Shards and Ashes

The cat and I watch as my brother explodes into a final flame.

I try to think of something to say, something important, something befitting a life and a death like my baby brother’s.

My mind is completely blank, and all I can do is cry. I can’t bring myself to burn the rest of the paper, his paper, and I fold it into my pocket.

Good-bye, Rama.

Zaijian, little brother.

And peace.

4. J A I

I lock the door behind me, sliding my c-card through the slit above the handle one last time. I straighten my ancient army jacket, buttoning it over my clothes. It warms me, even if the edges are frayed. It used to belong to my father.

Then Rama.

Now everything belongs to me. I don’t want it, any of it.

Everything is heavy, a lot to bear. Too much to carry, or even remember.

I look both ways before I cross the busy center street of Pinminku, my ghetto. Scooters and cars and cats scatter like noisy cockroaches as I step into the street. The Southlands, where I live, are full of ghettos like mine. And Pinminku is even more full of zuifan, neighborhood criminals who will steal your drops as easily as your coins. Not the greatest people to run into.

I reach with my hand into my left pocket, fingering the bare length of broken knife blade I hide in the cloth, sewn into my jacket.

I have to protect myself now.

I am all I have.

I stay in the shadows at the side of the long, straight roads of the city. Over in the fringe, the fruit and vegetable sellers shout as I pass.

I don’t even look at them. I can’t afford it.

There is a market for drops like mine. Long life for the wealthy and the ruthless.

I have to be careful.

I have a necklace. My Xianglian. That’s not a secret.

We all have one, everyone does, in Pinminku and all the ghettos of the Southlands. A necklace of raindrops, that’s how I think of them. Standard issue, my Xianglian, right at birth. They’re not made of raindrops, not really, though I couldn’t tell you what they are made of. Not even my father knew that, and I used to think he knew everything. But I have always thought of it as my necklace of raindrops, ever since my mother read me a bedtime story about an actual necklace of raindrops.

As I duck around the corner, I try to remember.

I can’t recall the story, not exactly, but the way she told it went something like this: There was a girl who had a necklace of raindrops. Each drop was powerful. Each drop had a different power.

One by one, the girl used the drops, and the drops dissolved or disappeared. I can’t recall.

When the story ended, the girl had what she wanted, but the necklace was gone. At least that’s how I remember it.

This is like that. Only not quite so happy. More like the reverse:

When the necklace is gone, the story ends. At least, my story ends.

This is how my necklace story goes:

I have a necklace of raindrops, only it’s not made of raindrops, and the raindrops don’t have powers. All they have is time. And I can spend them as I choose, but when they’re gone, my life is over, and I will die.

I find I am standing in front of the building where I work. It is still early, but I am even earlier. I have little else to do.

I swipe my card, this time my e-card, through the doorway. I wait as the door recites my numerical code, swinging open without another greeting.

One Nine Six Seven.

Rama used to tease the door, calling it different names every time we passed through.

I try not to think about Rama.

Rama is gone, I tell myself. There are things I need to do now. Because Rama is gone.

I slip into the elevator and stand staring at the back of the faceless man in front of me.

Here, on the South Coast, we have something called death. It means you have to leave when you run dropless. When your life thread—the thin, twisted chain that holds your drops together—is bare.

You do not want that to happen, not anytime soon.

But it does. It happens to all of us.

Not all drops are the same. That would be ridiculous. But everything has a price, and everyone is expected to pay it.

The elevator opens and I move toward my cubicle.

I don’t nod at the people I pass.

I don’t say hello.

I am thinking of Hana.

Hana is crazy, I mean, was crazy. She spent her drops like nobody’s business. My parents, of course, tried everything they could to get her to stop. They dropped her out of school, kept her in her room, told her to eat her vegetables. But nothing worked. Hana, she was what some people called a Lifer. A Shenghuo girl. They just go for it.

Not me.

I’m what you’d call a Keeper. A Baocun baby, a Saver. I’m the best at keeping my drops hidden away. You won’t ever see me doing anything that costs more than a drop at the most.

I’ll be around forever.

I’m the opposite of a Lifer.

Even if what I’m leading is the opposite of a life.

I slide into my cubicle at the Shenzen Life Insurance Company, a Fanzui Five Hundred Corporation. Regulated by the FEIC, the Federal Expiration Insurance Charter.

There are no photographs, no plants. Nothing that reveals anything about me, Expiration Claims Processor #25883704222. A medium-level employee. With a medium complexion, medium-length hair, a medium build. Only notable for not graduating fifth form, not sitting for my upper-level exams, and not taking a single vacation day.

Why should I? Where do I have to go? And who would notice if I was gone?

Who would care?

I wonder.

I flip on my vid screen.

As I wait, the screen is blank, black.

It’s as if I do not exist at all.

It only looks that way.

That’s my secret, the thing no one can know. People would kill for a full set of drops like the one I hold in my hand.

Killing for life. How ironic is that?

I thought I had this all worked out. I thought I had a plan for myself, a way of engineering things so they were never too dangerous, never too fast—never too unexpected or creative or different.

I was in control.