.

Mardi approached closely. “You think I don’t know what you’re going through? I do, brother. I know I’ve been harsh and that’s because I understand your obstinacy personally. This is a test to forge your heart. Don’t fight the way I did. Give in. Surrender yourself.”

I ignored him and focused ahead. There were houses, I think. There were also intersecting roads. This was a village hidden inside a forest. But I didn’t recognize the architecture, and the streets were old. I noticed a river running rapidly through the village. I didn’t know how much further I had to go. But I had no delusions about them actually letting me go. At least with the river, I might die free. I’d heard drowning was the worst way to die. But whoever said that probably hadn’t been tortured to death — you know, skin being scalded off, bones torn off, sliced into thousands of pieces, and getting a hole drilled in his head.

I tumbled into the river and felt it sweeping me away. It was cold but cleansing, even if the river was most likely full of toxic pollutants. Drowning, or having my flesh melt from poison. They didn’t seem like such bad options now. The water tossed me about and I took the stone out of my mouth, gripping it. That was until a rock hit me in the head and a series of waves pressed over me. I no longer fought inevitability.

V.

When I woke up, my teeth hurt like crazy. I was surprised to find myself head down on a river bank, the forest spanning ahead. Had I really escaped? I remembered what had happened and knew I had to run. I could barely stand up and my legs cramped after I forced myself up. There was a rustling sound that made me pause. It was Mardi.