The Things That Came Back

Qiao opened her eyes.

For one second she waited for his arm to tighten around her.

Nothing did.

Concrete pressed against her cheek.

The compressor room was dark.

Rain tapped somewhere inside the supermarket where rain had no business being.

Qiao blinked once.

Qiao made a sound that scraped her throat.

Across the opening behind the supermarket shelf, the man jerked upright. His eyes found hers.

For a fraction of a second his face was empty.

Then it collapsed.

He turned on the machine.

Hit something.

Turned it again.

Nothing.

Qiao crawled for hers so fast her knee struck the floor hard enough to split skin. She did not notice.

The housing was hot.

She grabbed it anyway.

The indicator stayed black.

“No.”

Her voice sounded enormous in the little room.

Across the wound, his mouth formed the same word.

She heard only herself.

He tore the rear panel off his unit.

Qiao did the same.

The black box from the maintenance store had swollen against its straps. The adapter was black around one edge. A thin ribbon of melted insulation had hardened against the casing. She stared at it.

Then shook the machine.

Once.

Twice.

Hard enough for something loose to rattle inside.

“No.”

The word came smaller.

He struck the side of his machine with the heel of his hand.

Again.

Again.

On the fourth blow his hand slipped.

He bent over the housing.

His shoulders started moving.

Qiao stopped shaking hers.

She had never watched him cry before.

She dragged the machine against her chest.

Outside the compressor-room door, something scraped across the supermarket floor.

Metal.

Then silence.

Qiao looked up.

Concrete sweated beneath peeling insulation. The wall behind her was black with old water damage. A supermarket freezer lay on its side beyond the half-open service door, its glass punched out, its white metal browned by rust.

Her blanket was the grey emergency sheet she had been using for weeks.

Her trousers were patched at both knees.

One sleeve had dried blood on it from something she no longer remembered cutting herself on.

The tendons stood up along her hands. When she closed her fingers, the skin stayed folded over her knuckles.

Dirt lived permanently in the lines around her nails.

The wrist Mrs Han had saved was unbruised.

Qiao touched it.

Nothing.

No drawer.

No swelling.

No red crescents from brass wings.

Her missing boot sat beside the wall.

Both boots.

She looked through the wound.

The workbench filled the width of his room. A rough wall rose behind it to a high window. A shelf had been nailed across the plaster. A single stool stood beneath the bench. His beard had grown in patches. His collar stood away from his neck; beneath it, the bone showed.

His shirt was the same one she had seen through the opening for days, mended beneath one arm.

One fingernail was gone. The others were ridged and dark. The skin beneath his eyes sagged over hollows.

There was no flour on his fingers.

He looked up. His eyes stayed on hers.

He came to the opening.

Qiao did too.

His hand rose.

Hers met it.

Nothing.

Their palms stopped on opposite sides.

He pressed harder.

So did she.

Qiao hit it with the flat of her hand.

He flinched.

She hit it again.

Again.

The third time she made a sound that hurt her throat.

He put both hands against the boundary.

Qiao folded over hers.

For a while neither of them moved.

The dead machine cooled on the floor behind her.

Something small clicked against the concrete.

Qiao turned.

A glass ampoule had rolled free of the cloth beside the device.

Empty.

Its label was blistered.

A small three-legged swallow remained visible near the bottom.

Qiao stared at it.

She looked at the machine.

Then at the ampoule again.

Her eyes moved across the floor.

Ledger.

Pink medical glove.

Strip of yellow emergency fabric tied around the handle of her pack.

A cracked transit badge.

HAN.

Qiao picked up the badge.

She could see Mrs Han putting the cracker beside the register.

Don’t get crumbs in the register.

She could see the child’s yellow coat.

The umbrella.

The east waiting room.

Thursday.

Qiao closed her fist around the badge until its edge hurt.

Across the wound, he had found cardboard.

His marker slipped against it once.

He turned the cardboard over and started again.

DON’T GET CRUMBS IN THE REGISTER.

Qiao’s breath caught.

She looked at him.

He was crying openly now.

She wrote on the back of a packaging panel with a shaking hand.

ORDINARY UMBRELLA.

He read it.

Covered his eyes.

Something tugged at the skin above Qiao’s breastbone.

She looked down.

A safety pin.

Paper folded once and fixed to the front of her shirt.

For several seconds she only stared at it.

Across the opening, the man slowly lowered his hand from his face.

His eyes dropped to his own chest.

Paper.

Pinned in the same place.

Qiao touched the pin.

Her fingers would not close.

She tried again.

Pulled it free.

The paper came away from her shirt.

She knew her own handwriting through the fold.

She did not open it.

Across from her, he had taken his off too.

He held it between both hands.

The machine sat dead at his feet.

The ruined power pack sat open beside it.

Qiao looked at his note, then at hers, then at the bare concrete beside her.

Her knees gave out.

She sat on the concrete.

The note remained unopened in her lap.

The man sank down on his side.

Neither reached for cardboard.

Qiao bent over the folded page.

Her shoulders shook once.

Then again.

She pressed her fist against her mouth.

Across the wound he turned away.

Qiao dragged her sleeve over her face, then hated that he could not see her.

Rainwater found a gap in the ceiling and struck the rim of a metal bucket in the corridor.

Ping.

A pause.

Ping.

Eventually she raised her head.

He was looking at her again.

The paper in his hands had softened where his fingers held it.

He lifted the folded page without opening it.

Qiao looked at her own.

She almost laughed.

Instead she crawled to the opening.

He did the same.

Paper crossed.

People did not.

They passed the notes through together.

His entered her hand.

Hers entered his.

Qiao looked at his folded page.

His handwriting was on the outside.

Nothing else.

She did not open it.

He looked down at hers.

For the first time since waking, his face became completely still.

Qiao pressed his folded note against her chest.

She left it there.

On the floor beside her, the swallow on the empty ampoule caught what little light remained. Across the opening, his gaze followed hers.

He looked at the paired housings.

At her.

At himself.

Then he lowered his head.

The seam drew inward from the shelf.

Neither moved.

The man raised one hand.

Qiao raised hers.

Their palms could not meet.

The opening narrowed between them.

His note was still against her heart when his face disappeared.

Qiao shifted on the floor, making room beside her before she knew what she was doing. Her shoulder touched the cold compressor housing. She stayed there.

Beyond the service door, rainwater ran down the overturned freezer.

Qiao pulled her bare foot away from the water.

Qiao sat until the rain changed.

Beneath the inspection hatch, the planter held six dark stems. One small leaf remained folded tightly around itself. Water had crept toward the pot from the leak. Qiao moved it out of the wet without thinking.

Then she unfolded her ledger.

WATER.

POWER.

SECURITY.

GROW.

The handwriting looked obscene.

She touched the note once through her shirt pocket.

Qiao got to her feet.

On the wall, Jun’s route crossed the unknown woman’s marks.

Both of them still believed Qiao was dead.

For a long time she looked at the map without moving.

The note moved against her chest when she breathed.

She picked up her knife and went back to work.