Disabilities
A Future with You
Times were hard.
I was sold to a wealthy household to be a playmate for its young master, who had a lame leg.
He had a delicate, handsome face, but his health was very poor.
His right leg was disabled, he was always coughing, and sometimes he was too weak even to sit up.
Everyone in the household said he would not live long.
Afraid I would be sent away, I slipped into his room and leaned over the edge of his bed.
“Could you please not die?
If you die, I won’t have a home again.”
He paused, then smiled gently and stroked my head.
“All right.
I’ll see if I can stay alive.”
Diary from a Conversion Therapy Center
A diary chronicling the last two months of my life…
Maybe I was simply born unworthy of love. Why else would everyone who loved me leave?
Crossing Qinghuan
The man I was to marry was a young general who had lost the use of his legs.
Rumor had it that he suffered from an unspeakable ailment and didn’t have long to live.
Later, behind the bed curtains, I discovered just how vigorous he truly was. Face burning, I shouted, “Stop bullying me!”
The man laughed hoarsely and caught my hand. “Then how about Qingqing bullies me this time?”
Mother’s Death List
While sorting through my mother’s belongings, I found a crumpled notebook tucked under her pillow.
Four words were scrawled unevenly across the title page: “The Kill List.”
The first name on the list was the obstetrician who had delivered me.
The date noted beside it was the day I was born.
The second name was my father’s.
The date was the day he died in a mining accident.
The third name belonged to a stranger.
The date noted was yesterday.
The police told me that this person really did die yesterday, but my mother was buried over a month ago.
The Deaf and Mute Little Dog
I ended up sleeping with the deaf-mute college boy my husband and I had been sponsoring.
While my husband brought his secretary home and took her to bed, I was in the next room, tangled up endlessly with the boy he had sponsored.
He bit his lip, trying to hold back, his face flushed, his eyes hazy.
He typed on his phone and played it aloud through text-to-speech: “Stop! Please don’t touch me there!”
Neither of us expected the volume to be so loud that my husband in the next room heard it.
