Dragonwings Homework

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I had to take a cigarette." He stared up at the sky with a frown and pulled his collar up about his neck. The rain ran down the brim of his hat, splattering on his shoulders. "But it's a miserable day."

"I guess," I said . I had the small canvas bag of money under my loose shirt. " Going back to the Company?"

"Why not?" Black Dog shrugged. He fell into step beside me and we walked up the hill in silence. Black Dog folded his arms across his chest, almost hugging himself. "Don't you...don't you hate it here?"

"I don't like it, if that's what you mean, but White Deer says that 'hate' is so strong a word that I ought to use it on;y for evil."
"But there's another wy to forget evil," Black Dog said. We stopped for a moment in a doorway when the rain fell harder.

"Did you ever hear about how we got opium?" he asked finally.

"The British demons forced us to let them sell it in the Middle Kingdom,"I said.

"Ah, that's what some people say who want to hide the truth, cause they don't want to give the poor man his due. He was a poor working man like you or me who, no matter how hard he worked, always wound up owing more and more to the bosses. The only thing he owned outright was his ugly life, maybe the ugliset woman alive. She was so repulsive that he beat her in the morning when he got up and beat her in the evening when he came home. The wife never complained , because she loved him dearly. But finally when she saw how much he hated her, she gell ill because she was so sad.

"On her deathbed, she called her husband to her and told him that after her death he would realize how much she loved him despite everything he had done to her. At once the poor farmer felt sorry for what he had done, but before he could tell her, she died. Tne days later, the poor farmer noticed a strange blue flower growing from her grave. There was a little round fruit inside the flower. At first the poor farmer was afraid that his wife had turned in to soem poisonous flower. He could not sleep at night, thinking about the flower and what he had done to his wife. He could not work during the day, remembering the blows he had given her. ' SHe has every right to hurt me,' the poor farmer said, 'for I have been a mean, spiteful man.'

"With that, he fell sick himself . But he had no money to pay the doctors, nor any offspring to care for him. And then one night during a feverish dream, he saw his wife. She told him that the flower on her grave had been woven from the strands of her soul. The strange fruit in the flower could heal him. He was to cut the fruit and harden the juice that would come out and smoke it. If he smoked it every day, he would become healthy. The very next morning he got up and did vas his wife had told him, and no sooner did he take his first puff than he felt his illness leave him. So it was that he and his wife were closer in death than they were in life"

Black Dog smiled naughtily. "So it is to those two lovers that I smoke, for the name of the ugly wife was Life and the name of the farmer was Everyman. The only good thing I ever got out of my ugly life was the flower.

I understand some part of his story. "But life isn't all ugly," I said.

"Don't you think it's ugly here?" What kind of lives do we lead wothout wives and families?"

"There's no money back at home."

"But why sacrifice yourself just so others can get gat at home> All they ever understand is that they need mire money,"

"Things will be better in the next life. Maybe we'll be born as the sons of noble families. May be we'll even finally find release from this world."

Black Dog looked at me intently. " Why shouldn't we get some pleasure in this life? Why later? Why not now?"

"Because we don't owe things just to ourselves. There are others."

He grabbed me by the arm and his voice grew wild. He slapped on my face. " Don't give me your simpering , mealymouthed answers. We've repaid our debts a dozen times over."

"You're hurting me," I said. All the time, in my mind, I was telling myself that I must not be frightened. I must not be frightened.

"You don't know what pain is," Black Dog said.

"I know! You bit me! It's painful. I am not a silly kid!"
"You shut up! Wait till you have been here for longer time. Then you'll know." Black Dog twisted my arm and kick my stomach. I kick his right leg and run away. I heard his boots come closer as he followed me. Suddenly I felt a pain in the back of my hand. He had grabbed my queue. I stopped short as he jerked at the queue, and fell on my back.He tore the money bag away from me, but he did not even look at it. "Pain?" he said strangely. " Pain?" You don't know what it is." And he began to kick me with his heavy boots...