❝she was the girl, who bit the horizon, who peeled the stars from the sky and put them on her tongue, the girl who was hungry for the universe, who craved magic and saw the broken boy for who he truly was- a broken boy.❞
Beca...
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Chapter 21
China and Holy Shiitakes
Ellis
The bleary Chinese morning outside the window resembled a grey city, filtered through the hazy and distorted soft focus of a camera when my eyelids prised itself open as if the skin embossed over my eyeballs were sewed shut and finally torn asunder, blinking several times to adapt to the sudden invasion of harsh white light.
Jem was shaking me awake by the shoulder, appearing to be just as groggy and disoriented himself, completed with a tousled bedhead and a horrific case of bad morning breath. It sprayed over my face when he yawned and said: "We're here," was the deep, husky tremor of his voice, hoarse from the lack of water, smoky from his bad cigarette habit. He unclasped his seat belt and extracted himself from the seat to collect his backpack from the overhead container.
My neck groaned and creaked as I turned to get a good summary of what was happening. Everybody was out of their seats, unbuckling belts, reaching for their hand-carried bags stored in the overhead compartment, yawning as they tiredly get ready to go through the Chinese immigration. I stretched and tried my leg, which has fallen asleep and rotated the lower part round and round.
The aeroplane window was fogged up, speckled with raindrops. Everything was bloated and damp. There was a faint outline of a Metropolitan city rising from the horizon imposingly but China just seemed perpetually shrouded in a thick cloak of smog, burned fossil fuels and carbon dioxide. My addled mind, slowed by the effects of receding sleep, freshened up considerably with the anticipation for China as if I just inhaled three gallons of coffee. This was it. My heart was hammering. Oh, God. Oh, my God. I'm in freaking China.
"Come on," Jem touched my hand to pull me out of my reverie, "We have to go." He nodded forward as the line of waiting passengers began moving.
I clicked my fastened belt open and shuffled out of the seats. He moved so I could have some space. "You ready?" I asked him, even though I already knew the answer.
He smirked but it didn't infuriate me at it usually did. "Born ready."
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The water of the puddle squished under my Jimmy Choo loafers as I sprinted across the valet parking of the airport, dragging my Louis Vuitton suitcase, and wetness seeped through the leather cracks, sealing their fate as ruined. But it didn't even bother me. I was in Beijing. So close to my mother. So far away from home.
The ground shimmered and glistened with the slick slipperiness and the air was suffocating with pollution as if choking on the black sludge itself. "Jesus," coughed Jem when we exited out of the sliding doors, "It's like a fucking chimney here." That was one thing I really missed about home- Philly, with it's crisp and woodsy pine scent, smelling like a Christmas card. China was basically industrial London in the Victorian era, so dense with blackness and grime I wondered how was I seeing everything.
