Cleaver

by Huina Zheng

The first time I sleepwalked, I was seven. I only know because my mother told me later. She said that one night, while the whole family was asleep, I got out of bed barefoot and walked to the front door. My fingers twisted the metal lock again and again. Click, click. In the silence, it was loud enough to wake them. She grabbed my arm; my father dragged me back into the living room.

“Where are you going in the middle of the night?!” he shouted.

I kicked and thrashed. He lost his temper and slapped my back. I started crying. “Why did you hit me?” That’s when they realized—I’d been sleepwalking.

After that, it became a worry. They tried red thread on my wrist, calming soups, even tucked a yellow talisman under my pillow, but nothing worked. I’d still get up at night, drawn by something, always toward the door.

Then an uncle from the countryside visited. After hearing the story, he tapped his cigarette and said, “Put a cleaver under the bed. Blade out. Spirits fear steel.”

My mother hesitated. She never believed in that kind of thing. But that night, she slid the heaviest cleaver we owned beneath my bed. Its cold weight pressed against the wooden slats like a silent warning.

Strangely, it worked. I never sleepwalked again. The cleaver stayed there for eleven years. Sometimes I’d crawl under the bed just to look at it. Its blade gleamed dully in the dark, like a closed eye.

Before I left for college, my mother knelt beside my bed and reached underneath. She pulled out the cleaver, wrapped it in old newspaper, and handed it to me. I held it for a moment. The outline of the blade pressed through the paper. Weapons weren’t allowed on public transport. Dorms did inspections. “I can’t take it,” I said finally, and slid it back. She didn’t argue. Just sighed, and looked away.

That first night in the dorm, I woke in the hallway. My hand was on the fire door. The metal was cold. At the end of the corridor, the emergency light flickered green. My shadow stretched across the floor. Behind me, my room door hung open.

And in that moment, I remembered the cleaver under my old bed. But here, there was nothing. Just me. And a door that would open with the slightest push.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Huina Zheng, a Distinction M.A. in English Studies holder, works as a college essay coach. Her stories have been published in Baltimore Review, Variant Literature, Midway Journal, and others. Her work has received nominations three times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She resides in Guangzhou, China with her family.

 

Still Bound

by Huina Zheng

The dog had been chained in the corner of the yard for six years. The iron chain had rusted red, like a dried-up trail of blood. You can’t blame me—when he was just a puppy, he tore around wildly, scattering the neighbor’s chickens and even killing one. When I fastened the chain around his neck, I saw a flash of confusion and fear in his eyes. I should have felt pity. But the neighbor had shouted, “If you don’t keep that dog under control, I’ll stew him myself.” I did it to protect him, to make him good. I did it out of love, or so I told myself.

At first, he howled through the nights, the chain pulled taut, his little body rubbed raw from struggling. Every time I passed, I walked faster, trying to outrun the guilt. Later, his cries faded to a rasp, folding into the wind. And then, even the rasp vanished. In storms, rain poured through the crooked kennel roof. He curled into the puddle. If he whimpered, the rain swallowed it. Under the scorching sun, he looked like a sunbaked lump of clay, motionless except for his tongue.

He grew into a large dog but lay in that narrow patch of dirt, quiet as stone. I should have let him run, let his muscles remember what it was to stretch. I should have warmed his cold nose with my palm before the light left his eyes. But I only hurried past, the way you pass a plum tree that never bears fruit—there, but no longer seen. For six years, aside from refilling his bowl, I nearly forgot he was alive.

One autumn afternoon, I walked toward him with a key. When the lock popped open with a click, he didn’t even twitch an ear. I called his name. He looked at me. I felt dizzy. I touched my neck—no chain. But something still choked me.

My late husband’s face flashed: twisted with rage, fists flying, spit in his curses. Blow after blow, I shut my eyes, unmoving—like a dog long used to being kicked. Why did you make me do it? You know how much I love you! He shouted, striking again. I looked into the dog’s hollow eyes and thought: do I have the same dead fish stare? If I had struggled harder, could I have broken free? Or was I, like him, still shackled to the years I thought I’d outlived?

I looked at him. Obedient. Broken. Utterly resigned. “It’s over,” I whispered. The chain was off. And yet I wondered: how long would it take for us to stand?

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Huina Zheng, a Distinction M.A. in English Studies holder, works as a college essay coach. Her stories have been published in Baltimore Review, Variant Literature, Midway Journal, and others. Her work has received nominations three times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She resides in Guangzhou, China with her family.