Little Leo

Swallow wallow fallow follow.

“You have a criteria for beauty,” said an austere hard nosed, lock-stepped powerless, lonely, angry and frustrated female Chinese university teacher one day, adding, “You should just blend in.”

She was afraid, like 1.2 billion of being singled out, purged, tried and executed for proletarian intellectual ideology in a harmonious Marxist society.

“I’ve learned,” said the teacher, “to keep my sweet delicious mouth shut, unless I’m eating or laughing at the stupidity and laconic narrow-minded ways and means of our leaders, these old stupid despotic men, sitting behind their big blood stained teak desks chopping seals and dolphins and whales without prejudice or malice, to be silent.”

“I see,” said Leo, a 14-year old, one sweet, delicious day when he and a traveler were out exploring on their bikes and stopped in an old query to play in dirt. It was an abandoned foreign country.

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. Keep it simple. Get to the verb.

They stood deep inside excavated lands. A new planet. High dirt walls bordered by pine, evergreen and blue sky were lined with sharp deep gashes where earth machine teeth had gouged down soft dirt. Workers harvested soil for construction projects at the university where 15,000 trapped, lonely and bored students struggled to survive in a harmonious society.

Where they mastered the art of eating, sleeping and exploring casual sex hiding from security guards wearing olive drab green recycled army uniforms.

They were at the bottom of a large bottomless pit.

“I have a theory they are spies,” whispered a student.
“How do you know this?” said Charlie.

“Because their job is to keep an eye on us. Think about it. We have too any people here and so, to monitor our behavior, attitudes and thinking, they recruit students and teachers to be spies. To be informers.”

“My father was an informer during the Cultural Revolution,” said Shining Star.

“Yes, he was a member of the Shining Path Young. This is our new generation, with a new generation of informers and spies. They make good money. They keep their mouth shut and know their place.”

Leo and the nomad made it into the hills with a diamond in their mind.

Peace.