Page 38 of Mysterious Teacher : Arrival
“Sifu?”Could it be?
The name was like a punch in the gut. Sonya gasped and was immediately sent back to 1946 in the heart of China. As a royal prisoner of the new communist state, she had lived within the four walls of a tiny cell, cold and hungry. The conditions had been horrible and inhumane. How could one human treat another in such a manner?
It seemed inconceivable.
Staring blankly at April, she clung to the edge of the table as the pain and suffering of those endless years came back. Tears filled her eyes as she saw herself lying on the floor of that cell, dying, out of her mind and weeping as she laid dying.She imagined seeing her baby, which she held for a brief moment in the hospital years before when she was still with her husband, an important man.The baby was a girl, and he was not happy.He was a temperamental man, even some said was more a man child, who accused her of all kinds of things.He believed the child was not his, but Sonya insisted she was.Sonya had asked that the girl was spared and that she would be raised outside of the palace, but still they took her newborn baby away. When Sonya was abandoned by her husband, and she was captured and placed in prison by the communist guerillas, it had been years after she had given birth to her baby.She still dreamt of her baby girl as she stayed in a state of shock and numbness in her cell, dreaming of better days.
A sudden vision of an elderly woman came to her, peering at her in the cell...a stranger.
But the image of the older woman disappeared, replaced by that of a tough prison guard who took no pity on her.Sonya was too weak from malnutrition and starvation to look again.Besides, her eyesight was failing.
“She’s just as good as dead,” he told the two men at his side. “Wrap her up and toss her out.”
Sonya could barely move in protest as the men wrapped her up in a filthy woolen blanket, even covering her face. One of them grabbed her feet while the other took a hold of her shoulders.
“The third ditch is too full,” the guard cried out. “Bring her to the fourth one. She’ll be the first of many to fill that one.”
The men grunted as they walked out of the cell, lugging about their half dead bundle. She couldn’t have been all that heavy; she was little more than skin and bones at that point.
The sound of singing birds told her that they had reached the outer yard of the prison. How she longed to watch the birds, to feel fresh air on her face, to hold her baby, to live... to live.
The men swung her once, twice and suddenly she was airborne, landing in the rocky dirt with a fresh wave of pain.
“Please,” she muttered, knowing how futile it was. “Please, don’t leave me here.”
After tossing a few shovels of dirt over her to keep the flies away, the men left her. She remained still for a long moment, uncertain what to do. What could she do? Just wait for death to come? How long could that take? Days? She was weak and in a hopeless circumstance, but the instinct to do something...anything, took over. The need for air engulfed her. Shaking her head from side to side, she managed to free her face of the blanket.
The sky above was dark blue, streaked with fiery red as the sun met the horizon. How beautiful. How magnificent life could be. She had to fight. She had to survive.
Closing her eyes, tears trickled down the side of her face as the reality of her predicament sunk in. How miserable her life had become. Intolerable.
Why fight? Why bother?
She stared at the sky until the red streaks were gone, and the first stars pierced the growing darkness. A chill set in. In addition to the blood loss, the setting sun now left her shivering.
Just as she prepared to let go, sand fell into her face. She opened her eyes just a crack. Someone was in the ditch with her.
Who?
Why?
A lone figure, hunched over and fragile looking, came to her and carefully set a cool finger on her wrist. “Just barely hanging on, are you. But still alive.”
“Please,” Sonya croaked as she forced her eye to remain open.
“Hush, child,” came the old woman’s voice. “You’ll be just fine.”
“My...”It was the only word she could muster. Her breath was shallow and pained.
“Poor child,” the old woman said. “Look at what the opium has done to you. Look at what they’ve done to you. Once royal and regal...and now...You’re wasting away. You’re nothing but skin and bones.”
“I have a...”
“...child,” the woman said. “Yes. I know. But let’s see about getting you back on your feet before we attack that problem.”
How, Sonya wondered.How will I ever get back on my feet?
The old woman bit into her own wrist and droplets of blood slowly oozed out. Holding Sonya’s head in her hand and raising it slightly, the old woman brought her bloody wrist to Sonya’s lips.
