fiction

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Aquila

Bedtime texts – short fiction by Kevin McGeary

 

Fantasising about Minnie was the best way to ignore his sister’s snoring. On the top bunk, where he could still smell shoes and discarded instant noodle packets, he saw Minnie the way she appeared last week on Lianhua, a breeze blowing black hair over her eyes.

It was there, under the watchful statue of Deng Xiaoping, that everything had gone wrong. His imagination wasn’t strong enough to alter what had happened. He saw himself whip out his English grammar textbook and three pages of hardcore Japanese porn fall on the grass. Minnie gave that absent gap-toothed smile that appeared to have nothing to do with happiness or amusement. The magazines weren’t his; they were courtesy of his prankster roommate, the spotty police chief’s son who went by the name of Angelababy.

As he felt the train slow down, sliding into another dark town, he focused on Minnie’s buttock cleavage and the way it rose above her dropped waist jeans.

“I need to borrow your phone,” his Sister Yezi called from below after being woken by the alighting passengers. He wiped the phone on his blanket before handing it down.

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Brother Guang

A house of cards – fiction by Hannah Lincoln

 

Ed: Friend of the Anthill Hannah Lincoln has published a collection of short stories from Beijing, Ashen, with gorgeous illustrations by Amy Sands. We're proud to present one of the stories from the collection

 

When the kang-kang man came by they were playing cards on a plastic table in the hutong.

The kang-kang man was the only grown-up on the lane who never smiled at Du Er. He only took the cans and paper and Ma ran after him to give the bottles from the customers last night with the big bellies. Du Er pinched a scrap of paper off the ground and ran after him too. “Uncle, I have paper!” he looked down and did not smile, just kept clanking kang-kang. Du Er bumbled back to her Ma and announced, “Look, paper!” but she was counting her coins and didn’t see.

Brother Guang hadn’t moved from his stool next to the table with the cards on it.

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Escape

Trailing visions – a short story by Dipika Mukherjee

 

The smell of the manuscripts hits her nose like a memory. Like the scent of mashed wet earth on a child’s palm after a spell of rain.

Tess shivers slightly. It is cold inside, although she can see the harsh glare of the July sun through the cracks in the old wooden door. The books lie in neatly labeled rows, the tiny words sheeted in white paper under glass cases, as structured as a cemetery. The ones 400 years or older are under special lights.

In this room there is nothing but books and old furniture. Yet Tess feels, more than sees, green. Grass under gently falling rain, and a jade bangle glistening on the slender arm outstretched to catch a drop. She has to close her eyes until the vision disappears. When she forces herself to reopen her eyes, she sees rosewood chairs inlaid with marble and heavy low tables. She glances up at the heavy wooden beams on the ceiling, her eyes drop to cement floors. She breathes her relief.

Life in China, as a trailing spouse, is driving Tess mad.

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Goodbye Joe

A backpacker's last night in China – fiction by Aaron Fox-Lerner

 

Ed: This was the final story read out at Scotch & Stories night, accompanied by a peaty Laphroaig 10

The guy I went out drinking with was a hostel buddy, one of those strangers temporarily united with you only in the shared purpose of wanting to party and maybe even get laid if it’s a good night. It wasn’t a good night.

The guy was an American like me, but he spoke Chinese and had been living for five years in Zhengzhou, which is a city in China that must be the real deal, because I’ve never heard of it. I felt like he looked down on me slightly for being just a tourist in Beijing, but we were both there in the common area and I had extra beers and we got along alright. I'd only been in China six days, I hadn't planned on staying long since all I'd heard about China was how fucked up it was, but I figured I should hit up the nightlife on my last day in Beijing before traveling on to Korea.

After knocking back a few beers with him, we go to some bar district and I pull him into the first dive I see.

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Those Crazy Shanghai Nights

Flash fiction by Josh Stenberg

 

Peng was at the door. The famous dumplings were in Shanghai, somewhere, and they weren’t going to eat themselves. The rest of the troops, already assembled, were milling and photographing each other with wall posters of tourist meccas far away, with clocks in the lobby.

I took it as a special favour when Mona Kwan wanted to have her picture taken with me. This was the girl I was trying to sleep with at the time – there was always one back then. Back then? I like to pretend now my life has become more complex. I remember I had an elaborate plan to hive her off from the group, look at that building or mmm, doesn’t that barbeque smell good. We would get lost by accident on purpose. It was nice that our Hong Kong cell phones were out of service here. We could disappear, properly, the way people used to. For once, the theoretical romance of travel might spill over into real life.

As a consequence of this obsession I have no recollection of the famous dumplings. I remember only that Mona would not play footsie with me at the table. Another girl squealed and eyed me incorrectly, and by noon the prospect of me-and-Mona seemed antique.

After lunch we went through the tourist brimstone of Nanjing Road and down to the Bund.

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