When Fox is a Thousand by Larissa Lai

Author:Larissa Lai [Lai, Larissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781551523382
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Published: 2004-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

When the candle had burned down to a stump and the wick was beginning to sputter in a pool of wax, she rose and went to the cupboard in the corner. She took out a piece of paper, laid it on the table, and with a sharp butcher’s knife cut it into the shape of the moon. This she pinned to the wall above the table. She sat down and refilled my cup and her own. Presently, the room was bathed in a cool silvery light. We could imagine ourselves as two sages sitting by the river in the moonlight.

She picked up a chopstick and flung it at the paper moon. It seemed to sail into the distance, tumbling over itself as it flew through the air. It smacked against the surface of the moon. Something came rolling back – a barrel-shaped drum. And then, turning through the air as the chopstick had, a drummer, growing larger and larger as she approached. Drum and drummer slid across the table and tumbled onto the floor. The drummer first picked herself up and then the drum, drew a stick from her side as one would a sword, and began to beat. There was the sound of horses. It surrounded the temple as though the entire imperial cavalry had suddenly taken a great interest in our little soirée.

The Poetess saw the terror in my eyes and laughed. “They will come,” she said, “but not yet.”

I hadn’t been watching the moon. It had swollen to twice its original size and was getting bigger. Its curved surface jutted prominently towards us, no longer a flat piece of paper but a burgeoning satellite. It swelled and swelled until it filled our entire field of vision and pushed us right up against the walls of the temple. The sound of galloping horses crashed in our ears the whole time. Then the temple was gone and we were perched precariously on the lip of a moon turning slowly through space, with the sound of heaven’s cavalry in our ears. I am afraid of heights and have a tendency to motion sickness. I clung for dear life, although had we fallen, I don’t know where we would have fallen to. There was nothing but dark sky out there, not even a single star. I was mesmerized by the sound of horses. I didn’t expect to see them, but then there they were, kicking up great clouds of dust on the horizon. They swept over us. Miraculously, neither of us was trampled to death. I raised my head and breathed in the air of the future.

“This is a prophecy,” she said. All around us in the field, men and horses lay dying. Severed limbs, crumpled bodies, and unattached heads such as I had often seen at the execution grounds in my youth rolled about here and there. Some of the faces could have been those of the villagers of nearby towns. Some were strange – broad and bearded like those of the horse sellers in the Western market.

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