本帖最后由 sammy 于 2012-6-26 18:37 编辑
A New Purpose
by Damon Stone
The parasol, like the dream itself was red.
Lu threw herself out of the nightmare, a scream was ripped out of her throat as her hands convulsively gripped the sheets. She looked at her body and saw she was covered in sweat and not blood. She struggled to get her breathing under control and quiet the panic she felt.
Lu tried to remember the nightmare, but it was like trying to capture smoke. The harder she tried the faster it evaporated. Only a single image came to her mind: the parasol. There was something about it that was important. Horrifically important.
With effort Lu managed to put the night of terror behind her. She would be late for her meeting with Uncle Pan, and that would absolutely not do. Even at age of 8 she knew that her Uncle Pan was not a man to trifle with.
"You will be on time from now on yes Lu Chu?" spoke her uncle, his voice was somewhat high in tone and a little reedy. He was a small man. Only a six inches taller than Lu herself.
"Yes, honored Uncle."
"Excellent. Now take this package to Sifu Lau. You will do precisely what he says. At all time. No questions. Ever. Is that understood?"
"Yes, honored Uncle."
"Excellent. When he is done with you he will give you another package. Bring it to me, straightaway. After you may return home." With that her uncle turned away from her back to the large muscular man, on both knees. Kneeling he was almost as tall as her uncle. Lu turned quickly and left. The look in the mans eyes had been one of shame... and fear.
Sifu Lau was a hard and demanding man. Not unfeeling, he laughed, and smiled readily, but he would order his students about in hardships that would leave them battered and trembling while he smiled and laughed.
He taught Lu as he did all his other students, showing her a stance or a step or a sweep of the arm and expect her to mimic it and practice it and it alone until it was to his satisfaction. By the end of the day she was exhausted physically and mentally.
When Sifu Lau finally let her go, with a small package for her uncle, she was bone tired, but oddly energized. She walked as quickly as her tired legs would allow. Cutting through a side street she was bumped by a lady she had not seen. Lu quickly bowed her head to ask for absolution for her clumsiness but the lady just brushed by as if she hadn't noticed Lu at all. Lu glanced up without raising her head, the lady was dressed in grey carrying a crimson parasol with a black dragon dancing on it.
Lu stumbled. That parasol... she had seen it before. She was positive it was like the one from her dreams. A red rose petal tumbled past her face and into the alley. Lu shook herself. She didn't have time to follow the lady, she had to get the package to Uncle. The ally led to what had been an open market. Now it looked like a slaughterhouse. The walls, the pave-stones, the carts everything was washed in blood. And the people had been taken apart, their bodies reduced to lumps of meat.
Lu didn't remember how she made it back to Uncle Pan's house to deliver the package, or how she made it home. The only thing she remembered of that evening walk was the red parasol with the dancing dragon. An image from her dream, come terribly to life. There was a red smear on her left shoulder where she had bumped into the lady. She studied hard every day and ran home every night, no matter how tired she was, always fearful that The Lady with the Red Parasol would come for her next. Lu Chu swore she would be ready if that day ever came. She would swallow her fear and die fighting.
A traumatic and driven childhood gave way to an adulthood of intensity and fearlessness.
