“I have 489 open tabs just on my phone.”
MOTE prompt
Chen Zhengyi made his way back from the aid lines where he had stood all day. The bulldozers had gone through again, clearing rubble. This was good, because it widened the path back to the tents, and was bad, because it revealed bones, and sometimes other things. He tried to close his eyes to them. It didn’t always help, despite all his experience.
Somewhere there was a sound of rioting, and he picked up his pace, the slim bag of rice swaying faster as he ran. There was a thud: gas canisters, for now, but the peacekeepers had other tricks.
He wondered if it was food or politics. He didn’t know how anyone could have the calories for politics. He’d been raised on not being involved in politics, of course: the Party was on TV and on the net, and what they said went. Then there was the coup, and then there were the wars.
He smelled gas and he coughed and ran faster.
His wife met him at the door to the tent. They were lucky, the tent had patches instead of holes, though the downside there was there was little ventilation, and the Macau tropics made sleeping impossible in it. His wife’s face was sallow and ill, and she held her son as he fitfully tried to nurse.
“Anything?”
“Rice.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing. The fires up the coast—“
“Cheeshen,” she said. “What’s left to burn?”
“Enough. Is there water?”
She pointed at the plastic jug. He put the bag down and went towards the tap two hundred meters away. Another line, and water pressure was worse than ever.
“Hey,” said a man whose face he knew. “What’s news?”
“No news. Fires.”
“Anyone can see the smoke,” said the man whose face he knew.
They stood at the end of the line, slapping mosquitoes.
“How was food?”
“Rice only.”
“Ah. Still. Better than nothing.”
It had been nothing before, before the ships and the peacekeepers, and before tens of thousands of refugees streamed out for better chances.
“Still better,” he agreed.
“How about your lottery?”
“The lottery,” Chen said. “Nothing yet.”
“Ah, it’s a dream. But we can dream.”
“No point.”
“You entered.”
“I don’t want my descendants to curse their ancestors for not trying.”
“We’ll all be forgotten.”
Chen sighed.
“Probably won’t happen anyway.”
“They’re building the ships,” Chen said.
“Maybe. How do you know? And if they are, why aren’t they helping us more? For what they’re spending to send a hundred and fifty thousand people to the stars, that’s a lot of rice and tarps and water filtration.”
“‘They,’” Chen said. “‘They don’t owe us anything.”
The line moved slowly, agonizing. The water trickled into one jug after another. Chen felt the weight of his phone in his pocket, nagging him. He’d had it off all day. Who knew when he could charge it again. He felt it in his hand, a smooth comfort, slowly turning it.
“You wanna check, don’t you?” asked the man whose face he knew.
“No, it’s fine. I don’t care.”
“Oh, go ahead, check. Somebody has to win.”
“No one will win.”
“A hundred and fifty thousand—“
“Out of three billion,” Chen interrupted.
“Pretty good odds. That’s fifteen thousand out of three hundred million. Fifteen hundred out of thirty million.”
“As close to zero as anything.”
“You’ve talked about this for weeks. You aren’t going to check? You aren’t going to look?”
Chen juggled the glass and plastic in his pocket. Looking meant the answer was no. Looking meant the magic went away. His fingers itched.
The line moved forward. Somewhere far away sirens bayed, a muffled thump shuddered the ground.
If he looked, hope went away.
“If I look,” he muttered, “then I don’t have to listen to a lie.”
He pulled it out, pressed the power button. Its eye regarded him, the screen bloomed.
Issued by the High Commissioner for Refugees - East Asia.
More text. Use limitations. Political limitations. Former officials and personnel of etc., etc., etc.
The screen unveiled the apps. He jabbed the email coarsely, indifferent to what he found there. Offers of money, pleas for help, have you seen my, where is my, disappeared in Laos, disappeared in Sri Lanka, fled to Kenya has not returned.
He almost missed it, the email, the woman’s silhouette balanced on a seashell. He opened it, read it, read it again, then shakily touched the link.
“What is it? You like you’ve seen ghosts and spirits.”
Startled, his finger jerked. The opening tab scattered into scores of others, like a pearl dropped in gems. “Dammit!”
“What?”
“You’ve talked made me lose the page—shit—“
“It’s there, don’t worry, where would it go.”
“I have four hundred and eight-nine tabs open just on my—“
“Calm down,” said the man with the face he knew. “Come down, man. You’ll drop it and break it.”
Chen put down the stained jug, held the phone in both hands. His thumbs sorted. “Thank god.” The window opened again. He blinked. Strange squiggles and—that was Latin letters, that was Korean, that was normal. He clicked the link.
Chen Zhengyi, you are informed that you and four members of your family…
“What’s it say?”
…report to camp officials…
“You look like you’re going to faint! Is it good news?”
…transport to Wenchang…Hainan…
“I think I am going to faint.”
“It is good news, isn’t it? What did I tell you?”
Chen found he was holding his empty jug, and he was running and running and running through the broken rubble and the concertina barriers and the plowed pathways that ripped through a tumbled school and he did not stop running and running and running until he came to the tent and gasped, “Oh God! Oh, God it’s come! It’s come!”
“What?” said his wife.
“Our ticket out. Our way out!” He extended the phone, and she stared at the words, grabbing his hand to steady it. Their son was crying,and the tent in the refugee camp was stinking, but the phone had an image and a code and instructions, generated pictures of brave men and women standing on a strange world that, as yet, no human had stood on. And they would go, off planet, into orbit, twelve light years to another star.
“Our ticket to paradise,” Chen gasped, “Oh, God. Oh thank you God.”
Oh thank you, God.
A little more usual MOTE prompt for me this week—last week’s was heavily veiled and maybe cheating, I dunno…
It was also a bit of a stretch to find some way to make it work; everything must fit the Procrustean bed.
This week’s prompt challenge was from AC Young: “I have 489 open tabs just on my phone.” My prompt went to Padre. See all the challenges and responses over at More Odds Than Ends!