Dawn brightened the eastern sky. The world began another ordinary day. Nothing had happened, at all.
TANG FEI
Tang Fei (a pen name that should be treated as an indivisible unit) is a speculative fiction writer whose work has been featured in magazines in China such as Science Fiction World, Jiuzhou Fantasy, and Fantasy Old and New. She has written fantasy, science fiction, fairy tales, and wuxia (martial arts fantasy), but prefers to write in a way that straddles or stretches genre boundaries. She is also a genre critic, and her critical essays have been published in The Economic Observer.
A photographer and an avid traveler, Tang Fei enjoys wandering through new cities and connecting with people on unplanned adventures. If you ever meet her, ask her about the time she fell into a river in Japan.
In translation, her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Pathlight, Apex, and SQ Mag, among other places. More of her fiction can be found in Invisible Planets.
Like many of Tang Fei’s stories, “Broken Stars” isn’t easy to box into a genre. The world is uncanny and out-of-focus, and the characters inhabiting it have jagged edges and sharp spurs. At its heart is the darkness that is left after the stars have winked out.
BROKEN STARS
If I really think about it, the stars did not arrange such a fate.
But the stars are broken, and so the definitive proof is gone. This moment is a vertex where time caves in: to the left is the past, to the right—
To the right should have been the future.
But the stars are broken.
Also, I met Zhang Xiaobo.
1.
She didn’t bring an umbrella, though the weather forecast said it was going to rain. After dinner, as she passed by the shoe rack, she missed the umbrella that had been specifically set out for her.
A few other students were scattered along the sidewalk, gradually gathering into a trickle of school uniforms that crossed the road and entered the school. Tang Jiaming entered the lecture hall from the back, at the top of the tiered seats, just as the first bell for evening study hall rang.
Most of the seats under the fluorescent lamps were filled. It was the second semester of the year before graduation, and the high school had organized nightly cram sessions starting at seven for students who still had some potential of doing well on the college entrance examination. Out of the two hundred or so students in the class, only about thirty qualified for the cram sessions based on their mock exam scores. The rest went on with their regular classes during the day, and were packed into this lecture hall for self-directed study in the evenings.
Jiaming saw Zhu Yin waving at her from one of the back rows—she had saved Jiaming a seat by the window.
“So many people here tonight! I’m guessing they’re still renovating the pool hall?”
“It’s gonna rain,” Zhu Yin mumbled. She held a bunch of rubber bands between her teeth while her hands danced like butterflies flitting through her hair. Zhu Yin excelled at fancy braids, and her hands were rarely free for anything else.
“You’ll have to write out this problem for me.” Zhu Yin lifted her chin to indicate the two workbooks on the desk. “Your handwriting is so messy that I can’t even copy your solution.”
“It’s just adding two complex numbers.” Jiaming pushed the workbooks back to her.
Sometimes she helped Zhu Yin copy her homework, but not always.
Zhu Yin scowled as she continued to braid. She was still angry at Jiaming for what had happened.
“Jiaming, I’m your best friend, right? The best?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.” Jiaming’s gaze roamed around the lecture hall.
“Out of everybody in the world?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
Jiaming laughed. She turned to look at Zhu Yin—she’s so pretty. “Because I want to be just like you,” she said.
“Liar!” But Zhu Yin was pleased. Her black eyes twinkled, and the scene in front of her was reflected in those dark mirrors, perfect in every detail. Jiaming really did like Zhu Yin, liked the ease with which she could be cheered up in an instant.
Jiaming yawned. It was going to rain, a big thundershower. The outside was unusually dark, but no one in the lecture hall seemed to have noticed.
Playing with phones, copying homework, reading comic books or gossip magazines, napping smoking giggling eating… Like the slips of paper being passed around the room, the students shuttled about, changing seats without cease. Those who preferred quiet were concentrated in the first two rows so they could focus on working out supplemental problem sets for three hours. It was the same every day. The mercury-vapor lights dulled the colors and outlines, while restless, bulging, youthful bodies agitated under their clothes. The chaotic, low-background white noise was interrupted occasionally by a shout or peal of laughter. Various aromas mixed together in harmony: Little Raccoon brand dry crispy noodle snacks, ham sausage, hair spray, rain boots. She enjoyed the sensation of being immersed in her surroundings, idle.
Her heart was filled with affection for everyone.
“Did you not sleep well?” Zhu Yin asked.
“Had too much to eat,” Jiaming replied.
“I’ll help you fix your hair later. How could you let it get so messy?”
“Sounds good.”
Bang! The door slammed open. Before anyone in the room had time to react, the sand and pebbles blown in by the gust of wind struck their bodies, accompanied by flapping workbook pages and screams. Chaos reigned in the lecture hall. The gale preceding the rain careened around violently, sweeping away everything in its path. The windows creaked in their frames, the glass panes threatening to crack.
Jiaming got up to close the window; it would take but a moment.
She saw Zhang Xiaobo, even though she didn’t yet know his name.
He stood on top of the cement wall around the schoolyard, his footing uncertain in the howling wind. The wall was tall, and had grown taller every year. From where Jiaming stood it was hard to tell if he intended to jump. She thought he might. Maybe not now; maybe someday in the future.
She saw the boy bend down to sit on top of the wall and retrieve his lighter. He flicked it until it was lit but didn’t light anything; instead, he simply stared at the flickering tongue, shielding it from the wind with his hand. The tongue licked at his palm, painfully, and illuminated his face.
The windowpane before Jiaming’s face fogged up.
Strictly speaking, he wasn’t Jiaming’s type. He was too pale, too thin, with eyes that were too large and sunken in dark circles. However, he appeared serendipitously on the school wall that night.
The summer of 1998. The squall coming from over the sea brought the warm, moist scent of salt and fish. The shadows cast by the trees shifted—Jiaming had never seen the trees move so wildly, as though they craved to dance. She pressed her face against the glass and gazed at their dark outlines: perhaps someday they would uproot themselves and run madly away from here. Just then, perfectly timed, the boy had appeared on top of the only part of the wall not hidden by the shadows of the trees. The tongue of flame in his hand trembled wildly, illuminating the brown bloodstains on his white shirt. From a distance, the drumbeats of dense African jungle struck against Jiaming’s body, riding on the wet, violent blasts of the storm.