Tears for Xing Xing

The armies arrived with the dawn.  They brought arrows and swords, and delivered screaming death to the citizens of Xing Xing.  All the pretty flowers, the rock gardens, the quiet river that meandered alongside the town, ran red.  Even the sun refused to come fully out, choosing to hide behind thick, tumultuous clouds.

For a thousand years, perhaps, Xing Xing had existed peacefully, regardless of emperors or conquerors or generals or madmen or prophets or fools.  Always, there was a mayor.  On this day, the day Xing Xing fell, the Mayor was an honorable old man, a rich man with white hair, a kind and gentle soul who had spent the last years of his life helping his fellow citizens become rich themselves.  In Xing Xing, the definition of the word rich had little to do with money.

There was a police force, all of six men strong, and two women, who bore arms, but between two armies they might have wielded sticks and rocks.  They were cut down brutally, by soldiers of either side, in front of children, in front of their parents and grandparents, on the steps of the temple.

Over the course of centuries, Xing Xing brought many poets to the world, playwrights, stone masons who worked on the wall, opera stars, philosophers, men of state, visionaries, luminaries, and never-do-wells.  On the steps of the temple, near the world-famous rock garden, after an extended chess match, the greatest love of an entire century had its first kiss.  Fathers taught their sons to fish.  Rice was grown, tea steeped, treaties brokered, murderers put to justice.

Xing Xing birthed legends, both notorious and illustrious, and at least one myth that has endured for generations than can be counted.

Legends say the town was birthed and built by one of the ancient goddesses whose name has been forgotten.  The Jade Emperor settled here for a time, as a child, and the Four Beauties of legend perhaps all had mothers from Xing Xing.

But this day brought armies, and chaos, and panic.  One boy ran through the dirt, weaving between the fighting soldiers, somehow avoiding the swift sharp swords, and found his grandfather’s small hut on the edge of town.

His grandfather was an old man, one of the eldest elders, blind, weak, who sometimes complained about the cold in summer but little else.  He sat on his knees beside a burning cauldron folding paper.

“Grandfather,” the boy said.

“Shush,” the grandfather said.  The sound of war clattered just outside his door.

“But grandfather,” the boy said.

“My ears work better than yours,” the grandfather said.  “I can smell the fires, and the blood, and I tell you again, child, shush.  I’m working.”

He finished folding the bird, which was not unlike a crane but not exactly the same.  He picked up another paper and began again.

The boy waited as patiently as he could, but boys in Xing Xing have no more patience than boys elsewhere.  “Grandfather,” he said again.

The grandfather paused.  He closed his hands over the paper, turned his head to the boy as though he could see him and asked, “Do you have something to tell me which I do not already know?”

The boy, having nothing, simply said, “I’m scared.”

The grandfather smiled, and held out a hand.  “Come here, child.”  He held the boy close, then continued folding his paper.

A flurry of arrows came through the window, through the thatch roof, through the thin walls, striking in a random pattern but missing the boy and grandfather.  One broke on the side of the burning cauldron, and one went into the fire.

“Our story is over,” the grandfather said.  “I’m afraid the reality of war will overwhelm Xing Xing and only ash and cinder will remain.”

“It can’t be,” the boy said.

“But it is,” the grandfather said.  “Now watch.”  Having finished the second paper bird, he picked up its twin and gently closed his hands over them.

The boy watched.  His grandfather was a great trickster, an illusionist, who could disappear coins and, though blind, could read the faces of playing cards.  The fire flared, briefly, and then went out.

“Now, little ones, fly,” the grandfather said.  “Fly.”  He threw both hands into the air, releasing the paper birds.  They fluttered, they drifted toward the ground, they glimmered, and then they stretched their wings and circled around each other.  They fluttered, briefly, like moths, one now red, the other gold.

A soldier threw open the door.  The paper birds zipped past him, over his shoulder, deftly avoiding the sword he swung in surprise.  “Archers!” he cried.

“Fly,” the grandfather said again.

Outside, the paper birds rose into the air, dancing together, frolicking, flittering and fluttering, rising higher, higher, higher still.

Then the arrows came, a veritable wall of them, from multiple directions, arrows of two opposing armies converging on two paper birds.  A few tore through the wings.  A few were lit, bringing fire into the air, and one of those struck the gold paper bird.  The flames spread quickly, but still it rose, still it ascended.  It was a little flame, yes, but it was a little bird made of paper, and despite the magic animating it, nothing could save it from the flames.  Even as ash, it strained to fly, and its red twin continued to dance with it, even as a second volley of arrows raced heavenward.

None of those arrows reached their mark.  The gold bird, now flakes of ash, drifted into pieces, each of which floated, twirled in the wind, and descended.

The red paper bird, however, sprouted feathers, a beak, tiny talons.  With a bird-like shriek, she soared.

The boy smiled, and stayed in the crook of his grandfather’s arm, and said, “The red one, grandfather.  The red one got away.”

“See,” the grandfather said, even as the solider raised his sword to strike, “our stories will not go untold.”