How We Disappeared

by Jing-Jing Lee

How his need to talk about what happened during the war had given way to her fear of it, so that she was left now with the half history of a man she had known for most of her life.

As if what had been keeping her whole was being hollowed out of her. She had a sense of the familiar, and knew at once, what this was. This was what it was like to lose hope, little by little.

Underneath this shallow assumption was a torrid wave of fear. I had an idea about why we were there, a whisper that I was trying to shut out. Listening to

the whisper would have pulled me under, like an invisible current, and swept me out to sea. For now, I clung on to anything I could. Even a glint of hope as faint as this.

This, I thought, this is how we’re going to disappear.

How the months and years had chipped away our horror, and what we had to get used to to survive.

got up because what else was there to do?

their unplanned-for daughter, their Wang Di—had disappeared entirely. The way a body burns and leaves nothing recognizable in its wake. Just a few shards of bone, ash. Handfuls that slip away in the wind.

Something made me stand up. I wanted to run.