I closed up the story in the notebook and put it in my drawer. I have been working on this story for weeks. It went smoothly some days, but dragged miserably the others. After writing, I am always empty and both sad and happy, as though a big part of me has been ?sucked out but I don't know if it is sucked out for good because I would not know truly how good is the story until I read it over the next few days. The sun burns into one fierce sheet of flame in the sky. You can almost see it sputtering out. I began to text my husband in random words. Now that the bad weather had come, we could leave Shenzhen for a while for a place where this heat would be cool breezes or rain washing against our faces. Or later this year, we could go to places where this breeze or rain would be snow coming down through the pines and covering the roofs, roads and high hillsides and at an altitude where we could hear it creak as we walked home at night. I had been teaching a lot and I got some money saved. I could teach anywhere and I could write that anywhere under any circumstances and we had money to make the trip. We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the sky solemn. That was where we could go. And when we come back to Shenzhen it would be clear and cool and lovely. I see myself smiling in the reflection of the glass table and have the message sent to my husband. Then, the phone rings. There are three words :" wake up, girl. " yeah. That's exactly why I married him.