Heart

This soul, Xiaoming, this old woman, this hopeless widow has barely but a cent in her hands. She is in despair. In total anguish. As she gallivants around the foggy morning streets full of bustling soldiers, she thinks nothing of herself. So many jumbled up thoughts were rushing through her melancholy mind.

Did the Japanese take her grandson? Where was she? What just happened to her? Did her life change?

Fulfilling what seemed to be no more for her dearest grandson was now in misery.

A few days ago, her grandson Tiao Jie was sprinting around her claustrophobic, filthy and tattered house in the midst of an odd crevice-like junction in Nanjing, then, the capital of China. The seven-year-old boy trotted around, holding a signature, precious and authentically one-of-a-kind flower vase that was extremely valuable to his poor grandmother.

"Crush! Boom! Crush!" All of a sudden the threshold of their house collapsed and the Japanese soldiers oppressed against the panicking locals demanding for the women to turn themselves in. Xiaoming knew what was incoming for their lives. The Japanese people were here to abduct these innocent women and molest them. Yanking the negligible boy under her arms, handling him with the most affectionate care, she grabbed her satin purse and walking stick, and dashed as fast as he could towards the narrow, pitch-black crevice leading to the main city. Unfortunately, she couldn't escape the ever most disastrous moment in her long depressing life.

A terrifying Japanese guard snatched Tiao Jie from Xiao Ming's tender arms as she yelled for her grandson to be spared and grappled with the mighty guard. She yawped and bellowed for forgiveness in pain of seeing Tiao Jie suffer in the other soldier's spoiling arms.

"No! No! Let him go! Kill me! Just leave him alone!"

The tears of sorrow from Xiao Ming's comforting eyes knew for a fact that she wouldn't be able to see her darling Tiao Jie ever again. He was now gone and couldn't stand that she wasn't able to keep her daughter's (Tiao Jie's kidnapped mother) promise.

As shocking as it was, Xiaoming who had heard the stories from the past knew what the guard she was fighting with, was going to do next. She couldn't imagine her like this. It was impossible.

"Ahhhh!" "No!" "Stop, you're hurting me!" "Argh!"

Thump!

"No, you're awful!" "Get off me!"

"Ughh you monster!" "You rascal!"

Suddenly everything just stopped. Her agonized tears shed onto her shoulders as the malignant soldier forced himself onto Xiao Ming. Xiao Ming was old now, so she had nothing to lose, but the thought that hit her the most was that she may just have lost her grandson. She couldn't feel her body anymore as she laid on the steep muddy pavement with her aching back crying to what seemed like death, but she knew for all she was, that she was only alive because of the thought of her beloved Tiao Jie.

Managing her old, weak and frail body, she brought herself up and pushed herself to walk. Determined to not let the horrible soldier bring her down she walked towards the opening through the narrow walls of the crevice. She was an unwanted heart. Nobody helped her. She was unwelcome to her own place. It was a torment. With a hundred thoughts connecting to one thought, she realized the heartbreak of what she was feeling. The Nanking Massacre it was.

What just happened was a life-changing experience. She was worried sick about the other woman in her dangerous neighbourhood. The soldiers assaulting other females, killed and disgusted her mind.

She kept wandering and walking like a nomad in the Sahara Desert. Walking and walking and walking as far as her feeble legs could take her. What did the soldier just do to her?! She was nearly killed if it not for her to stay down on the pavement after what had just happened. Most women usually ran off, but she didn't and so forth she wasn't killed. As tragic as it was, now she was, even more, ascertain to find little Tiao Jie.

After continuing to roam around the crevice and processing the crime which had been done to her for an hour, she went towards Qixia District. She knew that the those terrifying devils' headquarters were there, she most certainly had to get him back even if it meant for her to die. She had the perseverance to find Tiao Jie.

Crash! Another building was attacked and she heard the yelping screams and cries of the women. Her ears were blemished as she went passed the small tea stall inhaling the enhanced green tea leaves which put a tinkle of freshness in the air. The rest was just smoke and the polluted atmosphere which killed the simplicity of the ambience in their town. It sure was catastrophic.

She approached the high-rise building and saw other soldiers dragging captive natives. She knelt in front one of them and cried desperately for forgiveness and clemency which obviously was not yet "bestowed" upon her. Yet, she was kicked off to the ground to the soldier as he was seizing another woman. By now, there was blood rushing down her nose and lips but this did not stop her from trying again.

Picking herself up by the only bones and muscles appearing to work in her body, underneath it all she was still hurting by the memories. Little did she know was trying to pick herself up piece by piece. It was hard but she knew she had to do it.

Torture and more torture as it was. Did they perceive all that was hidden under this tangled corruption? Lightened up, she proceeded so as to approach the skeletal bars of the building. All she could feel and the smell was coal and poison gas. Humbled upon the portrait of the Chinese Soviet Union, she was blown off consequent to a soldier slapping her in the face and clutching her to throw her behind icy black bars.

Requesting the soldier and confirming to him that it was fine that she was imprisoned, but it had to be for only one condition, to see the face of her young grandson, and to die with him in this very same jail cellar. Considering the fact that the soldier surely denied the deal, she got out all of her earnings and jewellery out of the pink, soft satin purse and remitted it to the Japanese soldier. Then, she pulled out a precious picture of Tiao Jie and handed that over also to find him.

Sobbing and bawling over the wonder of the fate she has put on the soldier and if she had just given all the earnings for free. Tiao Jie was the most important thing to her.

A day had elapsed and darkness and surreality came across through her mind. It grew colder and chillier as there was still no sign of Tiao Jie or that soldier. Abruptly, she noticed a sparkly metal key-like object. It was near her cell. Feeling paralysed as she was, she tried her very best to reach for the key through the thin spaces between the bars. At last, she managed to get it. Turning the direction of her hand towards the lock and unlocked the clamped cell. This was divine. Breathing the unlikely fresh air and then coming to her senses that there was the terrifying smell of smoke and ashes, interrupting her joy. Far away in the distance, she heard the wailing of a child. The sound felt quite familiar.

Brushing her messed up hair from the front of her face, she hurtled in the way of the sound that lead to her to a child that wasn't Tiao Jie but was injured and wounded. He seemed to look so much like him though. She cried her heart out and asked him if he was okay and the son replied saying that he had lost his grandma! Worrying over such a coincidental saying, she tore a piece of cloth from her right sleeve to clean the bloody wound. She then wrapped up the knee with another piece of damp cloth and hummed an old Chinese rhyme to whisk way the child to sleep. Was this a dream? Was this a hallucination? She must've gone crazy. This situation reminded her of Tiao Jie instantaneously. It was of the day when Tiao Jie rushed home from school, he tripped and fell over a rock and hurt himself real bad on the same exact right knee. She too cleaned up his wound and sent him to sleep with the same harmonious melody.

The brightness of the sunlight hit her eye the next morning as she scuttled near a child. Was this the boy she had dreamed of last night when she escaped from the jail cell and lied on the snow? A shock of chill ran through the back of her spine. This wasn't the same child she had seen last night in her dreams. This was the real Tiao Jie! But she knelt to the ground and snivelled desperately. There was a gunshot mark on his forehead and his bleeding head's blood had dried out on the snow. Hopes suddenly went down to below zero, though she was gratified that she was able to see her grandson whilst dying. A cruel soldier must've shot him when she was resting her tense mind.

In an uncertain state, Xiaoming trudged along the same crevice which leads her to the very home where she had lost it all. There was nothing to do with her life. All for one and one for all. Life was a disaster for this old soul: Xiao Ming. Her heart had been extinguished like a lost spirit flying high in the heavens. There was nothing left to handle.