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| Illustration by Chloe Scheffe |
As the North Wind Howlend
by Yu Hua
Sunlight had sneaked in through the window and was creeping toward the chair where my pants dangled. I was lying bare-chested in bed, rubbing some gunk from the corner of my right eye. It must have collected while I was sleeping, and to just let it stay there seemed inappropriate. Meanwhile, my left eye was idle, so I gave it the job of looking at my pants. I had taken them off the night before, and now I regretted tossing them so casually over the chair, where they lay wrinkled and crumpled beside my jacket. As my left eye inspected them, I began to wonder whether while sleeping I had shed, snakelike, a layer of skin, for that’s what my jacket and pants looked like. At this point, a drop of sunshine reached my pant leg; the little splotch of leaping light made me think of a golden flea. And so I felt itchy all over and had my idle left hand make itself useful by scratching.
