Babel

by R.F. Kuang

Then he blinked, because he’d just registered what this most mundane and extraordinary moment meant – that in the space of several weeks, they had become what he’d never found in Hampstead, what he thought he’d never have again after Canton: a circle of people he loved so fiercely his chest hurt when he thought about them. A family.

She seemed bewitched as she observed the print, as if she’d seen actual magic. ‘It’s us. Frozen in time, captured in a moment we’ll never get back as long as we live. It’s wonderful.’

For simple ink on paper was not enough to describe this golden afternoon; the warmth of uncomplicated friendship, all fights forgotten, all sins forgiven; the sunlight melting away the memory of the classroom chill; the sticky taste of lemon on their tongues and their startled, delighted relief.