Chapter 121

SIDE B A young man’s bloodied corpse lay sprawled out on my porch. I gazed down at his lifeless form, then shifted my attention to the road in front of my house. It was a quiet morning. The apartment building across the street cast a long, black shadow over the pavement. Trumpet vines nestled in the hedges swayed with the gentle wind, whispering secrets unintelligible to human ears. Somewhere far off, the sound of a long-haul truck scraping against the road drifted by. And there, at the foot of my front steps, lay a body. A corpse. A dead body would usually stick out like a sore thumb, but not this one. This corpse blended in, becoming one with the peaceful everyday morning scenery. After a moment, I realized why. This corpse’s chest was rising and falling ever so slightly. It wasn’t a corpse. He was alive. I observed the young man. He was black from head to foot, from his shaggy hair to his high-collared overcoat, three-piece suit, and tie. The only things that weren’t black were his button-down shirt and the bandages wrapped around his face—those were a mottled pattern of white and red, reminiscent of some sort of eerie Chinese curse. He had collapsed at the bottom of the cracked concrete steps leading up to the porch, smearing a trail of blood in his wake. The question was, what was I going to do with this half-dead person on my stoop? The answer was simple: gently tap him with my toe and roll him straight down the stairs to the sidewalk. That way, he’d be on a public road instead of my property. The street is government owned, and anyone in distress on public property should, by all rights, be at the mercy of the government’s aid. Meanwhile, an ordinary deliveryman like me should go inside and eat some breakfast. This wasn’t an act of callousness or cruelty on my part; it was purely self-preservation. The young man’s injuries were unmistakably gunshot wounds, and there were plenty of them. His body probably had even more bullet holes than what I could see, too. I looked at the young man, then at the road, then at the sky, and then back at the young man. That was when I sprang into action. I hoisted him up from under his arms, his heels dragging against the stairs as I hauled him inside before laying him on the fold-down bed. He was a lot lighter than his appearance suggested, so I was able to carry him all by myself. Upon closer inspection, his wounds proved severe and plentiful. He’d lost a ton of blood, but he would probably survive with prompt and proper medical treatment. I took out a medical kit from the back of the closet and gave him some basic first aid. First, I positioned a towel beneath his upper body for elevation; then I cut his clothing away with scissors to check if he still had any bullets lodged in his wounds. To stanch the bleeding, I applied pressure to several points—beneath the armpits, behind the elbows, at the ankles, behind the knees—and bound them tightly with clean cloths. Then I used a sterilized tourniquet to address the bleeding directly at each wound site. Fortunately for him, I could do this kind of first aid with my eyes closed. Once I finished the initial treatment, I stood over the young man and crossed my arms. His breathing was stable. He didn’t appear to have any broken bones or lung injuries, yet consciousness eluded him. Just throw him out, an inaudible angelic voice demanded. Providing aid to someone so obviously suspicious defied all reason. I clearly should’ve listened to that warning—any rational person would have. But against my better judgment, I decided to observe the young man further. I didn’t recognize him, so it seemed he wasn’t an acquaintance of mine. Seemed because the bandages covering half his face made it almost impossible to tell. A strange premonition stirred within me. There was something wrong with this young man. Of course, it was impossible not to feel something was off when you found a bloodied person on your stoop…but this was a completely different kind of unease. I circled around to look at his face. The young man’s eyes were closed. His skin was pale and weary. His breathing was so shallow that I had to pay close attention to make sure he was actually alive. But even so, I sensed a strange fortitude in his posture—a force of will, a certain confidence in his body. It was as if…him lying here was all part of his plan. The young man opened his eyes and looked at me. I jumped back, startled, since I hadn’t even noticed him opening his eyes. He existed in motion without moving and perceived everything without appearing to be looking. Such preternatural abilities defined him—a specimen of humanity one might never encounter in the entirety of their existence. And then those eyes. I was never an exceptionally observant person, but nonetheless, several things became immediately clear as I gazed into the young man’s eyes. This individual had undoubtedly extinguished lives—not merely a handful or a dozen but hundreds. Anyone who had killed on such a scale transcended the realm of the normal human psyche, drifting far beyond the influence of light and gravity’s pull. You could see it in their eyes and in the corners of their mouth. Their eyes became cosmic voids, the muscles framing their lips merely instruments for articulating the depths of their sins. Another thing became clear in an instant as well: This young man knew me. “Who are you?” The voice that involuntarily escaped my lips was so dry and cracked that it didn’t sound like my own. If I hadn’t braced my feet, my legs would have taken a step back. “Who are you?” I asked again, but there was no reply. I couldn’t tell if he was able to hear me, since the light in his eyes showed absolutely no reaction to my question. Even the most frigid souls offered some flicker of a response when you locked eyes and addressed them. And yet, this young man’s gaze offered nothing. He merely oriented his dark eyes toward the space my form occupied. I couldn’t say anything for certain yet, but there was something about him. It was as if he didn’t have a heart, only a hollow space resembling one. Suddenly, the young man opened his mouth. It seemed like he was trying to speak. I focused intently on his lips, straining my ears so as not to miss a single detail…but he said nothing. His mouth formed a shape, but nothing came out. He conveyed no emotion; he only changed the shape of his lips. That was it. “Do you know me?” I asked. “Why were you collapsed in front of my house? How did you get hurt?” The young man looked at me, opened his mouth, and inhaled. I thought he was about to say something, but in the end, he didn’t. He gently closed his mouth again as if he regretted ever opening it in the first place. Could he not speak? Was this aphasia or some type of congenital speech disorder? Humans tend to lose their voices for various reasons: psychological issues, or brain diseases, or they burned their throat, or they could’ve had their larynx surgically removed. However, none of those seemed to apply to this young man. I got the sense that the words were right there, about to come out of his throat, but he was keeping them down for some reason. He could speak, yet he was choosing not to. “If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine, but you’re going to die if we don’t treat your wounds. Do you understand what I’m saying?” The young man didn’t reply. However, his eyes were filled with such a still emptiness that I figured he could indeed hear me. If he was deaf, there would surely be some sign of confusion or an indication that he couldn’t hear. “I’ll be the one to decide whether I treat your wounds or kick you out. Since you’re not talking, you don’t get to choose. Is that okay with you? If not, speak up.” The young man stared intently at me. Several seconds went by—perhaps even dozens—until he gently averted his gaze and closed his eyes. He was utterly silent and emotionless. He could hear and speak. The reason he didn’t engage in dialogue was simply because a door was closed—a thick, enormous iron door that would never open no matter how much force you applied. “All right. Then I’m going to do what I want.” My words hung suspended in the stale air before dissolving into nothingness somewhere in the corner of the room. And so my life together with the young man began. You probably wouldn’t really consider us roommates, and I wasn’t exactly nursing him back to health, either. It was more like I was fine-tuning a piece of equipment that needed constant observation and maintenance. If I were to frame it in a more twisted way, I’d compare this to taking care of a pet fish. After all, he simply lay in bed, hardly moving all day, except for when he ate or had to use the bathroom. He didn’t react to anything I said or did. It wasn’t a burden, but it didn’t feel like I was spending time with another human being. I wasn’t expecting to be thanked, and besides, this was much easier than dealing with someone who was violent or complained all the time, although it did leave me constantly on edge. I’d never experienced anything like this before. Only once, when I tried to change the bandages covering most of his face, did I encounter fierce resistance. The speed with which he reacted completely took me by surprise. He swiftly grabbed my wrist as I attempted to replace the bandages, but no other part of his body moved whatsoever. It was as if his hand alone had become a separate creature, attacking me. In truth, the bandages needed changing. The wrappings covering most of his face had already turned gray in places, and the bloodstains had darkened into a gloomy hue. From a hygienic standpoint, they weren’t something an injured person like him should be wearing…so I tried to change them, but he put up such a fight that I eventually gave up. I was applying disinfectant thoroughly anyway, so he probably wouldn’t die. I figured that he was likely afraid of me seeing his bare face. Such stubborn determination shone clearly in the hard, glacial hue of his gaze. If he was this set on not letting me see his face, then there was nothing I could do but back down. However, no matter how much I pondered over it, I couldn’t recall ever meeting him before. No memory of seeing him in a photo surfaced, either. That’s why his apprehension seemed entirely unfounded. At least, that was how I felt, and I even told him that, but he still didn’t say a word, let alone react.