The top rolled across the room, just missing the hole in the wooden floor. Wan Li knew that the hole was large enough for him to poke his tiny fingers through and reclaim the precious toy should it fall in.
His mother was cooking on the tiny stove in the corner of their one room home. The salty smell of noodles and vegetables made his stomach growl. She turned and smiled at him. He returned it sheepishly before twisting his wrist in preparation to send the top spinning.
Instead of dancing perfectly on its round tip like he had watched the older children make it do, the top flung to the other side of the room and rolled on its side until it slowed to a standstill. Frowning with frustration, Wan Li scrambled to his feet and reclaimed it to try again.
Before he could launch the toy, the door opened and in walked his exhausted father. This man worked all day everyday as a steel plant foreman to be able to put food on the table and keep a roof over his family's heads. Although he was only four-years-old, Wan Li understood this and his gratitude was beyond what his limited vocabulary could express.
"Bába!" Wan Li squealed and leaped into his father's arms. The man hugged his child tightly as a smile spread on his dirty face. He set the boy down and sniffed the air teasingly as his wife approached to greet him.
"Mama is cooking something good for supper, huh?" he noted in Chinese after kissing his wife. "But she always does." Truly, he was amazed by his wife's culinary skills with the limited ingredients they could afford.
Wan Li was intelligent for his young age. He knew that he was not as fortunate as some of the other kids he played with in the streets of Shanghai. As he watched his father wash his face and his mother dish out the food, he knew he had everything he ever wanted right here.
After supper, Wan Li helped clean up as best he could as he was too short to reach the wash bin without aid. His mother still thanked him for his help as he handed her the dishes to wash.
Her long, black hair was pinned up in a bun with a few loose strands framing her round face. He had always been told that he looked like his mother. As far as Wan Li could tell when he stared in his mama's chipped mirror that he could only see if his papa lifted him up, he looked like both his parents and was very proud of it.
"Thank you. You can go play if you don't go too far."
Wan Li never liked to wander far anyway. The world was too big for a four-year-old.
For some reason, today he lost track of how far he and the other children, whose parents also worked in the steel plant, were playing. Later, he looked upon that chance as fate.
One moment, he and the other children were at a toy stall gazing at a beautiful kite against the dark sky in awe. The next, there was a deafening boom that shook the very ground so hard he fell and scraped his knees.
The rainbow kite they had been gawking at caught fire and turned to ash and wire. The glare burned his eyes and he turned away. The kids he was with scattered. Unsure what to do, Wan Li just ran, and luck was with him when he did. The buildings were catching fire fast.
People were screaming. The sound terrified him.
He fell. His knees and palms scrapped against the road again. He hit his chin and tasted blood. He was too scared to cry. Survivors ran past, barely missing the boy below. Wan Li scrambled to his feet and followed them away. Away from the fire and explosions. Away from home.
Exhaustion quickly claimed him and he collapsed in a dirty alleyway. He didn't have time to catch his breath before the tears began to flow. He hugged his dirty and bleeding knees to his chest and rocked himself back and forth. Loneliness and fear crushed him from all sides. He hid his face and began to sob.
About two hours later, some kind people found him. They took him to a place full of survivors who looked like him: exhausted, scared, shaken, and alone.
He gave the kind people his name when they asked. When they asked him about his parents, he just shook his head and rocked back and forth again, pulling the blanket they had given him tighter around his tiny body as if to cast away the overwhelming loneliness.
He knew they were gone.
Translations:
Bába – Dad
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