Our Missing Hearts

by Celeste Ng

The authorities are here. They have everything under control.

If any of you ever get wind of someone planning disruptions like these, it’s your civic duty under PACT to report it to the authorities.

He’d learned, by then: sometimes being alone was the less bad option.

Bird is one of the few kids he knows who ever use the school computers. Behind them, empty bookshelves. Bird has never seen books on them, but there they stand, fossils of a long-gone era.

Well, it’s like that, the teacher said. We all want our children to be safe. We don’t want them exposed to bad ideas—ideas that might hurt them, or encourage them to do bad things. To themselves, or to their families, or to our country. So we remove those books and block sites that might be harmful.

Yesterday morning, she says, on this quiet street, Family Services officers arrived at the home of Sonia Lee Chun and took custody of her four-year-old son, David. The reason? A recent post by Sonia on social media, arguing that PACT was being used to target members of the Asian American community.

Drumming her fingers along the spines, she skims the shelf, appraising and ticking off each book in her mind.

Interestingly enough, it's the #woke crowds, which cancel authors and artists. But in the fight for #wokeness that doesn't matter.

Removed. Three years ago, it says. Someone complained, probably. That it encouraged pro-PAO sentiment, or something. Some of our donors have—opinions.

Not anywhere good, the police officer said, nodding. Not anywhere good, that’s for sure. Well. I think we’re all set here, sir. Just a misunderstanding, obviously. But you keep out of trouble, son, okay?

It's strange how this neomarxist tale is written as fiction. Nevertheless, these existed in the past. But they were the socialists governments, of which the neomarxism is is so fond of today.

Someone was always watching, it seemed: when Bird went out without a hat and stood shivering at the bus stop; when Bird forgot his lunch and his teacher asked him if his father was giving him enough to eat. There was always someone watching. There was always someone wanting to check. It’s probably nothing, but— I just figured I should say something in case— Of course I’m sure everything is fine, but—

I guess it’s easier, she says, to write brave words than to actually do the work.

A tall white man.

Of course!

The stick hits the bird that holds its head the highest.

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

The dark-suited figure, news reports explained as they ran the clip on a loop, was a senator from Texas, one of the most hawkish on what he called the Chinese Crisis. He’d made a name for himself with fiery calls for sanctions, polemics on the creeping menace of Chinese industry, thinly veiled insinuations about loyalty.

There it goes: a murdered senator from TX (of course), who's opposing China (of course): the root of all evil. Then the Evil strikes back.

To most people, PACT seemed temperate, sensible even: patriotism, public vigilance. Why wouldn’t you support it?

Here, they could pretend they were not eating cake while everyone else had no bread.