It’s so quiet in the spacious office. The door is slightly ajar. Everyone else has left for the day except for Meimei, the secretary. With her back to the door she is busy typing on the keyboard with her long and nimble fingers. Then she pauses and gazes outside the window thoughtfully. The bright sky begins to darken like a drop of black ink falling into a basin of clear water. The inky drop expands slowly like a dream until the entire basin of water turns black.
As she is lost in the trance, a pair of hands cover her eyes from nowhere without making the slightest noise. She grasps the hands and pulls them downward, hard, but the hands hold her head against the back of the chair firmly, like a lock.
Whose hands are these? She tries to think.
“Let go!” she cries.
The pair of hands doesn’t move.
“You’re hurting me!”
The hands still don’t move.
“If you don’t let go, I’m going to pinch you!” She breathes hard, her well-shaped chest bouncing uneasily.
Yet, the pair of hands remains locked on her face as if she hadn’t made the demand.
“I’m going to scream!’
Nothing happens. It seems she has to guess who it is before the hands will let go.
“Wang Guo?”
Apparently she is wrong. The hands refuse to let go.
“Li Xing?”
No. The hands are still there.
“General Manager Zhang?”
“CEO Feng?”
“President Gao!”
She makes a few more guesses; each time she is wrong.
She feels a soft kiss on the side of her cheek.
“Now I know who you are,” she says.
The hands that have been covering her eyes let go suddenly.
The lights in the office are so bright she cannot open her eyes to see for a while. “You’ve hurt my eyes,” she says, rubbing them slowly.
No answer. She forces open her eyes despite the dazzling light.
All is empty in front of her. She turns her head. All is empty behind her. Surprised, she scans and searches the entire office. There is no one there.
She hurries out of the office. The long hallway is empty. She runs downstairs, flight after flight. All the hallways. They are all so empty. . . .
(2005)