Note: I wrote this very short story in a rush–a few hours in a single day. Vocal.media had a short-story challenge with a grand prize of $20,000. I figured ‘why not?’ and submitted this. The prompt was: “Write a short creative fiction piece, no longer than 2,000 words, about a post-apocalyptic dystopia. . . . The only requirement is that your story must include a heart-shaped locket.” (DL, Sept. 12, 2021)
“Careful, Nour,” he said to her as she picked her way along the beach. Eyes scanning the ground in front of her, she dutifully acknowledged her father’s warning. “Yes, Baba.”
The day was hot. High sun showered her head with heat, barely kept at bay by the bright hijab wrapped meticulously around her black hair. The light was dazzling off the white sand. She kept her gaze low, a shading hand at her brow to save herself a headache later. They didn’t have long before Dhuhr, the early midday prayer, and Baba was seldom late.
“We will be too late,” said Vice Chairman Yang. He was speaking frankly. At the end of the last plenary session he had gathered Member Yao by the elbow and invited him for tea. Now in the confines of the Vice Chairman’s office—the closest approximation to privacy available to them (but of course, as they both knew, not really private)—the two men were confronting the bitter realities facing China. “China has been completely successful at the global level,” he said, “Africa. Europe. The Middle East. Even America. One Belt. One Road. But for this? For this we won’t have an answer in time.”
It was simply a matter of physics.
“What’s the matter with physics?” he teased. Behind his back as he stood at the sink she flipped her dad the bird. Just one more exam to finish, and she’d be done with high school. She couldn’t wait. As soon as she graduated she would be off to Hong Kong for two amazing weeks! Ever since she was twelve, she’d dreamed of visiting that island city where Europe and China met, where the melodies of Cantonese still ran through the streets despite Beijing’s best efforts. And now she was finally going! Only Physics left! As she turned back to the array of notes, worksheets, and study guides spread across the table, her dad came over and kissed the top of her head.
“I love you, Sharon. You’ll do great.”
“Great.” muttered Mrs. Manx bitterly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, resisting the urge to swear in front of her children and—more importantly—in front of the ubiquitous cameras. In ten years living under Chinese authoritarianism and conforming to the whims of Big Brother, she’d learned to control her reactions. “Wo bù míngbái,” she said, switching to Mandarin. “I don’t understand.”
The two Chinese policemen at the door in their drab jackets were reluctant, but matter-of-fact. “You will come with us immediately. You and your family are no longer welcome in Hong Kong.”
She knew China well enough to know arguing was fruitless.
“We will need time to pack,” she said.
“There is no time,” the senior policeman replied. “You must come immediately.”
“But what about our things?”
“Look at these things, Baba!” Nour said happily as they walked back together from the beach in the shimmering heat. She used the Mandarin word dōngxī, a catchall word that in this case communicated her affection for what she’d found.
Just as he knew the importance of timely and obedient prayer for nurturing the world, her father knew the importance of patient attention for nurturing his child. “Show me, Little Flower. What have you found?” Out of her bag she pulled out one after another a plastic comb, a hard rubber ball, and an unbroken glass bottle that gleamed in the sunlight—a rare find given the violence of surf on shore and the passage of so many years. “Very nice!” he said. “You did well today!”
“But wait!” she said excitedly. “There’s more!”
“What’s more,” said the Vice Chairman, “our systems of social influence are breaking down under the pressure. We have perfected these systems over more than five decades. We know what people are saying. We know where they are meeting. We know what they are planning. But the amount of unrest—even among the enforcer class—is simply becoming too high to suppress.”
“And to be clear,” said Member Yao, who had moved on from tea to baiju, “it wouldn’t make a difference if we could suppress it. In the next five years the crop failures we’re seeing now will become systemic collapse. The combination of biodiversity loss and climate change is irresistible. Billions will starve. Billions. Our people may be protected to some extent at first because of our global position, but no system will survive the collapse. Not even the Party.”
“But it is a great party,” Sharon laughed. Her parents had insisted she invite all her friends over for a graduation shindig. No questions. No spoilers. This was going to be their way of publicly congratulating her. She hadn’t quite known what to expect. She had definitely not expected a mariachi band, but they were good, and it was funny. And everyone agreed that the shawarma truck was awesome.
“This party slaps!“ her friend Doug agreed, halfway through his second falafel sandwich. “I love how cross-cultural your parents are.”
As the party wound down, Sharon’s father took her aside. “I have something for you, sweetheart.” In his hand was a small black felt box, the kind used for jewelry.
“My jewelry got left,” said Sharon Manx. “All of it. They gave us no time to pack anything.” She and her husband sat in the San Francisco airport terminal with the kids, waiting for their connecting flight to Atlanta. Coming back to the United States was hard. America had changed in the ten years since they had left. They’d seen it happening on the news and on their visits home. The sham of democracy that covered a growing authoritarianism increasingly reminiscent of China itself. The failing dollar. Crumbling infrastructure. America in 2041 was not where she wanted to live.
“All my jewelry.” She had tears in her eyes. It was too much. “Those fucking police probably took it.”
“I’ll take it,” said Member Yao.
The locket was entirely of gold, in the shape of a heart. Inside were engraved the words—in English—“For Sharon. Class of 2021.” Those would be easy enough to cover with a photo. Anyway, ten years of the Party mantra “Buy Used” (a necessary response to environmental realities) had made people used to dealing with the signs of previous ownership. It was perfect. She would react just the way he wanted her to.
This little second-hand jewelry shop in Aberdeen really was fantastic.
“2021,” he said to himself as he stepped out into the dusk. More than sixty years ago. “I wonder what the world was like then.”
“What was the world like then?” Nour asked her father.
“In 2021?” he said, looking at the gleaming locket his daughter had picked from the sand amidst the flotsam of plastic and broken things.
“That was a long time ago. A very different world, before the Great Famine or the dust. Hong Kong hadn’t flooded then. All around the world were crowded cities full of people and light. Many kinds of animals and food were everywhere. Elephants. Bananas. You’ve heard of those things?”
“Yes,” said Nour.
“It was a green world. A world full of life. All around you on the beach you’re surrounded by the wreckage of that world,” her father said.
As they arrived at the masjid, her father parked the cart he’d packed with goods combed from the beach and stooped to wash in a small cistern kept full for the purpose.
“Do you wish you lived in that world?” Nour asked.
Nour’s father looked at her as he washed his feet.
“I wish to pray. In that world, you could not pray,” he said. “And al-Ḥamdu lillāh, I can pray.” In Mandarin he added, “Ganxiè shén.” Thanks to God. “In times of trouble, people turn to Allah. When that world failed, people turned to Allah. Now, Little Nour, wait here while I pray.”
Nour sat on the cracked curb in the shade of the masjid with a few other women and girls while her father went in to pray.
“For Sharon. Class of 2021.”
She looked at the letters, not knowing what they meant. She closed her hand and waited for her father, content in the heat.
Originally written for submission to a short story contest on Vocal.media.
https://vocal.media/fiction/that-world