thoughts on fiction

I often eat lunch at the Social Science Library café because you can get a hot meal there for £4 or less. I sit alone on one of the long tables and eat while reading New Yorker stuff on my phone. A couple of weeks ago I was scrolling through Fiction and read this piece called Writing Teacher by John Edgar Wideman. It's about a black professor of fiction at a university who has a white student writing a short story about the struggles of a single black mother. It was pretty boring, to be honest, and I kind of started skimming. But one aspect of this otherwise uninteresting story was the way the main character thinks about fiction –– as if it's alive and has its own agency, or a knot that you have to untangle.

My student’s story stuck like most people’s because there’s no place for it to go. Except to explore the sadness of wanting things not to be the way they indisputably are. A story begins with an author’s desire to write it. Starts with a person the author happens to be.

[...]

So let’s look closer. Together, Teresa. I believe we both care. Look right here, page 3, where your young woman’s infuriated by a smug, smart-ass emergency-room clerk who assumes that the female in front of him, because she is young and colored, won’t own health insurance to pay a doctor to sew up a bloody gash in her daughter’s head. Why not have your young woman kill him and turn your story into that story. 

Show not tell. Don’t bother telling me or telling a young woman you are on her side and wish to help. She doesn’t need that kind of help. She’s quite as capable as you are of dealing with an obnoxious clerk. Your story depicts her as stuck much deeper. She needs more than words, your story says. So maybe chopping off the clerk’s head a way out. A way out of the story and out of yourself, too. Risk letting her do what you would never do. Then maybe the young woman will speak for herself, not you. Speak with action not words. Break free, break bad outside the story’s boundaries.

This was really interesting to me. It kind of shows that, to really write fiction, you can't just make something up and plan out the plot, the character development. You can't write a neat little flowchart like an an essay. To really make your story alive, you can only write and see where the fiction takes you. You're in dialogue with your character. Your story has to really change them––there has to be a reason to tell it.

Based on this, I guess this main character would write fiction by creating a character, a truly real person, and then putting them in a situation. Just the initial situation. Then write your way out of it.

That's really fascinating to me because I'm a big planner, obviously, I love to plan my life and make sure I always know what direction I'm going in. Like I've described before, I used to outline the plots of my stories. But something I worried about was that my characters and plots were all just cardboard: existing on a superficial level, doing things but with no real soul or personality. I wondered how I could develop three-dimensional characters.

My biggest issue was trying to make my work deep: putting in different themes and motifs so that people analysing my work in the future will write essay upon essay about me. That's always what I've wanted with my writing, even this blog, which I started because I was reading Yiyun Li's To Speak is to Blunder and she mentioned reading Katherine Mansfield's diaries and I was like, "I want a proper diary so that people in the future can use it as aids to write my biography/analyse my work. So that when I'm dead my publisher will capitalise on it by editing my entries into a neat little book and print it in hardcover." Anyway, so I tried to write based on feeling. I would pick a theme, like "loneliness" or "alienation" or "disconnection from reality" or "fear of the future" –– all things I feel acutely –– and try to run with it, but nothing ever really came of it. But wasn't the point of fiction to write the truth?? Here I was with my emotional truths and I had zero inspiration, could think of no story other than a girl sitting on a swing with her head leaning against the chain.

But fiction should be more organic. You need to let it breathe. Some of my favorite work has been to just write and then figure out what it's about. I played around with words and wrote a poem about physicality. I messed around in Chinese and wrote a poem about grief. I started to describe the taste of watermelon and ended up with a piece about diaspora. (WOW I just checked and not to brag but it has the most views out of all the pieces in Industry's Food issue.... although half of those were probably just me) (The formatting was not me I'm pretentious but not THAT pretentious.) All of these are non-fiction, technically... I mean, they're kind of in that weird zone with poetry where it's based on fiction but for the sake of imagery and emotion, the truth has been adjusted. I just need to try to apply it to fiction.

I guess that's why a lot of fiction is semi-autobiographical.

I also just read this Jenny Zhang interview and I love, love, love Jenny but for some reason I couldn't focus properly on reading it. I actually had to force myself to read it. The whole time I wanted to close the tab. Strange. Maybe it's the design or something.

Storytelling

I used to tell stories, but I haven't come up with ideas in years. I’m not sure why. 

I used to lie in bed and throw myself into daydreams about pirates or ninjas or the Mafia, depending on what in particular I was obsessed with at the time. I would map plots and repeat scenes in my head until every line of dialogue ran smoothly, no hiccups, looking through different camera angles. Sometimes I’d loop the same few minutes over and over just so I could indulge in the emotions my characters were feeling, extreme things like rage and heartbreak that I never had the opportunity to experience in my mundane life. Meanwhile I wrote Chapter Ones in notebooks, filling five pages before giving up and ripping the pages out, or finding a new notebook. In the fifth grade we read Kensuke’s Kingdom, so I wrote a few sentences about two sisters who lived on a boat, but never got around to their actual adventures. In the sixth grade, I actually managed to complete a short story called Firesong (I’d taken the title off a random book spine in the primary school library; I loved the sound of it; I thought it was genius). It was full of moments transcribed from my favorite manga, One Piece, that probably made no sense. I used the Papyrus font, which I would not see again until I started taking piano lessons at the Conservatoire and my teacher used it to write the recital programs. Jiaqi Kang: Clair de lune. 

I stopped setting my nightly daydreams in other authors’ universes when I started working on my fantasy series called “The Sonata Dilemma”, which occupied me between the ages of 11 and 15. At first, it was an amalgamation of everything I’d ever read: the fictional world was called Fiore (like in Fairy Tail), and characters had golems (like in D. Gray Man), and they travelled among island states (like in One Piece). Some characters were twists on fairy tales, including the three little pigs, who were named Edgar, Allan, and Poe (like how Lemony Snicket uses literary references.) Most of the names, though, were either taken from people I knew in real life, or were a significant word that got put through three layers of Google Translate to seem symbolic. During the peak of my My Chemical Romance phase, I planned to integrate lyrics to songs into my books. For a while I was deeply ashamed of this serial plagiarism, unable to believe that preteen me had had the nerve to rip off these known works. But now I don’t care: after all, all books speak of other books. I was just a misunderstood postmodern prodigy. I was reading so much, devouring volume after volume, and my brain was becoming so unbearably full of information and ideas that I just had to vomit it back out somewhere. 

What does still baffle me, though, is the internalised racism in part thanks to a Jacqueline Wilson childhood: out of 12 main characters, all but one were conceptualised as white. (Yifei was Chinese, and her name came from the badass academic in Aiqing Gongyu.) I would later reconfigure around 40% of the names so that they indicated ethnic backgrounds. These days, the only times white characters appear in my stories are when they’re the bad guys. Ha. 

The original idea for the Sonata Dilemma was twelve 12-year-old girls who are recruited by the government as part of Project Olympia to become secret agents fighting against the evil mafia led by Yue Sonata, due to their magical powers, the nature of which corresponded to the 12 Olympian gods (Percy Jackson.) A twelve-book series that got darker and more serious as it progressed (Harry Potter.) I’d always loved stories with sad endings, so at some point the government became evil and manipulative, which the girls would realise in the final book. They would then get together with the bad guys (who were actually good) and activate S.T.A.R.D.O.M., a weapon that would bring about the apocalypse (Rave Master… I think.) Not bad for an eleven year old.

I could finally put an end to my awful habit of abandoning new stories halfway through. The scope of the series, and the multitude of side characters, meant that there were endless prequels and sequels and spin-offs to be added that stayed within the same universe and same wider pictures. I would record these ideas, assign them to a character (usually as a tragic backstory for a member of Yue Sonata’s cabal), and promise myself to get to it after I’d finished writing the core series. I created a highly complex family tree that linked every single character in the whole franchise through blood, adoption, or marriage (A Series of Unfortunate Events.) The ancestors’ names started with A and B, and their children were C and D, and so on. (Also A Series of Unfortunate Events.) Yue Sonata was second-to-last in the Sonata clan, but that didn’t mean he was the second youngest. There was a lot of time travel involved because the universe was made up of 4 worlds, whose names I’ve unfortunately forgotten: one was our normal world; another was Fiore, a parallel world in which magic and mermaids existed that was ruled by a series of matriarchs; another was a post-apocalyptic future; and Åsgard was an eerie wasteland that connected everything together, a liminal space through which characters travelled to get from one world to another. Most of the action took place in Fiore, but would spill over into the others, and linear time was hardly important. The drama of one hugely complicated family would ruin everything. The Sonata Dilemma. 

Naturally, the stories were to be written under a pseudonym: Lokki Montgomery (previously Adel), who was also a character and was the sole survivor of not one but two horrible tragedies (also A Series of Unfortunate Events): the end of the world, but also the battle that turned Åsgard into the barren landscape it is today, where all of her friends from L.E.A.F’s first generation were killed, including her lover (again… A Series of Unfortunate Events.) L.E.A.F, whose initials represented the 4 worlds (I really forgot what L and E stood for), was the name for Fiore’s Queen’s elite intelligence squad, also comprised of 12 agents. I don’t remember why they died anymore, although I think there were monsters and that it had been under the Queen’s own orders, but they were later replaced by a second generation, who would each be assigned a Project Olympia candidate to secretly supervise from birth until they were ready to be activated. Project Olympia, in turn, was initiated, and the candidates artificially being given superpowers, as defense in case Yue Sonata’s organisation ever decided to come back for a second revolution after they’d failed horribly the first time. The first time was known as the S.I.E.G.E., because there was a siege, at the capital, and it had ended with Yue being cryogenically frozen in the dungeon. His underlings, who were in fact an alliance made up of 4 different criminal groups, planned for over a decade to return and release him. 

Spinoffs included a book titled “Crime and Cowardice” (get it? Like Pride and Prejudice), set in late 19th-century Canada and loosely inspired by Pandora Hearts, about an aristocratic girl named Lacie Watsun who runs away from a forced marriage and takes up with a homeless guy, and they fall in love. Or the stories set in the post apocalyptic future: Enma (name stolen from Katekyo Hitman Reborn) grew up in an orphanage after his father died shielding him from a nuclear blast, but everyone hates him because his face is scarred. One day, looking out from the window, he sees a young girl in the playground, and I forget the rest, but it was all based on the MCR song “S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W”; Walker Edgecombe (named after a teacher at my school, Mr. E-W) is collectively raised by teachers in a utopia’s Children’s Village and has a chip in his brain that records his thoughts, but one day discovers a warehouse for old chips and is compelled by a vagabond boy, Holly, his future second-in-command when he leads the Revolution, to search for a blind girl with powers who will answer his questions. 

And so on and so forth. Not bad for an eleven year old. 

I wrote the first draft of the first book, about a mermaid named Phoenix Alora whose arm can turn into a hammer, on our family iPad. At the time I didn’t know about caps lock, so I would hit shift for every letter that I wanted in capitals, including chapter titles and shouting dialogue. I drew pictures of my characters and filled out Rick Riordan’s personality questionnaires to develop them, assigning likes and dislikes and degrees of messiness. I posted the first few chapters on Wattpad and designed my own cover, with a phoenix painting I stole off Deviantart and Century Gothic as the title font. Or was it Copperplate? I polished the manuscript for years until, at around 13, I got the courage to print it out and put it in a binder for my friends’ mother, a published author, to read. She gave a lot of constructive feedback that helped me a lot with the world building, but for a long time after that I was embarrassed that I’d wasted her time with my awful writing. 

My mom said that I couldn’t just make things up and that everything I wrote had to be grounded in reality. I thought she was trying to tell me I wasn’t allowed to write about these things unless I’d actually experienced them. I stood by my imaginative credibility. 

Now I can only write things grounded in reality. Looking back at a short story I’d wrriten at the age of 14 about a girl and her imaginary boyfriend, I can’t believe I’d managed to write about romance without experiencing it, although I guess that’s where the “imaginary” part comes in. The latest thing I’ve written, an absurdist novel I’ve been working on since 2014, is deeply rooted in my own memories - it’s about a diasporic Chinese girl living in Geneva who makes friends at root seeking camp in China and wants to achieve great things. 

Lately I’ve been thinking about adaptation. A year ago I came up with an idea for a TV show (unfortunately it’s all lost because my Notes app on my laptop crashed). It’s a space opera with martial arts, about 5 ragtag girls from vastly different backgrounds (showcasing the diversity of Chineseness) who become sworn sisters who save a vampire’s life. In return she breaks them out of jail (I forget why) and recruits them into an underground resistance group against the evil British space empire. They get separated and all learn martial arts over the next few years, eventually becoming the 5 greats, like in Legend of the Condor Heroes. They reunite to lead the revolution but end up being assassinated by imperial forces and fail. It’s supposed to be a sci-fi Jin Yong story. I still think about it every once in a while. 

Another adaptation I want to do is a modern day Three Kingdoms TV show. It’s set in some city in the 21st century, and the kingdoms are bookshops that are vying to hold the midnight release of the last Harry Potter book, thus ensuring their survival in an age where paper books are dying and everything is being ruined by Amazon. Also, they have machine guns, for the exaggerated Tarantino esque violence. Also, it’s all women of color, and most of them are lesbians, because that’s really cool. I really like this idea and I hope that some day I can pitch it to Netflix, but first I actually have to watch and read Three Kingdoms to understand the basis. 

My boyfriend said he’d love to see me write a screenplay, because it would probably be really interesting. I’d love to see me write a screenplay too. I’ve tried to write stories but I can’t. I try to fashion a coming of age narrative out of feelings of alienation, fear of the future, and anxiety over the inevitable forwardness of time, all emotions that pretty much consume my every waking moment, but nothing comes out. Whereas as a child I’d been full of plot twists and character arcs, now, I guess, I can only write about myself, and even then it’s not particularly enthusiastic. Now I can’t imagine anyone writing fiction that isnt based on themselves. Obviously fiction is really about combining imagination and truth. What is at the center is always true.

But at the same time I don’t want to be that author who can only write about people like em. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s body of work is full of stories about educated Nigerian women who sometimes move to New England for some academic Ivy League reason and stay there. The New Yorker girls in Jenny Zhang’s Sour Heart are all from Shanghai, all are connected to Long Island, all have an academic parent. One went to Stanford and has a much younger brother.  I love Jenny. But I hope her next work goes further from her comfort zone. Then again, it is her début. 

I havent written a story in a very long time. I hope that it’ll come back to me someday. 

A story i wrote when i was 14

23.12.2013 to be accurate. Posting it here for posterity lol. One of the only things ive ever completed. Word for word from my old tumbkr account below:

(it’s set in paris and i dont actually know how a real kiss tastes like i was just assuming but it definitely doesnt taste like some song from Carmen)

the ending is soooo crappy and rushed but yeah

I 1^st met you in the cemetery, of course.

(A slow dance at some birthday in November. We danced to a song neither of us had ever heard before. I don’t know the song even now, and I don’t even know the lyrics: the singer, in English I think, sang like knuckles along piano keys, his words blurred except for the chorus, come on come on come on and it wasn’t like I was listening for the words because I was smelling the lilies inside your collar and the vodka on your breath. Before you I’d spent every party sipping some unknown drink and watching my friends make out with each other. And yes I still did, but with you it was different)

It was a bright, sunny day, the kind of day that kept one warm hand on your (not you your, obviously) back and guided you, malgré toi, to the nearest source of ice-cold water. June; first day of the summer holidays. I was 15 and alone: indeed I’m always alone, but especially in the cemetery.

(I was in a bookstore in July buying my summer reading. There were already almost a dozen books inside the basket I was provided, biographies and comic books and novels and thrillers and Around the World in 80 Days. I was looking through the latest young adult dystopian stories when I felt a jostle on my shoulder blades and I scowled and turned around and you were there, six feet tall in a dark green t-shirt and round black sunglasses. We talked about Harry S. Truman for two hours and in the end I bought my books, 40 of them and half about the Korean War. We went to the film store on the other side of the city and rented three documentaries that were 90% talking and 10% archive film. At 20:00 we were in my living room and kissing and you tasted like Habarena)

I was wearing my 3^rd-favourite top, the one from Mallorca, and my favourite pair of shorts, and I was holding:

• a symphony of flowers of various origins
• Dan Brown’s Inferno, hardcover, 1^st edition, translated from the English to the French by Mark Taylor
• a pen
• beer in an iced tea bottle

(On the 31^st of October, Halloween, we bought expensive tickets to a Russian production of Swan Lake and arrived 50 minutes late, not because of traffic even though there was traffic, but because we hadn’t even gotten off the couch 20 minutes in. We had to be shown in with a torch and 30 legs had to be raised in order to let us pass. I relished in the complaints those rich women made, and their quick gasps of regret when they saw your walking stick.)

The spot in which I usually sat to lean against a stone wall and draw my thoughts was nearest to Rémy Garcia 1946-1994 a loving husband and Elisabeth Ferschin 1998-2013 insane little girl, located in the bottom-left corner of the cemetery from bird’s eye view, but that day I did not go at my usual hour (6am) and if I did not go at my normal hour I would not sit on my normal bench.

(We were sitting on an ant-sized cliff by the river in September, the rush of the current and the screeching of birds the only noise. I was thinking about my parents and I don’t know what you were thinking about, maybe your parents too. I realise now I do not know what became of them.)

I walked the graveyard’s perimeter twice, and then crossed it diagonally in all directions. For an hour I did nothing but search for a comfortable seat amongst the dead and gone.

(One August morning we were in my room. My computer was on my lap, balanced on the tips on my bare knees threatening to fall over, and we were looking at pictures of you on this program that morphed faces into different ages, well, I looked and you listened to my descriptions as I tried to tell you how you looked accurately while trying too hard to be poetic. There was you when you were a small child and you now, and you as a 12-year-old with acne, and you later, when you’re middle-aged and an estate agent somewhere, you much later when you’re old and wrinkles cover your face like roads on a map.)

In the end I was about to find my usual spot again—and that’s when you caught my eye. In reflection, I can’t believe I had never noticed you before. You stood there, dressed in filthy gray. I walked over and gave you my flowers, and I sat down in front of you, and we talked. About philosophy, at first, and then about death, and then about the apocalypse, and then about the Jurassic era, deep, meaningful conversations. I spent a whole entire day there with you, and that’s how it began.

(On a Tuesday a boy at school asked me to smoke a cigarette with him and his friends. At 14:00 during free period we exited the school gates and took the Metro two stops to the east. We leaned against the grimy tiled walls of the station and I took my first drag of smoke. If a person passed by at the right moment, we would look just like a ragtag bunch of black kids, in a gang and/or truanting, laughing about something in the December air. I saw you on the other side of the street: you weren’t exactly conspicuous, with the busy street crowd parting for you subtly like a 2-frame-per-second Red Sea. You didn’t see me, of course.)

You died when you were 4 years old, or at least that’s what it said on the grave: 1997-2001. I went back and looked you up, and it was a car accident, a speeding truck and a blind little boy to whom nobody paid attention to for 4 seconds. I spent so much time with the ghosts in that crumbling little place, and I could just imagine your death. I could see the neon advertisements on the buildings and the stark blue sky, and the moment of impact must’ve been one of those fast things that no-one really notices and then everyone does, a single miscalculation on the biggest clock of all time that at first barely makes a twang but in less than a second has managed to stop the entire order of operations.

(Last week was New Year’s Day, and I was invited to a big school party held by a senior, and I don’t remember much from it except I wore very high heels which were muddy when I stumbled home barefoot at 01:45 on the 2^nd of January. I also remember that I was talking to a boy about types of liquor and Kim Kardashian and stuff we’d seen on the Internet, and then he kissed me and he tasted like nicotine and paprika chips and mint which is what real kisses taste like. He wasn’t at all like you, or how I imagined you to be. I made you up to be a pretentious hipster, like I am, who thought I wasn’t like other girls, like I did, and he is obsessed with How I Met Your Mother.)

I was so lonely, and I’m sorry. I love you, but it’s time to say goodbye. I am sitting in a coffee shop that faces the Montparnasse traffic. You are getting up and saying goodbye, putting on your coat, which is huge and dusty and tweed and 34 years old and you walk outside and wave goodbye while walking across the road and there is a speeding car of whatever colour and whatever make and a splat and a scream and you are gone, just like you have always been.

Stop Praying, Kanye Is Not Going to Help You - Extract #2

Taking place 1 year before the previous extract, this is the tale of root-seeking camp Russian Roulette's first casualty.

9

A$$hole had an older brother named Greg. It was a very strange name, incredibly rare. Nobody knew any other person with such a name, not even in fantasy fiction. There’d been a brief rumor on the first day of camp that Greg was an alien - as well as the unique name, it also explained his tall 2-meter frame, his immaculate eyebrows, and, most of all, the unbelievably vast amount of kindness in his heart. No living human could be as kind as he was. It wasn’t even like he’d done anything incredibly kind, though he had, but it was the fact that he generally emanated an impression of goodwill and smelled like freshly baked banana bread. It was a kind of aura that made everyone in the vicinity fall in love.

Greg and A$$hole’s room at the hotel we were staying at that night was room number 403. Mine and Frog’s was 103. We drove the 300 kilometer distance in the dead of the night, passing rows and rows of asphalt corridors, unironically blasting Gangnam Style at full volume so that the doorframes shook and rattled. When we arrived, it was past midnight and a small crowd had gathered inside the room.

I had three things in my hands. The first was a cheap water bottle filled halfway with orange juice and halfway with petrol. It was almost empty because Frog had drunk a lot of it on the way, chugging and giggling as I gripped the steering wheel with nervous knuckles. The second was a sachet of Oreos. The third was a key to the car, a Peugeot with stained seats that we’d rented for ten yuan at reception. “Where can I park this?” I asked into the crowd.

Greg stood up, brushing himself off. “How about here?” he suggested. He moved his own car that he’d had shipped all the way from Flemishland, a cherry-red Ferrari, out of the parking space in front of the door and away into a dark alley outside of the hotel. “This should be fine.” The hotel staff had warned us about ferocious stray tigers that would vandalise anything we left outside; Greg’s beautiful automobile surely would not survive the night. I was touched by this act of kindness – he was willing to sacrifice his car for mine.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m so touched by this act of kindness – you’re willing to sacrifice your car for mine?”

“No worries,” Greg replied as we returned to the party.

Back inside, it was Ruttemark’s turn. He held the rusty gun to his head (he had to burrow it past his thick curtain of hair), squeezed his eyes shut, and pulled the trigger. A dozen chrysanthemum petals erupted against his skull. He breathed a sigh of relief as everyone applauded half-heartedly.

I went to the bathroom to wash my hands.

When I returned, Ruttemark handed me the gun. Suddenly, everyone was looking my way. “Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Are we playing the version with the actual bullets or the euthanasia?” I asked, feeling stupid. “Or electrocution?”

“Electrocution,” A$$hole said. “The euthanasia stuff is too expensive, and Greg said that it would be unkind to expect the cleaning staff to have to wipe up blood from bullets.”

“Oh, how kind and considerate,” I said, looking at Greg, who, sitting in front of a lamp, seemed surrounded by a halo of light, like a saint.

“Also, if you survive, you have to play Truth or Dare. It’s just to spice things up a bit.”

“Sure.”

I realised felt a little anxious. It had been one or two years since I’d last played this game. Concentrate. This is Russian Roulette. I took a breath, taking it deep.

“Hurry up, Marathon!” someone yelled.

“Calm yourself,” Greg said to me kindly.

I took the gun from Ruttemark and counted to three under my breath. I was sweating now, and moving slow. They were all waiting. There was no time to think. It was my turn to go.

I didn’t know why I was suddenly feeling so self-conscious, as if everyone in the room could see my heart beating through my chest. “I’m terrified,” I admitted.

“You don’t have to play,” Greg reassured me kindly.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not leaving.”

I knew that I had to pass this test – it was like an initiation exam. The Flemish kids, unofficially the coolest ones in the camp, would decide whether or not to accept Frog and I as part of their group based on this moment. Not that I really minded, but I knew that Frog wanted to hang out with them. Do it for Frog, I told myself. Plus, they’ll follow you on Instagram if they’re friends with you. You want more followers on Instagram, don’t you?

“Close your eyes,” Greg said. “Sometimes it helps.”

“The fact that you’re here. It means you’ve never lost.”

Greg shrugged.

My life flashed, briefly, before my eyes – visions of chocolate factories, schoolroom desks, and my laptop keyboard at various times of day. Not exactly illustrious. I still hadn’t achieved any of my goals yet. I wasn’t CEO of Lindt® yet! Would I ever see another sunrise? I wondered. Many people must’ve died without getting the chance of saying goodbye, but it was too late to think about the value of my life when Frog and I’s #cred was on the line.

So I just pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

I felt slightly embarrassed. I didn’t know why I’d been so worked up about pulling the trigger when I’d survived countless times. Nobody really seemed to mind that much that I’d held up the game, though. Greg gave me a thumbs up.

“Truth or Dare?” Baboon asked.

“What?” I blinked as I registered what he was saying. “Dare.”

“Okay, I dare you to eat some of Ruttemark’s hair.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I think I’ll pass. Truth.”

“You can’t go back on it!”

“Yes, I can! You never said I couldn’t.”

“You’re not allowed!”

“But I don’t want to eat Ruttemark’s hair!”

“Hey! That hurts my feelings, you know?” Ruttemark said.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s nothing personal. I don’t want to eat anyone’s hair. Just give me a Truth already, Baboon.”

“Fine. Let me think for a while.”

“Hey, do you want some petrol? It’s Marathon’s, but I’m sure she won’t mind. It’s a bit watered down with orange juice, but it tastes pretty good,” Frog said, her speech slightly slurred.

“Sure, bring it on,” A$$hole replied.

“Where are you from again?”

“Flemishland.”

“Cool. That’s the name for, like, Benelux when they officially joined together during the economic crisis in order to help boost their economy, but now it’s doing worse than ever and Lindt® is buying pieces of the land, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Woohoo! Go Lindt®!” I cheered. “Represent!”

“Is it nice there?” Frog continued, ignoring me.

“Yeah, it’s quite nice. I like it.”

“I’ve been to Amsterdong. When I was on tour for Legally Blonde? Well, it was called Legally Feathered Wig, since I played Elle and, well, I’m not blonde. Anyway, it was a great city. It was still called Amsterdam back then.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why they changed it.”

“Exactly! Especially since Rotterdam is still called that. I’m planning on going to university there,” Frog said. “Rotterdam. I’m going to study economics and international management.”

“Me, too,” A$$hole said. “What a coincidence. Are you good at economics? I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m pretty good at it.’ So I chose it. What about you?”

“Oh, I mean, I wasn’t saying that I’m, like, better at economics than you or anything. I don’t know anything about economics,” Frog interjected quickly, giggling a little. “Maybe you could teach me!”

I squinted at her.

“Okay! I found one. Marathon. I found one. This is great. This is a novel idea.”

“Yeah?” I said, pulling myself out of Frog’s and A$$hole’s worrying conversation. “What is it? Took you a while.”

“Well, it’s not really a Truth. More like an FMK.”

“Baboon, an FMK is not a novel idea.”

“Whatever. Okay, you ready?”

“Sure.”

“Everyone listen up! This is gonna be so interesting. Okay. Fuck, marry, kill; bed, wed, behead. Get the drumroll going, guys.”

“Just say it, Baboon.”

“Greg, A$$hole, and Ruttemark.”

“That’s literally just three of the guys in the room. It is so unoriginal. None of this counts as a novel idea.”

“I think it’s novel.”

“It’s not novel. Anyone could come up with it.”

“Shut up, Ruttemark. I bet you couldn’t.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t, because I’m way smarter and more creative than that.”

“Let Marathon answer it. What’s it gonna be, Marathon?”

“This is actually quite easy. I’d kill A$$hole, first of all –”

“Wow.”

“Sorry, A$$hole. Not sorry, actually. Maybe if you started wearing deodorant I might change my mind.”

“Wow.”

“Anyway, so, yeah, I’d kill A$$hole. Personally, romance doesn’t interest me at all, like, in any way whatsoever. But –”

“You have to choose.”

“Yes, I know. I was getting to that. Now, as I was saying: If I had to choose, I’d marry Greg, just because he’s so convenient. His height lets him reach things that I wouldn’t be able to. That’s pretty much all I look for in a romantic relationship, really. So that leaves…”

“Wow.”

“Nice, nice,” Ruttemark said.

“I’m really flattered, Marathon. That’s very kind of you. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Greg. I’m only trying to be kind like you.”

“Why would you kill A$$hole, though?” Frog said.

“What, you wouldn’t?”

“I’d marry him, to be honest.”

“Ew!” I exclaimed. “Seriously?” I couldn’t believe my ears. She’d obviously had way too much petrol.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Who would you kill?”

“Greg, probably. Sorry, Greg.”

“Nice, nice,” Ruttemark said.

“It’s alright. You and A$$hole are, like, true love. I can’t get in the way of that. I’d gladly die for it. Like Mercutio, or whatever.”

“Exactly! I’d totally marry A$$hole. That is a concept that I am down with.” Frog laughed loudly, her teeth shiny and bright in the darkened room. I frowned. I didn’t know if everyone was kidding around and I was simply out of the loop, or if they were all being dead serious.

“Really?” A$$hole asked, his face full of hope. “Are you down with that?”

“I am down with that!” Frog said again.

I frowned harder. “But –” I stammered. I was lost for words, astonished at what I viewed as an act of utter betrayal.

“So if I asked right now,” A$$hole said, “you’d marry me?”

“Uh-huh. I would. Wait, what?”

A$$hole had finished off all the petrol from my bottle, something that made me even more irritated – I hadn’t had one drop. He got up to one knee and took of the root wreath that we’d made for him, pulling out some parts. Deftly, he fashioned a ring and presented it to Frog. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands as if she was chloroforming herself.

“Fröüäggyß ‘Frog’ Liang,” he said. “I, A$$hole Zhu, would like to ask for your hand in marriage. Will you marry me?”

“Are you for real?” Frog squealed.

“I’m for real.”

“Seriously?” I said.

“I –”

“Did I mention that I’m rich, by the way? My dad is an executive at Nice Flemish Lunch, Inc., the largest corporation in Flemishland. We’re loaded.”

“Oh, my God!”

“I’ll love you forever, Frog.”

“Forever? Like, for ever ever?”

“For ever ever. So, what’s the answer?”

“Come on, Frog. Just get it over with so we can continue the game,” Baboon said.

“It’s okay, Frog. Take your time. No pressure.”

“Yes pressure! We want to keep playing!”

“Oh, my God, shut up.”

“Hurry!”

“So?”

“Uh. Yes! Yes, I do.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“Aww.”

“I love you, baobei’r.”

“I love you too, baobei’r.”

“Hey, are Momther and Dadther gonna be okay with this?” Greg asked. “I mean, I’m happy for you. I’m only asking because I’m kind, and I consider everyone’s feelings.”

“If they aren’t, we’ll elope. I don’t care, I just want to be with you, Frog.”

“Alright. Next, next, next! Let’s keep this going. Who’s next?”

“Me and A$$hole are gonna pass. It’s probably not a very good idea to risk your life when you’ve just gotten engaged.”

“Gross Hair Anime Guy, your turn, then!”

“Uh, okay.” Pause. Aim. Click. Chrysanthemums. “Phew. I’d be sad if I died without finding out whether or not Luffy becomes the pirate king.”

“Oh, my God. Are you kidding me? Of course Luffy becomes the pirate king. He’s the main character.”

“Well, you never know, right? Maybe there’s a twist.”

“Truth or Dare, Gross Hair Anime Guy?”

“Truth.”

“Come on. Don’t be boring!”

“Baboon, literally every time someone chooses Dare, you just tell them to eat Ruttemark’s hair.”

“That’s because nobody’s done it yet!”

“Yeah, take a hint. Nobody wants to eat Ruttemark’s hair.”

“Okay. Rude.”

“You know what I mean, Ruttemark.”

“Uh, no, I don’t.”

“Can we please hurry? It’s, like, 2 AM.”

“Okay. Okay, fine. Who is the hottest girl in the room?”

“Man, Babuunu, you know I’m animesexual. I’m only attracted to anime characters. IRL people are just so dull, you know?”

“Animesexual?”

“It’s the ‘A’ in ‘LGBTQA’.”

“I thought that was for asexuals.”

“I thought that was for allies.”

“Allies are definitely not the ‘A’ in ‘LGBTQA’.”

“There is no ‘A’ in ‘LGBTQ’.”

“I thought there was. Doesn’t it stand for Andalusians?”

“Okay, guys, shut up.” Baboon sighed. “Gross Hair Anime Guy, even if you’re animesexual, you can still recognise if a girl is hot. Or aesthetically pleasing, if that’s the term you prefer. So choose.”

“And hurry up. I’m gonna fall asleep soon. This is so boring.”

“Okay. Fine. Furogu is the hottest.”

“Hey!”

“I’m literally engaged, Gross Hair Anime Guy. How could you?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but it’s true!”

“Oh, my God.”

“Next, next, next, next, next, next, next! Let’s speed this up!”

“You’re so creepy.”

“Next! Greg! Come on!”

“What the hell, dude? She’s my fiancée. F-I-A-N-C-A-Y. Do you know what that means?”

“I thought it was spelled F-E-Y-O-N-C-E-accent-d’aigu.”

“It’s F-I-A-N-C-E-accent-d’aigu.”

“And another E. Because she’s female.”

“Um, no. I don’t think so.”

“Yes, it is. I speak French, okay?”

“But this is English. So it’s different, right?”

“No. It’s a loan word. It’s like ‘blond’ and ‘blonde’.”

“Okay, guys, we get it!”

“Give Greg the gun!”

“Do you want to fight, Gross Hair Anime Guy? Do you want to go outside and fight?”

“N-no. I’m sorry, Asuhoru. I was just being honest!”

“I’m watching you. You better sleep with one eye open.”

“Come on, Greg!”

“Alright, alright. Pass me it.” Pause. Aim. Click.

Silence.

“Oh.”

10

We buried Greg in a large and wide flowerpot outside the window in room 403. We dug a hole using our hands, which took an extremely long time because we had to ensure that it was over 2 meters in length. It was difficult to work in the dark; the small pillars of light provided by a dozen phone flashlights only illuminated our own tired hands. The geraniums we’d disturbed became all topsy-turvy, the rich earth scalding and sharp beneath our fingernails. We carefully lowered his tall corpse into the pit and as we refilled it, I watched the blood-red petals sweep over his immaculate eyebrows.

“At least he gave Frog and I his blessing before he left,” A$$hole said as we stood over the flowerpot in silence.

“Yeah. He was just so incredibly kind.”

Everyone nodded.

“Great dude. What a shame.”

“Mm-hm.”

By then, it was 4:16 AM. The stifling wind rustled the trees.

Gross Hair Anime Guy ripped a page out of the complimentary hotel notepad and inscribed: Sayonara Guregu. He added a highly detailed drawing of Hatsune Miku next to these words. Although her chin was too pointy, her jaw too square, her arms too thin, and her hands too small – telltale signs of a less-than-mediocre manga artist – it was overall quite an adorable and appropriate drawing. He’d replaced her usual complicated outfit with the yellow camp T-shirt, paired with some acid-wash jeans that had gone out of fashion years ago. He made her especially tall and her eyebrows immaculate, as a tribute to Greg. One by one, we muttered some prayers to the drawing. Gross Hair Anime Guy placed it carefully on top of the flowers.

“Let’s get married now,” A$$hole said, squeezing Frog’s hand.

“Right now?” Frog asked. “During your brother’s funeral?”

“This is the best time, don’t you think?”

Frog thought. After a while, she said, “You’re right. This is the perfect moment.”

That cheered us all up. We picked and shredded some geranium petals for confetti. There wasn’t any Wi-Fi outside, so Baboon used data roaming with his Flemish phone card to access the Internet and help Frog and A$$hole to ling zheng using an online portal. The happy couple kissed just as dawn came, the twilit sky turning lighter in a flush of pale, fluid hues. Ruttemark had Premium Spotify, but only had one downloaded playlist, so we danced awkwardly to Death Grips until breakfast time.

If A$$hole and Greg’s parents were fazed by the death of their firstborn, they did not show it. As the head councillors of the camp, they maintained a positive attitude throughout the rest of the trip. When we strapped ourselves into the spaceship to return home, they waved happily from the circular window above our heads, mouthing muted goodbyes.