Ghost Fire by Lingjuan Fan, espresso

I cradle a soft, chubby baby in my arms. I take a close look at its face and realize the baby is not mine. My baby is a chubby, cute boy—though I have no idea where he is now.

‘Where is your mom?’ I think, tempted to leave but unable to bear the thought of her alone.

Then she speaks, her voice clear and insistent. ‘Mama left after I was born.’ I remember a woman in red who appeared briefly, then hurried away from the hospital. I know her mom will never return.

I glance around at the patients slumped in their chairs, the nurses gliding like shadows against the white walls, the fluorescent hum bathing everything in stark white.

‘I have to leave,’ I murmur.

‘Take me with you,’ she begs, her tiny body now lying on the cold metal bench, my hand touching her soft head.

‘Okay,’ I whisper, rising. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ She stands up and turns into a toddler, following me on unsteady legs.

We soon find ourselves walking through the hollow darkness of night streets—not completely dark, but dotted here and there with red glimmering light. From a distance, I see incomplete corpses frozen in eerie gestures. They are scattered about; some trunks are piled up like debris, ghost fire flickering around the shapes.

The limbs of the corpses seem to rise from the ashes. My chest tightens with dread, a strong urge to flee clawing at me. Just as the words ‘This feels like hell’ form on my lips, the baby tugs my sleeve. ‘Please, get me out of here.’

We veer left toward a lone illuminated shop where a few shopkeepers seem alive, then dart right to the bus stop. A double-decker has just left, its windows aglow with passengers we envy.

The next one soon arrives. The baby scrambles aboard first, clutching my wallet. She hands it back as I face the driver. I search every pocket and find my thousand yuan gone. I stand petrified under the driver’s glaring eyes.

Then the alarm blares, loud enough to drive me out of that hell-bus and land me back in the bright, dull dawn of the waking world.

I wondered what happened to the baby girl I adopted in the dream. Had she found a good household to be reborn into? Had she made it to the terminal?

I wished I hadn’t wound the alarm. There was a dark charm lurking in that deceased world. It felt like a rehearsal—to have been there before I actually go there.

I sat up in bed and spat on the floor. A baby in a dream signals a petty schemer lurking in the real world. 

‘Spit to dispel!’ my mother taught me when I was little.

About the author 

Lingjuan Fan is a scholar and teacher whose writing has appeared in Life Writing, The Translator, Translation Studies, and elsewhere. She lives near the Canton Tower in Guangzhou, China. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)