Jia Kun struggled to gain consciousness. Sleepy, eyes cracked open, a blur of light, she was curious where she was. Bruised, the back of her head, her calves, a spot on her right hip, and a sharp pain in her left thigh. Her whole body ached, and a mild throbbing in her chest. Lifting her head was hard. She felt weak, without control. Where was she? She couldn’t remember much of anything. But what about now? She was lying on a bed, a thin mattress, no blanket, and a strange odor. She tried lifting her right arm, but without control, it flopped over her chest. Something hard was in her left hand, cold, metallic; she squeezed her hand, hard edges, small. Turning her head, blurry images of a room, olive green walls, and small windows up high. Can’t feel legs, disoriented, despairing. A myna’s whistles, clicks, and squawks…okay…in a room, somewhere in a jungle. That was better, feels good.
“Jia?” a faint, small voice called out. “Jia, that you?”
Jia Kun slowly, forcefully, turned her head toward the sound. Gazing through the blur, she blinked her eyes, squeezed them shut, willed them open, then squinted. Nearby, a metal-framed bed with a thin grey mattress and a small person lying on her side. “Jia?” The voice called out again, a little stronger.
Jia Kun tried to speak, but her mouth was dry and bitter. “Gely?”
Gely Suy's voice was small, quiet, laced with fear. “Jia, where are we? What happened?”
Jia Kun tried to sit up, focus, and look toward the figure on the other bed. Moving caused her ankles and wrists to sear with pain, as if her skin had been scraped to the bone with a knife. Finally…sitting on the side of her bed, she opened her left hand. Inside, a small medallion. She stared at the medallion, thinking about it, when Gely stumbled across the room and flopped, sitting onto the bed next to her.
“That’s your medallion, Jia. Your Auntie gave you.”
Jia Kun's eyes were still blurry, but she could make out the medallion in her hand and Gely sitting beside her. She couldn’t remember how she got in this room, or why she felt sleepy and bruised, but she did remember Auntie Sabriya giving her the St. Michael Foundation medallion. Where was the gold chain?
“I’m scared, Jia. I don’t know what’s happening. Why are we here? Why aren’t we at school?” Gely began to weep quietly. She was afraid someone might hear her.
“Don’t know, Gely. Let’s get out…go home.”
Jia Kun's body hurt all over; she was weak, and her vision was still blurry, although not as bad as a few minutes ago. She tightened her fist around the medallion and stood up, pulling Gely up off the bed with her. Turning and looking around the small room, there was only one door. The walls were bare, and the windows were very small, set way at the top of the room, too high to reach or see out of. The cold cement floor was cracked from one side of the room to the other. She went to the heavy wooden door and pulled on the square handle; the door would not open. She pushed, but it would not move. She could not see how the door opened or closed. There were no hinges or straps that seemed to hold it in place. She got down on her knees and looked through the crack next to the floor, centimeters wide, into the room beyond. It looked like there was furniture, a chair, and a table, but she could see nothing else, nor anyone else. She got up, and with Gely, they both pulled and pushed on the square handle. The door didn’t budge.
Gely wept, went back to her bed, and sat down. Jia Kun joined her and opened her hand with the medallion. “My Auntie taught me a prayer if I was ever in trouble. It’s a prayer for help to the angel on the medallion. Can you see the picture of him? He holds a sword?”
“Idols aren’t real, you know,” said Gely.
“Auntie said this isn’t an idol like some people have and worship. This is just a picture of a powerful angel from heaven, named Michael. I want to say the prayer. Do you want to say it with me?”
Gely shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno. What good will it do?”
“I don’t know, but it’s something. Maybe it will help us.”
“Aren’t you scared?” asked Gely.
Jia Kun held out her hand; her whole arm shook.
Gely was skeptical. “I just think idols are stupid.”
“It’s not an idol.” Jia Kun opened her fist so Gely could see the image of Michael. “Okay, I’m going to pray it. You don’t have to.” Jia Kun stared at the medallion in her hand and, in a shaking, soft voice, prayed. “Dear St. Michael, defend us in battle…”
After she was done praying, she wondered what to do with the medallion. “I have no pocket to put the medallion into. I might lose it. No necklace. I need a string.”
Immediately, Gely started scratching the edge of the mattress. The corner of the mattress was ribbed. Gely got on her knees and chewed on the ribbing. The outer layer came loose, and she pulled on the threads inside the outer sheath. The threads would not come out. She crawled a meter down the mattress and began chewing on the rib again, revealing the internal threads. But she kept chewing until the threads were broken through. She pulled, and a long, strong string or piping emerged from the outer sheath. There was a hole on one edge of the medallion where the ring clasp had once attached itself. Jai Kun threaded the piping through the hole, tied the ends together, and Gely took the loop and put it over Mi’s head. After that, Jia tucked the medallion inside her top.
“Now what?” Jia Kun asked. “I’m getting hungry.” The backpacks they had worn to school, which contained books and their lunch, were gone…along with their memory.
Just then, an outer door in the adjacent room opened with a metal squeak and a clang. Men’s voices mumbled as heavy footsteps approached. More murmuring, and then a crash bar was removed from the outside of the door to the room where Jia Kun and Gely were imprisoned. The door creaked open, and two men in jeans, tennis shoes, black T-shirts, and hoods entered the room.
No words were spoken. One man grabbed Jia Kun's forearms, and a second grabbed Gely's, and the girls were marched, stumbling out of the room. An unseen observer would have heard two girls weeping as they were led off, the footsteps scuffing across cement, then gravel, another door clanging shut, several doors of a car opening along with a trunk, some more shuffling and crying, then a door slamming shut, a car driving off…and finally silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment