Andy Zhang--Author's Official Web Site

The Ordinary Citizen

Chapter 1 -- HUMAN CARGO

It takes more than courage to embark on a life-changing journey as illegal immigrants. No one can predict what lies ahead for them—wealth or death—but it is the former that ignites the flame in any human determined to change his fate.

In an undisclosed location, there stood a large, unwelcoming container. The container was a narrow, slightly rusty, and rectangular-shaped metal box that smelled like seaweed. It contained cargo—human cargo. Each person hurled into the modest depths of the dark container was allowed to bring with them three things: a bag of food and water, a bucket for collecting human waste, and a single piece of luggage. There were twenty-four passengers in total, consisting of nineteen men and five women. The snakehead, called “master” by some crew members, was a balding, lanky, and intimidating man in his early fifties. His skin cracked beneath the stifling sun and his eyes bulged from their sockets making them appear to extend beyond his face. A long scar running across his neck was a telling sign of the hardships he had endured as an intercontinental human smuggler. After confiscating each of his cargo’s identification cards and passports, the snakehead announced the rules of the transport. They were simple – no screaming, no crying, and anyone caught attempting to escape the container would be severely punished.

Two crew members shut the heavy door, sealing the container and the stock of disquieted faces that filled it. The sound made by the closing door was sudden and ominous. It caught those inside off guard and they grew increasingly frightened, of course with good reason. Through the thick blackness that filled the container, some faint light fell upon those inside like slim rays of hope shining through the tiny wind-blown cracks along the container’s edges. It took Min a few minutes to adjust to the dimness. Each person found their own space. Some stood. Some sat resting their legs, their eyes frantically searching the dark space surrounding them. “We are heading to ‘the land of gold’ soon,” asserted the youngest and perhaps most optimistic man in the cargo. His name was Chun and at only eighteen, he was elated to be among the

shipment. His childish face made him appear more like a boy than a man. Still, his innocent and hopeful statement triggered some nods from the group. Others sat motionless, sensing that things may not go as smoothly as Chun seemingly expected. They were less naïve, for experience had taught them to be cautious.

In less than four hours, the group sensed the onset of their voyage as the ship began to move. Min closed his eyes and imagined what their ship looked like. He envisioned a little toy ship sailing in the vast Pacific Ocean across the endless blue water that stretched beyond the horizon. It was a peaceful thought, until all of a sudden, his mother’s face appeared. It was only in his mind, but she seemed so real, and his mind began to replay the events that had taken place the day before as if he were watching a movie.

“It is all here,” Min’s mother told her son as she handed him the small suitcase, “four thousand dollars collected by our entire family—two thousand dollars borrowed from your aunt, one thousand four hundred dollars borrowed from neighbors and friends, and six hundred dollars of my savings. “This is all we have, but it will only pay a small portion of the smuggling fee,” she warned him.

“Don’t worry, mother,” he told her in appreciation. “I will pay them the rest once I start to make money in America.” As Min took possession of the suitcase, he felt weighed down by not only the heaviness of the suitcase, but also by the weight of the many obligations that had just been placed in his hands by his entire family. His hands trembled at the thought. The suitcase contained not only his family’s entire savings, it also contained his family’s hopes and dreams, and they were entrusting Min to fulfill all of them.

His mother stepped into the kitchen and began preparing the final dinner she knew they would ever share together. Min heard the hissing sound of the stove, and took in the pleasant smell of fried fish. She was determined to prepare a feast full of her son’s favorite dishes even though he had resisted her efforts. It was her way of saying goodbye to him.

“Eat,” she requested of him as she picked up a large shrimp with her chopsticks and placed it on his plate. “Food tastes better while it is fresh and hot.”

They talked very little. Time slowed. Min found he had no appetite, and little did he know that neither did she.

For several days, his mother appeared happy about his upcoming expedition; she knew many people had found good fortune in America and hoped the same for her son. There was a village nearby was crowded with newly built houses—mostly funded from the money earned by illegal relatives who worked overseas. As time drew closer to his journey, Min began sensing her growing concerns and worries. There were news reports on the television about numerous sweatshops exploited illegal immigrants and the unpredictable danger on the smuggling journey. Min dismissed the reports as government propaganda, but his mother took the news seriously. The night before their last dinner, Min had woken up in the middle of the night to find his mother standing transfixed by his bed. She gazed at him lovingly, memorizing every inch of his sleeping face and the placement of every strand of his silky black hair against it. As he awakened from the fog of sleep, he saw tears falling slowly down her cheeks. Despite her sadness, she tucked the blanket tighter against his body and slowly left the room. Min was no longer able to sleep that night and found himself glancing at his clock every half hour until dawn finally arrived.

Min understood why his mother was so concerned for him and the journey he was preparing for. No one in their family had ever taken on a journey such as this before. There was another reason as well. Fifteen years ago, Min’s father had gone off to work and never returned. He worked at a coal mine, under a demanding boss who required everyone to be on time, and was therefore rarely late to work. That day was the beginning of a new chapter in Min’s life. His mother had barely been given the chance to say goodbye to her husband before he shut the door that morning—just like every other morning. They had no idea that brief personal encounter would be their last. That afternoon, a horrific mining accident buried seven coal mine workers, including Min’s father. From that day on, Min’s mother always got anxious whenever he left the house. If she didn’t hear from her son for an extended period of time, she would lose her concentration and could not finish her chores. She would run to the window and gaze outside, searching for a glimpse of Min and listening for his voice. If she didn’t see or hear him, she would pace through the house, worrying and wondering until he returned.

On the day that Min was scheduled to leave, his mother faced the opposite direction and would not look at him. Min could not tell if she was crying or simply staring outside the window, but he understood the hurt she felt because he felt it too. “Bye, Mama,” he called out to her before leaving, hoping she would at least turn his way so he could see her face one last time. His mother continued looking out of the window and said nothing in return so Min picked up his suitcase and his bucket containing his bag of food and water, and closed the door behind him.

The rocking motion of the ship pulled Min back to reality from his dream. He was back inside the container and could feel the waves tossing the ship up and down.

At this moment, his emotions were strongly tied to his mother, as if he was a flying kite and his mother was holding onto the string. They had prayed that nothing would ever separate them, but here he was on a ship, inside a container packed with strangers, with miles of ocean between them. A sudden surge of sadness and panic washed over him as he wondered if he had seen his mother for the last time. Never in his entire life did he need her touch, her comfort, and her wisdom as badly.

As nighttime quickly drew upon them, the dim container grew even darker. The temperature steadily dropped and everybody shivered from the cold. Almost all of them had come from the warm Fujian Province, and no one had brought the appropriate clothing. They put on everything they had in their single piece of luggage, including towels, and huddled closer to each other to share their body heat in the frigid darkness. Every minute seemed like an eternity. Min’s legs were hurting from standing but he did not want to lie down on the chilly container floor. He tried not to think about his discomfort. Instead, he began to look back and appreciate every minute of his life in the city and at home. He thought about his soft, blue blanket and his fluffy pillow. They had warmed and comforted him just the night before. As he thought with his eyes closed, Min could hear the heavy breathing of his companions. The air had grown quite stale. For the first time, Min realized that he and his countrymen were trapped within a metal container with no chance or hope of escape until they reached America. He tried not to panic, but his fear was ever-growing.

The temperature continued to drop throughout the night. The cold was very intense. They weren’t sure if it was a swift change of weather or they were in the middle of a storm. The winds howled overhead and the rhythmic sound of ocean waves was subdued.

“My arms are numb,” confessed Lili, a woman in her late twenties, in a trembling voice. “Someone please pinch my arms!”

Min thought about an old Chinese proverb, “Strap in debt, Shiver in wind.” If the group could only find some sort of insulation, that would help them immensely. Then Min had an idea. “Plastic bags!” he shouted in a soft but excited tone. “We should cut open all of our plastic bags and use them as insulation between our clothes.” Min used his little pocket knife to cut open his plastic bags then padded between his shirt and his jacket. He felt a slight improvement. Min understood that if he wanted to survive and prevent the risk of getting hypothermia, he would need to conserve as much body heat as possible.

It was soon discovered that the coldest spots in the container were the four corners where wind could easily blow inside.

“We should form two circles,” Lili suggested. “We can rotate who stands in the outer circle with who stands in the inner circle.”

“I want to propose that the women stay in the inner circle since they lose body heat faster than men,” an old man’s voice echoed in their ears.

Every second was excruciating as the cold cut deeply into their bones.

“The snakehead and his crew deserve to go to hell for leaving us here with nothing!” Chun cursed in a low voice that was loud enough for everyone within the container to hear.

“They are the ones who will end up in heaven by making millions each year,” said a man in a hoarse, distressed voice. “Global human smuggling is an over ten-billion-dollar business.”

The oldest woman in their group, Hua, was in her late forties. Her teeth clattered together loud enough that everybody gathered closer to her. Hua drifted into sleep and talked in her dreams. “It is so nice to sleep on my bed,” she mumbled. Slowly, her words became no longer audible and everybody assumed she fell deep into sleep. Everyone else was exhausted, too, but none could sleep, including Min.

The morning finally arrived. Through the faint light, Min found Hua was no longer moving. She was still clenching her teeth—making her face look as though it were smiling. “She is dead!” Min screamed. People turned their heads to look at her. The woman’s face was dark purple in color and her body was as rigid as a broken tree trunk.

Lili began to sob. She instantly thought of her father. She was her father’s favorite child. As an infant, whenever she was fussy at night, her father would carry her on his shoulders, humming a nursery rhyme, while walking gently around the room to calm her. She would slump her head against his shoulder and gradually fall asleep. Even then, her father did not put her down to bed. He continued to walk around with her atop his shoulders, sometimes for hours until his legs were sore and his feet were hurting. He could feel her breath falling softly against his neck, and he knew that it was worth it. He resolved to protect her, nurture her, and care for her with all his love and kindness for his whole life.

The unforgettable day came for Lili’s father when she was just two and half years old. She watched her father prepare his lunchbox, grab his jacket, and knew he was ready to exit their house. She walked in front of him and said, “Baba, when you go to work I miss you very much.”

Her father was so stunned by her words that he almost dropped his belongings. He was at a lost for words and lowered his upper body toward hers. He rubbed his prickly, beard-covered chin across her cheek with such pride and happiness that words would otherwise be unable to describe. Everything is worth it, he thought, all of the effort for my daughter. She has become such a sweet girl.

Her father had been gone for three years now. A car accident had taken his life. Lili wondered if her father would have approved of her journey had he been alive. She could feel her tears dropping on her hands as she gazed at the lifeless container walls. They were chilling and heavy.

Wen, the oldest man in the group, was well respected by the others. One of the first things he did was collect all of the food from everybody. “The trip may take much longer than what we have been told. Without rationing the food, we will soon be starving.”

Wen began distributing the food for each meal. The meager allowance was more intended for survival than for satisfying hunger—a few saltine crackers washed down with a small cup of water.

The temperature in midmorning was more tolerable, but the nauseating smell of human feces filled the entire container. Wen ordered people to move their buckets to one side of the container and then the group remained on the other side of the container. Min was so disgusted by the odor he vomited everything in his stomach until there was nothing left.

When everybody settled down, Wen suggested a ceremony for Hua. Min and Chun moved Hua’s lifeless body to a corner. Her face looked serene as if she died in happiness. They opened Hua’s nylon luggage bag and placed her items near her body—her makeup, a small mirror, hair brush, and a radio. Because Hua was religious, they also found a package of incense. Wen lit the incense and distributed one to everyone. They all bowed to her corpse, hoped her spirit would rise to heaven with the scented smoke, and remained silent for a while. Emptiness and apprehension overpowered them as they bid farewell to their first casualty.

After the ceremony, Min slumped against the container wall and asked himself, How could everything have gone wrong so quickly?

The temperature continued to rise during midday and people drifted into sleep, most for the first time. The container filled with the echo of snoring men. Min, too, slept for a while then was awoken by his hunger. He looked around him; the container looked more like a coffin than before. Even though he could still breathe, the cold, slightly rusty walls felt suffocating to him.

At dinner time, Wen dutifully distributed another round of food and water. “This is not enough for a cat,” one of the men protested. “How do you know we are going to stay here for long?”

“We better be prepared for the worst to come,” Wen shot back at him with a stern look on his face.

Min ate his crackers very slowly, almost crumb by crumb. He did not understand why he was doing that—maybe to trick his brain to believe that he was eating a feast. Some people devoured their crackers in seconds. After finishing his food and water, Min unconsciously touched his crotch area and felt the small package still there. His mother sewed a little pocket for him inside his underwear, telling him “You should keep a copy of your most important documents and some money in here. Pickpocket or snakehead can take other things away, but I doubt they will know of your secret little pocket.” Inside his pocket, he stored nine hundred dollars of emergency money from his personal savings in addition to the four thousand dollars he paid for the snakehead, a copy of his admission to Middle Tennessee State University, and a copy of his passport. To ensure all the illegal immigrants will pay their expensive smuggling fees in many years to come, the snakehead wanted every penny they possessed and confiscated their passports. Min took substantial risk to hide the contents of his secret pocket from the snakehead. It was assuring to feel the hard edges of papers and bank notes while everything else seemed to be getting worse by the minute.

Wen was searching through Hua’s miscellaneous items and trying to find out her family’s address and phone number in China. “This looks like a phone number but the words are in English.” Wen showed them a note. “Does anybody can read this?”

“I can.” Min volunteered. Min read the note then said, “This is an address in Tennessee, it looks like her relative or friend’s home address and phone number.”

“Where did you learned English?” Wen looked impressed.

“I learned some English in college and I learned more on my own after I graduated.”

“You are a college grad?” Wen appeared shocked. “Who else went to college here?”

No one answered.

“Are you insane?” Lili said incredulously, “We don’t have many opportunity with our farming background and high school education, but you are in different class. You can go abroad like many other students. Why do you want to risk your life and spend the next decade to pay off the snakehead?”

Min sighed, and then he shared his story.

Five years ago, Min graduated from his college with a degree in civil engineering and almost immediately began working at a construction company. His job was neither satisfying nor challenging, and by the end of his first year, he began looking for something better. His cousin had just returned from Harbin and told him there were many opportunities and much money to be made there. “They just opened an immense underground arcade,” he told Min, “and I am sure with your English skills you can find a good position there.”

Min followed his cousin and together they jumped on the northbound train to Harbin. Min was indeed impressed by the sheer size of the arcade—transformed from useless underground tunnels into revenue-generating commercial property and resembling the city of Venice, which Min had seen on television. Miles of tunnels interconnected like canals. Shops lining the tunnel walls stood as tall as houses, and incessant streams of people flowed as freely as rivers through them. Millions of florescent lights, neon signs, and recessed light bulbs composed an ocean of lights that shined as brightly as a sunny sky.

As soon as Min entered the arcade, he smelled the unique mixture of the underground earth, boxes of leather shoes, rolls of fabrics, mountains of shirts and sweaters, perfumes, hair sprays, and delicious food cooked in the cafeteria. When the central air duct blew fresh air from the street above into the arcade, he detected the aroma of the restaurants, cars, and swirls of street dust.

The overhead speaker often broadcast pop music. The music was often subdued by the sound of bartering between merchants and buyers. An endless number of heels and shoes tapped on the polished granite floors and the sound of large packages being dragged and opened echoed all around. There was also the sound of moving escalators transporting people from one level to the other, and in the distance he could hear the gentle yelling from the package carriers who ran with gigantic sacks on their backs.

The underground tunnel system was a bustling city itself. During the weekdays, there were about one hundred fifty thousands people passing and shopping at the arcade. On the weekend, the number of people often surpassed three hundred thousand.

With his cousin’s connections, Min was hired as an employee working for the facility maintenance team. His job duties were even less exciting than his first job—cleaning air ducts, changing air filters, sweeping maintenance and electrical rooms, and recording readings from various instruments. It was a job anybody could do. Months later, a Hong Kong company became interested in becoming a partner in their operation. As the joint venture process continued to progress, the executive office needed someone who could translate large amounts of documents from English into Chinese. Min was recommended for the job. By then he had passed his Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam and had been accepted by a few universities in America. Applying for a visa was extremely difficult for young students like him. He was denied six times by the U.S. consulate in Shanghai and eventually exhausted his savings and his patience. He burned all of the school admission papers—including one from Penn State and another one from Brown University. A week later, he received his final admission paper from Middle Tennessee State University and this time, realizing the mistake he had made before, saved it as the treasured keepsake that it was.

Min’s promotion came at a time in his life when he was depressed and frustrated. The executive office was located in a gleaming building with hardwood floors. He began working immediately with the company president—an intelligent and strong-willed woman in her mid-thirties. Because the president was a workaholic and because there was so much work to do, Min found himself working seven days a week, often ten hours a day for almost two years. His dedication and strong work ethic helped him to quickly earn his boss’s trust.

The joint venture was in full operation and Min was one of the few people, aside from the president’s family, who she trusted.

It was by pure curiosity that Min entered the president’s office while she was traveling and forgot to lock her office door. He read through some documents, although he knew that he should not have touched them. It was then that he realized that entire joint venture was a sham—the dividing line between public property and private investment blurred. Almost all of the members from the Hong Kong partnership were relatives of the president. Her sister, for example, changed her name and learned Cantonese in Hong Kong and transformed into a Hong Kong business partner. She was also a senior member of the board. They converted a state enterprise with thousands of people into a family-owned business, quietly, swiftly, and secretly.

Min’s hands shook violently as he read deeper into the documents. When he had finished, he quickly exited the office, but not before a security guard spotted him. That security guard, too, was one of the president’s relatives.

When the president returned from her trip, Min could sense the tension was high between her and a senior accountant—Tao. Tao was a short man in his late forties. One day after he got drunk during lunch he warned Min, “This is not a safe place to work when you know too many secrets.”

The following morning, Min was instructed to come to work very early. As soon as he arrived at the office, the president said, “Call Tao and tell him come to work immediately. There is a red taxi waiting for him outside of his building.” Normally, Tao had to take the bus to work.

Min placed the call and Tao answered.

Eerily, Tao never showed up that day or any day afterward.

Weeks later, the police found his dead body in an abandoned garage. His wife was weeping when she entered the office building to collect his personal belongings. As soon as she saw the president, she shouted, “Someone murdered him, you know it!”

The president’s face turned red and she became furious. “Get out of here before I call security guards!” The president’s cousin heard their shouting match and dragged Tao’s wife out of the office building. Her heartbroken voice was soon muffled by her distance.

For the first time, Min saw the president was gasping for air with the look of fear on her face.

Later that day, Min heard a rumor from another coworker regarding what had happened.

On that fateful morning, Tao left his apartment and jumped into the red taxi. Two huge, muscular men were already inside the car. The red taxi did not go in the direction of the office building. Instead, it raced in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?” Tao asked the men.

“Keep your mouth shut!” one of the burly men shouted at him.

Tao sensed something was wrong and wanted to get out of the car. The car was speeding way too fast. If he jumped out of the car, he would have been unlikely to survive, so he just sat there frozen. His right hand clinched tightly on the door handle. A blanket of goose bumps covered his arms and legs.

He realized they were criminals.

Twenty minutes later, the red taxi stopped at an abandoned garage. It was a deserted and isolated area where only local gangs visited. One of the men opened the car door and dragged Tao from the car.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Tao begged them with overwhelming fear, “I have a wife and an eleven-year-old daughter. Please spare me.”

One of the men pretended he heard nothing and threw Tao to the concrete ground. Tao’s head slammed on the floor. It was a terrifying sound. Tao’s scream pierced through the cold air, but nobody except the two men could hear him. He knew the two men were going to kill him so he used every bit of his strength to protect himself.

They lifted his body up in the air then dropped his body suddenly. His skull cracked open immediately.

Tao rolled and struggled with the men while they punched and kicked him all over his body. His face turned swollen and resembled the color of a ripened eggplant. He curled his body and used his hands to cover his face to prevent it from being kicked anymore.

One of the men went back to the car and retrieved two heavy wooden boards and two short knives from a large duffel bag. The two men pummeled and slashed his body with the heavy wooden boards and short knives. Tao’s legs twitched as the knives stabbed into them. The sheer intensity of the pain made him screamed like a desperately wounded animal. Tao’s blood ran thick and sticky onto the concrete ground and covered his body. His consciousness was fading fast, and he eventually stopped moaning.

It was an excruciating death.

The two men left Tao’s body in the garage and vanished into the morning traffic.

A few days later, the president’s focus shifted to Min. He was interrogated for hours by senior executives. Before the next morning, Min fled the region by jumping into a southbound train with all the money he had saved from working there.

To avoid any further trouble and to protect both himself and his mother, he decided to take a chance with the snakehead.

“With my English skills, if anybody can survive, I can,” he assured his mother, “I just need to find a way to get to my destination.”

Now Min began to wonder how one nightmare had turned into another.

“Those corrupted government officials and executives,” Wen said loudly, “China will be much better without them. They are thugs, sometimes worse than thugs. The factory I worked for went bankrupt because the executives embezzled much of the factory’s funds and then fled to another country.”

“That’s why I can’t wait to go to America,” Chun said.

“Don’t be too naïve, young man.” Wen turned to Chun, “All the people on top are similar. They look after their own interest first. Hardly any of them ever look after ordinary citizens like us.”

Nobody said anything after Wen’s comment.

As the second evening arrived, the temperature plummeted faster than they could tolerate. The cold was so aggressive, like a monster eating their flesh and bones. Wen found a used book from Hua’s luggage. He tore the pages from the book and lit pages with his cigarette lighter. The little fire gave them a few minutes of warmth, but as soon as the fire extinguished, the cold invaded them more violently. Their teeth were chattering, their bodies shivering, and they were living through the cold second by second, breath by breath.

“Tuck your fingers under your arms,” Wen instructed. “This can prevent frostbite. Make sure your feet are constantly moving, too.”

“Are we heading to the Arctic Circle?” one man mumbled.

“No, we are heading to hell,” another angry voice called out from the darkness.

Min realized it only a matter of time before they exhausted their food supply and their energy.

There was no death the second night, but the group was much more exhausted when the morning came. Without much food in their stomachs, and with the increasing demand of energy from the severe weather, their movements were slowed, their visions were blurry, and some of them had become disoriented. Looking at the faces around him, Min saw weariness, fear, and desperation.

Wen was walking around and distributing their breakfast when Chun shouted, “Please just give me all my rations now so I can have at least one full meal before I die!”

“You have to believe we can make it,” Wen said. “We are all born with a purpose.”

“What is the purpose for that?” Chun pointed his finger at Hua’s dead body, “Can you explain that to me?”

Chun stood up and appeared furious. He began beating on the container walls and shouted, “Let us out now, before all of us become corpses.”

Wen jumped in front of Chun, pushed Chun forward, and then pinned his young body against the container wall. “Are you trying to get all of us killed? You have no idea where we are and who is outside. We are illegal immigrants and the last thing we need is to expose ourselves.”

Chun’s chest was heaving and his eyes looked hopeless.

The third night was not as cold as the previous night. No one knew whether they had gotten used to the extreme temperatures or their nerves were beginning to numb. Day after day, they wished they had already arrived America, but the journey seemed endless. On the eleventh day, their food supply was close to running out.

Min received his last meal—a small pickled baby corn from the jar that Wen was handing out. The baby corn was almost the same size as his pinkie. Min resolved to make his last meal last, so he ate half of the baby corn in the morning and saved the other half for the afternoon. Once the sweet and sour taste of the baby corn vanished in his mouth, Min heard crying within the dimness of the container.

It was Chun.

“Shame on you,” Wen said, “men should never cry no matter what happens.”

“We are going to die,” Chun sniffed, “all of us.”

Starvation was so unbearable that everybody searched their luggage for food. Min opened everything—little cans, small bags, even his pants pockets wishing to find some food crumbs or maybe a little piece of leftover candy. But all the searches were in vain. They stared at each other, exhausted and frustrated.

These days, it appeared they were sailing in subtropical weather during the day and the temperature was steadily increasing each day. Hua’s body began to decompose, releasing more of a stench into the air. The warm temperature might have accelerated the process.

Some members of the group began to get sick. First, a farmer in his early forties came down with a fever. He coughed incessantly day and night. His eyes were red and his face was swollen. “It is like something is scorching my lungs,” he reported.

“I have some medicine,” Min confessed, volunteering to take care of the farmer while some people tried to stay away from the sick man. “But we don’t have water,” a voice called out.

“I will just swallow it,” the man responded, taking the pill and eating it.

The man coughed less frequently after some time, and then he fell asleep. He began breathing heavily as sweat began trickling down his forehead. “Water,” he pleaded in his sleep. His lips were chapped from thirst.

Wen instructed the group to collect and save their urine in the empty water bottles. “When you are really thirsty, it can save your life.” Min felt his stomach churn as he heard Wen’s words. Because Wen had foreseen the hunger, he might also be correct about the upcoming death toll, too.

On the following day, eleven more people came down with fever. The man who was first sick had not awoken from his sleep for nearly ten hours. His face was pale and drawn. The sound of his breathing was loud and frightening as his lungs struggled hard to suck in a little air. All of the sick people watched him in horror, knowing that the illness was now taking their lives away as well.

Some men started to knock on the container wall with their hands, but no one answered from the outside. They heard wind and ocean waves, but no human activity outside. An hour later, they stopped in utter defeat.

Suddenly, Min discovered that the man who had first fallen sick had stopped breathing and his body was still. “No!” Min shouted, scrambling to his knees and attempting to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Min had learned the skill from one of the medical students from his college, but he never had the opportunity to use it until now. “Breathe!” Min cried out, “don’t leave yet!” When Min lost his strength, Wen also tried, but to no avail. Both men sat next to the fallen man, trying to comprehend the second death. The last flicker of hope had extinguished from their eyes.

The man’s death marked the prelude of more deaths in the following days. Min also became very sick. His body was full of fever. He felt as though there was something burning inside his lungs. His chest was heavy and he could no longer stand up or move around. All of a sudden someone pushed him. Now he was on a train. He could sense the wind whooshing in his ears and could hear the brakes squealing on the track. The train was dark. The only bright spot was a woman who sat across from him. It was his boss from the arcade. “No matter where you go, I can always find you,” she said. “I have connections all over the country; this is a kingdom for people with money and power. I can find you effortlessly, how can you escape? You cannot.”

“Let me go!” Min cried out, “I just want a normal life. I want to take care of my mother when she gets old. Please!” he begged of her. The train continued to speed along the tracks and it became darker and hotter inside of it. Min did not know how long he was on the train, but it seemed like several days.

Then Min found his mother cooking a meal for him. She was washing the vegetables and did not even look up at him. He could not wait for the food to be prepared so he opened the refrigerator to search for some leftovers. As soon as he opened the refrigerator door, a sudden blast of arctic air attacked him. The chill was uncontrollable; his entire body was violently shaking.

After the chill subsided, Min woke up. His shirt and pants were drenched with from his cold sweat. “How long had I been sleeping?” he asked, but nobody answered. Holding on to the container wall, he managed to sit up by himself. When he looked around, he thought he was hallucinating. Swarms of flies were moving fast like dark clouds creating a loud buzzing sound. The container was motionless.

“Where are we?” he asked. There were only two heads still moving, they both looked sluggish and ghostly. Rubbing his eyes, Min realized they were Chun and Lili. “What happened?” Min asked, pleading for a response, any response.

“You have been sleeping for days,” Chun answered in a cracked voice. “Most are dead, including Wen.”

“Three of us,” Lili choked up, “only three of us have survived so far.”

Min looked around the container, stunned by the dead bodies scattered all over the cemented floor. It looked like a death chamber used by Japanese troops after killing millions of Chinese during WWII.

“Where are we?” Min felt his heart sink.

“We don’t know,” Chun said. “The ship stopped this morning and flies flooded the container because of the dead bodies and buckets of feces. I guess we are near land. We are all going to die soon, what difference does it make anyway?”

Slowly, Min summoned all of his strength and stood up. Near the container wall, he found Wen’s dead body. His face looked stern and distraught, as if he had struggled with pain and ill-fate in his last minutes. He must have been saddened and frustrated with his inability of saving all of them, Min thought.

Just then, Min began to hear the hustle and bustle of human activity on the other side of the container walls. For the first time in many days, they looked at each other with a glimmer of hope.