What We Lost in Asia:
An Asian American Short Story
The humid air of Washington D.C. is hardly an invitation in the summertime. Walking out of the Reagan National Airport into a traffic jam and a line of taxis was not how Janet imagined her first time in America. It had been more than 40 hours since she had left Hong Kong. Two flight transfers and four delays later, she had arrived in Washington D.C.
After waiting in the line for a taxi for 5 minutes, she entered the cab. The driver appeared to be East Africa, probably Somali in appearance, but Janet didn't know that. Of course, there were Africans in Hong Kong, but Janet had never interacted with them other than the smallest communication. She was also not a Hong Kong native. She had been born in Guangdong province in the city of Zhongshan, Tanzhou district, but that was over 15 years ago.
She was now 29 years old. 5'7 tall for a Chinese girl and very tall for a South Chinese Girl. Her hair was long, but had a lock of it dyed blonde. Her curves showed her feminine beauty.
She had been an only child of course, but after her mother had passed away, Janet's father had remarried, and his new wife wanted nothing to do with Janet. Her father chose to abandon her to taken on the new marriage, and she had no family. Shortly after their separation, Janet moved to Hong Kong to work as a cashier in a small market. Later, she became a front desk attendant at a hotel, and that was all she knew of life.
She spoke English rather well for someone with no university education, as well as Mandarin and her native Cantonese. She showed the driver a card with an address for one of the buildings at Georgetown University. She didn't say a word, and she was not sure why.
Janet was not a student at Georgetown. She didn't even come to America to study. She had been granted a 10 year tourist visa, and she was allowed to stay for 60 days. Plus, it was a chance to get away from someone. Her return to Hong Kong was on day 59. Janet just wanted to see the Georgetown Campus. She had read about the place so many times. It was one of the few places she had ever dreamed about going.
For the first time, since the plane landed Janet opened the Wechat messenger in her phone, and she glanced down at the new messages that she would have picked up on the airport wifi. There were a few social things that she did not care about, but she noticed a single message from Dmitri.
Janet turned to ice as she read Dmitri's words "You will never run far enough."
She bit her lip in anxiety. She knew he had something wrong with him. At least, now she knew he wasn't like other human beings, but she didn't know that at the time last year when they had first met.
He had been staying in Shenzhen, the closest mainland city to Hong Kong, but he crossed the border frequently. That's how they came into contact. Janet bit her lip.
"Stop the car," she told the driver.
" I'm sorry," he sounded confused.
"This is okay," she insisted.
"You wanted to go to Georgetown University," he said faintly.
"Stop the car...please," Janet persisted.
In a slow and careful manner, the taxi driver pulled the car to the blank curb of the road. As Janet looked around, she couldn't see many buildings of character at all. There were some neon lights that had just come on as the twilight faded into the evening, but there were also some buildings that were just black, as if they had been closed for years.
She wasn't even sure why, but had to get out of the car now. She couldn't think about Georgetown. She couldn't think about anything. She just needed a way out. Something had bothered her about Dmitri's message.
She paid the driver and took her small suitcase to the curb. She just stood there, one hand on the bag and one hand over her mouth. Part of her still held some excitement to finally be in America, but the other part could only focus on Dmitri.
How could she have been so stupid to get involved with him? Everything had happened so fast last year.
Another taxi cab pulled up to the curb, and Janet's ice-like body turned a few degrees cooler. She was petrified, as the cab stood still for around one minute. Then, just as she had feared and predicted, Dmitri emerged from the rear of the taxi.
Everyone in Hong Kong knew he was a Russian from the smallest first glance; he just had that type of characteristic. He was wearing a black leather jacket that Janet had never seen before, underneath was a black button-up shirt and he had on blue jeans. His hair was blond, and his eyes were blue. Dmitri was much taller than Janet's 5'7 frame, but she didn't know anything about precision.
"You will never run far enough," he muttered to her with only the faintest touch of an accent.
"What are you doing here?" Janet asked. "You followed me all the way from Hong Kong?"
"Not at all," Dmitri smirked as he talked. "I left four hours before you did. If I had followed you, you could have gotten away. If I am always one step ahead of you, I will never lose you."
"Go away," said Janet unconvincingly. "I have nothing to say to you."
"But I have much to say to you," he stated the obvious.
Two people walked by and noticed the tense standoff. Dmitri had seen them out of the corner of his eye. He had spent seven years in China, and his Mandarin level was rather high, so he spoke to Janet in Mandarin Chinese.
"You just ran away?" He asked.
"I got my visa to America," she replied. "I always wanted to come here."
"You wanted to leave me," Dmitri continued. "Were you so scared?"
"Of course, I was afraid," she challenged him. "You can crazy sometimes."
"Janet," Dmitri began. "We had a small love affair. You got pregnant. Neither of us could have expected that."
"Please, I don't want to.."
"Then, what did you do?" He did not let her finish her sentence. "You had an abortion without telling me. You killed what was mine."
"I didn't know you at all," she said in English. "We had only met four times."
"Speak Mandarin," he demanded, as he did not want others to hear. "You were never going to tell me, were you?"
"No," Janet said honestly.
"That is not acceptable," Dmitri countered. "I had a right to know."
"Were you going to marry me?" Janet asked. "You said you would never marry anyone. Would you even want a baby with me? You don't even live in Hong Kong. You said yourself in two years, you want to go back to Russia."
"You did something without my permission," Dmitri tensed. "You overstepped your authority."
Janet said nothing.
"So," Dmitri began, talking slower than normal. "There are two options you can choose from. Two variants...The first is you kill me. The second is I kill you."
"This is crazy," Janet shuddered. "
"I don't care," Dmitri muttered. "You are also crazy, just in a different way. I will leave you now Janet, but I will see again soon. You will not know when, but I will find you just as I did now. Remember Janet, two options, two variants. You will have to decide soon."
Then, Dmitri turned around.................
...............................................................
................................................................................and the universe was obliterated. A spirit broke free from the center of it all and returned the entirety of material existence to a constant state of zero. Then, there was another big bang. It could happen anytime.
