Jia

Looking through the hollow window that welcomed the early evening wind,
she saw the sun setting to the east. It was time. She stroked her her hair that fell just
above her hips, covering every strand with her fingers, waiting for her mother to remind
her.
N ho. They are waiting for you past the pond. Okay? her mother said as she
put her fingers through Jias black hair so soft it seeped through her mothers hands like
white sand. And make sure they give you the money first; $80, they said, for the whole
head.
Jia nodded her head as she pushed away the curtain that stood between her and
her grandpa, whom she gave a kiss goodbye, sitting at the kitchen table.
Beautiful, he smiled; his voice echoing like an empty tunnel. Smile.
She started down the road as her mother, fair and rosy like Snow White, watched
in the doorway. The rice field, which stretched to the end of the horizon, was blanketed
by peach and periwinkle quilted sun. Her hand brushed along the moss which hugged
the stone towers and housed the butterflies. She looked up at the small hollow window
along the tower, waiting for a long braid to fall. With an imagined yellow ball gown, she
hummed and twirled past the field and to the pond, taking in the smell of spring rain.
The pond mirrored a crowd of women, men and motorcycles, blurry and mystical
with each ripple of water, like they were part of a dream or an awaiting nightmare.

N ho. Take a seat, a woman took pushed Jias shoulder down to a plastic
crate, as the crowd around pulled on her hair and discussed the shine, length, and
qualities she didnt know hair had. With every new voice and tug of the hair, her eyes
had filled with another tear.
My mother said $80 first, she spoke, her words sinking to the dirt road.
It who ever pays the highest hun.
The woman swatted the men like flies and took our her rusted yellow scissors. Pushing
Jias head forward she began to cut. It sounded like a machete, her father used to use
in the rice fields, against Jias ear as her tears polka-dotted her jeans. By the time the
last strand was cut, the sun had left the road and the lotus flowers had gone to sleep at
the bottom of the pond.
As the woman now whispered to the different men on motorcycles, the newly
nights air breathed on Jias bare neck, reminding her what was missing.
Here you go, the woman said handing her $60, as the men rode away smiling.
You said 80.
Yes. They pay 80; you get 60 little one.
She walked on top the smashed and hammered road. The narrow path was lined
with choppy leafless bushes whose branches outlined their once beautiful trimmed self.
Her little brother calls them Medusa bushes, their branches poking out in every
direction, hissing like snakes with nights wind. The crumbled huts, like once loved
dollhouses, with perfectly made beds surrounded by peeling walls and the once

thatched roof now shaved to the scalp, lined the path to her tiny hut on the end of the
rice field.
And there in front of her little hut, she could see her mothers outline in the
doorway. Jia handed her the money and walked to her room before the tears began to
roll down her cheek. And in her sleep she imagined looking at herself from above, not
recognizing her face, seeing a wicked witch she couldnt run away from.
Morning came and she went on her weekly sunday morning walk with grandpa.
She stared at her feet against the dirt road, following the heavy presence of grandpas
crooked oblivious smile until they reached pond.
Look. Jia, the lotus flowers have woken up, he smiled with perfectly crooked
teeth as he tapped her chin up to meet the water.
She saw the pink petals reach from out of the water and, next to it, a familiar
face.
Just like Snow White, her hair, black as coal, fell just below the ears. Her skin
was softly fair and her cheeks rosey like her mothers. Her straight dark eyebrows and
strong willed cheekbones, resembled the deeply wrinkled photo of her long gone father.
Beautiful, he smiled; his voice echoing like an empty tunnel. Smile.
She did.