On one of the main hallways one of us had fallen , spread on the ground like an overripe fruit . There was nowhere to step but on her body . She could not scream .
One of the doors was jammed , we heard the girls inside struggling against it . It would have taken too much time . We ran .
We didn ' t need any . By the time we stood outside , the factory had stained the night yellow . Part of the walls had crumbled , its windows sagging like saddened eyes . We watched as girls tried to jump from the windows and cracked , bursting , against the ground . The main building had split along its sides , groaning with the heat .
People would call out the names of those presumed missing . We jostled , shouting in response . Some of us were wracked with sobs . No sirens announced rescue over the horizon , and in morning , we were sent back into what remained and told to sleep .
On the newspaper , there was no news of the fire . Every worker was handed a consolation bag with small packets of detergent or wheat crackers ; during roll call before the morning shift , the manager reminded that we had to fulfill their contracts or else receive no pay . When the foreign , English-speaking presses found out three days later , things changed . There were articles , published in English newspapers none of us could understand , about how the factor had apparently failed multiple safety tests . Some of us were interviewed , our photographs taken .
We were relieved of our jobs and nobody could believe it . There were bonuses imparted for our condition , and we celebrate with an uncertain sense of triumph . Life as we had known it was over . We - our group - slowly splintered and landed across the country , like seeds blown in the wind . Group chats expired with disuse . Some of us began working in hot-pot restaurants , others became dancers who frequented local bars . It was hard to remember the nights spent we spent as one , breathing together , feigning sleep .
Yong had stopped dyeing her hair and became a waitress . We heard about Suo , who was working in a mine somewhere , overseeing the explosions that would tear apart the entrances to new mines . We also found out that the Shizhang was moving to a company that manufactured computers and phones . The big company owners were retiring , we imagined , in suburban with neatly ironed lawns .
Good , old , immensely strange Tianmu went on to receive some sort of literary prize . We looked at the brightly lit shots of him on stages decorated with lurid pink bouquets , her face now acne-free , maybe even quite attractive now . Who would have known ?
The novel was riveting - one of those artistic novels , about an unnamed girl .
The girl was too young to remember the time her parents tried to drown her , but she remembered it nonetheless . With the benefit of retrospect , she could revisit the memory as a tourist , indifferently , even good-humoredly , peering into a precipice of the ages : she was naked and hysterical , a starved dog thrashing with sourceless energy ; an incandescent bulb wove shadows across the bathroom tiles ; her throat was burning ; it was winter , during a dim early evening , and there was an edge to the air ; the arms that held her down were slippery and motionless ; the water she inhaled was a blade cleaving her chest in two ; Ma only watched , wordlessly ; she was exactly one year old .