China Dreams by Smith Sid

Author:Smith, Sid [Smith, Sid]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2008-07-25T04:00:00+00:00

12

A witch stole the shadows of the villagers. Her name was May. She lived with the shadows at the bottom of the river. She made them stand around crops to kill them, or around a man so that he was blind, or around herself so that she had the cover of night.

Without their shadows the villagers were weightless.

One villager fell in love with himself so that his come squirted inwards and his belly swelled with a baby that ate him inside.

Another made his sons work till they were old enough to argue, then killed them. One day his youngest son found skeletons in the field. He said, ‘Were these my brothers, who’ve disappeared?’ His father said, ‘No, these were women. See, they have no dick bone.’ When the boy was older he said, ‘Father, there’s no such thing as a dick bone,’ so his father killed him.

Another was so lonely that he went out when it was windy, so that the wind could take his arm. Or he stood with his eyes closed so the wind pressed against him, cheek to cheek. A woman said hello but he punched her, saying, ‘You’re blocking the wind.’

The punch took out her eye, and no one would love her until a good man bought her a glass eye. But one day a pretty boy walked past and the glass eye swivelled after him so the man punched her and the eye fell out and the man stamped it to bits. The woman put a rag in the socket and stayed at home cursing the pretty boy, who fell ill. His sweetheart cut off her foot to make broth, and the boy got better and said, ‘What good is a girl with one foot?’ But a kind boy courted the girl and she set him tasks to win her and he did them all and at last she said, ‘Count every hair on my body and I’ll marry you.’ Laughing, he counted them but by the end he didn’t love her, so the girl threw herself in the river.

Before she drowned she said, ‘A witch is here.’ So now the villagers knew where their shadows were. They dragged the witch from the river but it was dawn and their shadows were tall and drove them away. They went back at noon and killed the witch, and their small shadows crept back under them.

But now the villagers could only go to their fields at noon. They grew poor and moved away and the village died and people said it was the curse of the murdered witch.

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