Locusts
Jonan Pilet
Jonan Pilet
"Street Cart" Egon Schiele, Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper, 12 3/8 x 18 7/8 in., 1914. Open source form The Met.
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As Spring comes and Mongolia warms, the wind grows and the dark fog, made of coal and smoke, that covers Ulaanbaatar in the winter, dissipates, and for a moment the Mongol blue sky peers down at the city. Gobi sand moves across plains and steppe, and finally, over and down the hills and into Ulaanbaatar. It flushes through concrete corridors, seeps under doors, clanks against windows, lifts the edges of felt tents, clogs engines, and burns eyes. Animals huddle together, their backs to the wind and their faces buried in each other. Stray dogs run for cover under bushes and parked cars.
And as the sand moves on, it leaves what is left behind trapped in the city along fences, walls, and district corners. Then a new storm, trailing just behind the sand, enters. It’s heard before it’s seen, thundering. The black cloud vibrates as it floods over the hills. Its fist opens and its fingers spread through the districts and down the streets. The Mongolians hide from the storm, and curse it, knowing it means death to their livestock.
But this time Chinese foreigners in the city ran to meet it, out of their apartments and into the streets to collect it. They filled jars and plastic bags with the large-eyed, giant-headed, long-legged creatures. Their kids laughed as the bugs landed on their faces, and mothers bit off heads and put the bodies into their babies’ mouths. The swarm darkened the sky, blocked the sun, and the air, space, and everything in between was filled with chaotic movement.
Gan watched the scene from a sewer hole. He held the lid open a crack and grabbed one of the locusts on the pavement. He held it upside down, its underside revealed, the dark green and brown lines, scaled eyes, transparent wings, oversized mouth, and twitching appendages. He ate it, the head and all, crushing the brittle skeleton and releasing the warm goo and bitter and salty taste onto his tongue.
He called down the hole, but his shouts only echoed back up to him. With no response, he climbed out and joined the others in the streets collecting the locusts.
And as the sand moves on, it leaves what is left behind trapped in the city along fences, walls, and district corners. Then a new storm, trailing just behind the sand, enters. It’s heard before it’s seen, thundering. The black cloud vibrates as it floods over the hills. Its fist opens and its fingers spread through the districts and down the streets. The Mongolians hide from the storm, and curse it, knowing it means death to their livestock.
But this time Chinese foreigners in the city ran to meet it, out of their apartments and into the streets to collect it. They filled jars and plastic bags with the large-eyed, giant-headed, long-legged creatures. Their kids laughed as the bugs landed on their faces, and mothers bit off heads and put the bodies into their babies’ mouths. The swarm darkened the sky, blocked the sun, and the air, space, and everything in between was filled with chaotic movement.
Gan watched the scene from a sewer hole. He held the lid open a crack and grabbed one of the locusts on the pavement. He held it upside down, its underside revealed, the dark green and brown lines, scaled eyes, transparent wings, oversized mouth, and twitching appendages. He ate it, the head and all, crushing the brittle skeleton and releasing the warm goo and bitter and salty taste onto his tongue.
He called down the hole, but his shouts only echoed back up to him. With no response, he climbed out and joined the others in the streets collecting the locusts.
***
“Maybe families are taking the other kids in,” Zorig said last spring, as they collected locusts together. They knew that if they collected enough, they could eat well for weeks.
“We’d see them around the city,” Gan told him. “They’d tell us what happened.”
“Perhaps families outside the city, in the countryside.” Locust legs dangled from the corners of Zorig’s lips as he spoke. “I’ve heard of them taking kids to help care for their livestock. It’s a good life.”
“So many?” Gan used his thumb to stuff more of the bugs into an empty soda bottle. After a few days the locusts that remained would slow; they would stop moving completely. They lived longer by staying motionless. And in the bottle, they’d stay fresh. But for now, they vibrated the plastic with life.
Gan grabbed a locust and held it to Zorig. “What if something’s snatching us up? Just like the locusts?”
“And eating kids?” Zorig laughed. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and be next,” he said, smiling with bug-stained teeth. “I think I’d be tasty,” he patted his stomach, “and filling.”
“We’d see them around the city,” Gan told him. “They’d tell us what happened.”
“Perhaps families outside the city, in the countryside.” Locust legs dangled from the corners of Zorig’s lips as he spoke. “I’ve heard of them taking kids to help care for their livestock. It’s a good life.”
“So many?” Gan used his thumb to stuff more of the bugs into an empty soda bottle. After a few days the locusts that remained would slow; they would stop moving completely. They lived longer by staying motionless. And in the bottle, they’d stay fresh. But for now, they vibrated the plastic with life.
Gan grabbed a locust and held it to Zorig. “What if something’s snatching us up? Just like the locusts?”
“And eating kids?” Zorig laughed. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and be next,” he said, smiling with bug-stained teeth. “I think I’d be tasty,” he patted his stomach, “and filling.”
***
Now a year later Gan was one of the few kids left in the sewers. One by one, they had all disappeared. Gan didn’t know where they went, but he was sure they weren’t in Ulaanbaatar anymore. He’d been all over the city and had never seen any of them.
After filling three two-liter bottles with locusts, the sun began to set, and Gan returned to the sewers to sleep on the pile of fabrics and plastic he had collected over the years. This winter had been colder, and this time there was no one to huddle against and fight the cold. In the morning, Gan left his filled bottles and took several more empty ones. It was harder to collect on the second day of the swarm. Most of the locusts had been trampled. The sidewalks and streets were paved in red and green with the flattened insects. Gan looked in less populated areas of the city, to streets with fewer cars, where the bugs congregated on piles of sand in the corners of buildings.
Gan stopped outside his old apartment building where he used to live with his father on the third floor. He looked over the playground and the swing set where he had spent hours with his friends before his father was sent to prison. The collapse of a staircase had been blamed on the architect, his father. Three men had died in the incident. His father was given a life prison sentence on the count of three murders. Gan used to visit the apartment daily, hoping that somehow his father would be released and returned home. But even this place had never truly been Gan’s home.
At the age of two Gan was given to his father as a gift. Gan’s father’s wife had died, and his father’s cousin had given the youngest of his three boys, Gan, as a gift to his grieving cousin. Somewhere in the countryside were Gan’s true parents, parents he never knew and would never meet. But he had been told they never wanted him; that his birth mother had gone insane and had been told by demons to drop him in a river. He disappeared under the freezing rapids and was found further downstream, on the shore, naked, half-frozen and half-dead. But a Lama had found him and woke him.
“A Lama saved you, and he blessed the gift,” his father had told him. “My cousin wasn’t wealthy enough to care for you anyway. Your disposal was a gift to us both.”
Gan often wondered about his birth mother; what kind of spirit would make her drop her son into the water; what the demon told her about him; what words it had whispered. And he wondered how his life went from a curse to be trashed to a gift to be treasured.
As he got older, Gan stopped returning to the apartment. His presence had garnered suspicion and mothers chased him away, throwing stones at him to protect their children. Even now, older and larger, Gan feared being seen and made quick work of the locusts around his old home.
In the next district over, he found more locusts. The half circle created by the apartment buildings had funneled a swarm against the front doors. Another boy had beaten Gan to the spot and was collecting the insects in a small box but as he put them in they jumped out. The boy pushed the box to his chest, trying to keep them from escaping. Gan recognized the boy from the sewers, Tsendyin. They weren't close, but he was one of the few that were left.
Gan moved to help him but stopped as two men came out of the apartment entrance. They carried a large glass jar with a metal cap and spoke to him. They helped Tsendyin move his locusts from the box into the jar and collect more. Gan watched as they filled the large jar and sealed it. They pointed up at the building, and Tsendyin looked up. He was reluctant at first, but then followed them inside. The door closed.
Gan continued around the district collecting, returning a few hours later to the apartment Tsendyin had gone into. Gan went to the door and waited for Tsendyin, snacking on the locusts. But he didn’t come out, and as the sun set, Gan thought maybe he had already left and had gone back to the sewer. So Gan crossed the city to the sewer where Tsendyin spent his nights. But he wasn’t there; instead, he found an older man looking through his things, collecting bits of clothing and fabric from the pile.
“Stop,” Gan said. “Those are Tsendyin’s.”
“It’s dark. And he hasn’t come back,” the man said.
“They’re still his.” Gan ripped the stuff out of his hands and threw it back.
The man spit on the pile. “It’s garbage anyway.” He started to walk away. “If he didn’t come back,” the man said, “he’s not coming back.”
“What do you mean?” Gan asked.
“They don’t come back.” He turned to leave, but Gan grabbed his arm. “Stop,” Gan said.
But the man pushed him off and knocked him to the ground. “Do you know where they go?”
“They’re stolen.”
“Why?”
He tapped his chest and left.
Gan picked through Tsendyin’s things, trying to learn something about him from the pile of garbage. Most of the kids had something, something they had left behind, something they had hidden. Over the last year, Gan had started collecting, remembering each child from the items they left behind. Gan saved their items, in case they came back, and if they didn’t come back — and not one had — still he kept them safe. He had collected a wooden horse, a rusted knife, a plastic jeweled purse, a ripped and tattered football jersey, a scratched car mirror, a baby doll, a felt sock that smelled of gasoline, a toy train engine, and a necklace with a broken chain. Gan imagined each item had a story and a reason they were treasured, why they were buried and hidden among their things — gifts from parents or siblings, treasured childhood toys that reminded them of warm beds and full stomachs. Gan didn’t have a treasure. There was nothing left of his time before the sewers.
Beneath the pile of trash Tsendyin slept on, Gan found a photo wrapped in a plastic bag. The edges were torn, and water had warped the image, but Gan could recognize a young Tsendyin standing next to two other larger boys, each a little like Tsendyin, their nostrils wide and their ears long. He smiled as he looked at the picture and traced the shapes with his fingers.
He flipped it over. Words were written on the back, but Gan couldn’t read. He yelled for the man, hoping he could read, but he was gone. Gan decided to wait for Tsendyin and ask him what the words meant. But as Tsendyin didn’t return, Gan grew impatient. He put the photo in his pocket, grabbed one of his bottles of locusts, ran to the nearest manhole, and climbed out.
People on the street cursed at him as he ran back down the dark streets, past his old home, to the apartment where Tsendyin had been led. Gan tried to remember what the men had looked like as he waited outside the building. All he could remember is that they weren’t Mongolian, they were foreigners. Gan had heard about foreigners bringing homeless kids into their apartments, feeding them, and telling them stories of foreign spirits and demons and their powers over the world.
He moved from hiding spot to hiding spot, trying to make sure no one would become suspicious of him and make him leave. Stray dogs came over to him, sniffed him, and begged for food. He gave them a few locusts from his bottle and told them to leave, kicking at them. Sometime in the early morning, when Gan started to fall asleep, he heard the apartment door close. He peered across the street to where a man jogged out of the apartment. He recognized him as one of the two foreign men. But Tsendyin wasn’t with him. Gan thought about following him but didn’t want to risk missing Tsendyin leaving while he was gone. He stayed, and a short while later the man returned in a large Russian truck with a canvas covered back. He parked the truck next to the door and reentered the apartment. Gan moved across the dark pavement closer, as close as he was willing to risk, ducking behind a bench as the apartment door reopened and both men came out, struggling as they pushed a large wooden box on a dolly. Gan took shallow breaths and knelt close to the ground as the men scanned the apartments and then lifted the box into the back of the truck. One of the men cursed as they pushed the box further into the covered back. The other man scolded the first in a foreign language.
They lifted the back latch, tied up the canvas, and got into the cabin. Gan looked up at the apartment building as the truck started. He wondered if maybe Tsendyin had already left. Maybe he was still in there, or he was wherever these men were heading.
The truck rolled forward, and Gan ran towards it, jumping onto the back and holding onto the canvas. He pushed his bottle of locusts through the cover, untied the rope as the truck moved, and climbed inside as it turned onto a lit street. He tied the ropes and sealed the canvas behind him.
Gan crawled into the dark, feeling the truck bed on his hands and knees until the truck suddenly stopped. He was tossed forward and his head slammed into the wooden box.
After filling three two-liter bottles with locusts, the sun began to set, and Gan returned to the sewers to sleep on the pile of fabrics and plastic he had collected over the years. This winter had been colder, and this time there was no one to huddle against and fight the cold. In the morning, Gan left his filled bottles and took several more empty ones. It was harder to collect on the second day of the swarm. Most of the locusts had been trampled. The sidewalks and streets were paved in red and green with the flattened insects. Gan looked in less populated areas of the city, to streets with fewer cars, where the bugs congregated on piles of sand in the corners of buildings.
Gan stopped outside his old apartment building where he used to live with his father on the third floor. He looked over the playground and the swing set where he had spent hours with his friends before his father was sent to prison. The collapse of a staircase had been blamed on the architect, his father. Three men had died in the incident. His father was given a life prison sentence on the count of three murders. Gan used to visit the apartment daily, hoping that somehow his father would be released and returned home. But even this place had never truly been Gan’s home.
At the age of two Gan was given to his father as a gift. Gan’s father’s wife had died, and his father’s cousin had given the youngest of his three boys, Gan, as a gift to his grieving cousin. Somewhere in the countryside were Gan’s true parents, parents he never knew and would never meet. But he had been told they never wanted him; that his birth mother had gone insane and had been told by demons to drop him in a river. He disappeared under the freezing rapids and was found further downstream, on the shore, naked, half-frozen and half-dead. But a Lama had found him and woke him.
“A Lama saved you, and he blessed the gift,” his father had told him. “My cousin wasn’t wealthy enough to care for you anyway. Your disposal was a gift to us both.”
Gan often wondered about his birth mother; what kind of spirit would make her drop her son into the water; what the demon told her about him; what words it had whispered. And he wondered how his life went from a curse to be trashed to a gift to be treasured.
As he got older, Gan stopped returning to the apartment. His presence had garnered suspicion and mothers chased him away, throwing stones at him to protect their children. Even now, older and larger, Gan feared being seen and made quick work of the locusts around his old home.
In the next district over, he found more locusts. The half circle created by the apartment buildings had funneled a swarm against the front doors. Another boy had beaten Gan to the spot and was collecting the insects in a small box but as he put them in they jumped out. The boy pushed the box to his chest, trying to keep them from escaping. Gan recognized the boy from the sewers, Tsendyin. They weren't close, but he was one of the few that were left.
Gan moved to help him but stopped as two men came out of the apartment entrance. They carried a large glass jar with a metal cap and spoke to him. They helped Tsendyin move his locusts from the box into the jar and collect more. Gan watched as they filled the large jar and sealed it. They pointed up at the building, and Tsendyin looked up. He was reluctant at first, but then followed them inside. The door closed.
Gan continued around the district collecting, returning a few hours later to the apartment Tsendyin had gone into. Gan went to the door and waited for Tsendyin, snacking on the locusts. But he didn’t come out, and as the sun set, Gan thought maybe he had already left and had gone back to the sewer. So Gan crossed the city to the sewer where Tsendyin spent his nights. But he wasn’t there; instead, he found an older man looking through his things, collecting bits of clothing and fabric from the pile.
“Stop,” Gan said. “Those are Tsendyin’s.”
“It’s dark. And he hasn’t come back,” the man said.
“They’re still his.” Gan ripped the stuff out of his hands and threw it back.
The man spit on the pile. “It’s garbage anyway.” He started to walk away. “If he didn’t come back,” the man said, “he’s not coming back.”
“What do you mean?” Gan asked.
“They don’t come back.” He turned to leave, but Gan grabbed his arm. “Stop,” Gan said.
But the man pushed him off and knocked him to the ground. “Do you know where they go?”
“They’re stolen.”
“Why?”
He tapped his chest and left.
Gan picked through Tsendyin’s things, trying to learn something about him from the pile of garbage. Most of the kids had something, something they had left behind, something they had hidden. Over the last year, Gan had started collecting, remembering each child from the items they left behind. Gan saved their items, in case they came back, and if they didn’t come back — and not one had — still he kept them safe. He had collected a wooden horse, a rusted knife, a plastic jeweled purse, a ripped and tattered football jersey, a scratched car mirror, a baby doll, a felt sock that smelled of gasoline, a toy train engine, and a necklace with a broken chain. Gan imagined each item had a story and a reason they were treasured, why they were buried and hidden among their things — gifts from parents or siblings, treasured childhood toys that reminded them of warm beds and full stomachs. Gan didn’t have a treasure. There was nothing left of his time before the sewers.
Beneath the pile of trash Tsendyin slept on, Gan found a photo wrapped in a plastic bag. The edges were torn, and water had warped the image, but Gan could recognize a young Tsendyin standing next to two other larger boys, each a little like Tsendyin, their nostrils wide and their ears long. He smiled as he looked at the picture and traced the shapes with his fingers.
He flipped it over. Words were written on the back, but Gan couldn’t read. He yelled for the man, hoping he could read, but he was gone. Gan decided to wait for Tsendyin and ask him what the words meant. But as Tsendyin didn’t return, Gan grew impatient. He put the photo in his pocket, grabbed one of his bottles of locusts, ran to the nearest manhole, and climbed out.
People on the street cursed at him as he ran back down the dark streets, past his old home, to the apartment where Tsendyin had been led. Gan tried to remember what the men had looked like as he waited outside the building. All he could remember is that they weren’t Mongolian, they were foreigners. Gan had heard about foreigners bringing homeless kids into their apartments, feeding them, and telling them stories of foreign spirits and demons and their powers over the world.
He moved from hiding spot to hiding spot, trying to make sure no one would become suspicious of him and make him leave. Stray dogs came over to him, sniffed him, and begged for food. He gave them a few locusts from his bottle and told them to leave, kicking at them. Sometime in the early morning, when Gan started to fall asleep, he heard the apartment door close. He peered across the street to where a man jogged out of the apartment. He recognized him as one of the two foreign men. But Tsendyin wasn’t with him. Gan thought about following him but didn’t want to risk missing Tsendyin leaving while he was gone. He stayed, and a short while later the man returned in a large Russian truck with a canvas covered back. He parked the truck next to the door and reentered the apartment. Gan moved across the dark pavement closer, as close as he was willing to risk, ducking behind a bench as the apartment door reopened and both men came out, struggling as they pushed a large wooden box on a dolly. Gan took shallow breaths and knelt close to the ground as the men scanned the apartments and then lifted the box into the back of the truck. One of the men cursed as they pushed the box further into the covered back. The other man scolded the first in a foreign language.
They lifted the back latch, tied up the canvas, and got into the cabin. Gan looked up at the apartment building as the truck started. He wondered if maybe Tsendyin had already left. Maybe he was still in there, or he was wherever these men were heading.
The truck rolled forward, and Gan ran towards it, jumping onto the back and holding onto the canvas. He pushed his bottle of locusts through the cover, untied the rope as the truck moved, and climbed inside as it turned onto a lit street. He tied the ropes and sealed the canvas behind him.
Gan crawled into the dark, feeling the truck bed on his hands and knees until the truck suddenly stopped. He was tossed forward and his head slammed into the wooden box.
***
When Gan woke up the sun was shining in sharp rays through holes in the canvas above. The air was stiff and hot, and a locust climbed on his face, rubbing its back legs against his nose. He sat up slowly, and the locust jumped to the truck bed. Gan felt nauseous. His throat was parched, his head pounded, and he wanted water, but he only had his bottle of locusts. He crawled to it and took out several bugs and chewed them slowly. He closed his eyes and let the snack settle his stomach.
He sat next to the wooden box. It felt cold, so Gan rested his head against the wood. He realized it was freezing, its coolness coming through the wood. He pushed himself up and struggled to balance as the truck bounced.
The top of the box was latched and tied shut. Gan tried to untie the knot, but it was too tight, and he couldn’t pry it loose. He looked around for something to help open the box. He dug through piles of empty cardboard boxes and rolls of plastic wrapping until he found a glass bottle. He broke it on the truck bed, shattering it to pieces. He carefully took one of the glass shards and used it to cut at the rope. Slowly the rope frayed and as Gan got more impatient, he cut and pressed harder. The glass dug into his palm and blood dripped onto the truck bed. With a final swipe of the glass against the rope, it severed. Gan dropped the piece of glass and held his bloody hand in a fist as he unlatched the box and pushed the lid up.
The box was filled with ice. Gan dug, the blood from his hand mixing with the ice and turning it pink. He reached something solid just below the top layer and wrapped in plastic was Tsendyin. Gan recognized his shape, curled tight, his head and neck bent unnaturally to fit in the box. Tsendyin’s skin was blue, and he seemed to have shrunk.
Gan dug more, moving the ice to the edges.
“Tsendyin,” Gan whispered. He ripped and tore the plastic off of his face, and touched him, recoiling at his wet and oily skin, beads of liquid resting on him like dew. He tried to lift him, but some of the ice had attached to the plastic around Tsendyin and made him too heavy. Gan twisted Tsendyin and faced his body upwards. He put his ear to his chest and listened for a heartbeat. It took time for Gan to tune everything else out and hear the thick thuds, his own or Tsendyin’s he didn’t know, but he hoped it wasn’t his.
“You’re a gift, Tsendyin,” Gan said. “You’re alive. You have to be alive.” The truck came to a sudden halt and Gan fell back down, sliding back along the floor. He protected his head as he hit the cabin with a loud thud.
The cabin doors opened and closed as the two men exited the vehicle.
Gan jumped up and closed the box’s lid and redid the latch, working to make it look like it had never been opened as the men came around the truck. As they started to untie the canvas, he hoped they wouldn’t notice the red bloodstains on the wood and the rope. Gan pressed his back to the box and slid down as the canvas opened and the bright sunlight flooded in. He closed his eyes as the men exchanged words and the canvas was closed again. Gan listened as the men undid their belts and liquid hit parched earth. Then the men got back into the cabin and the truck moved again.
Gan could escape now, before the truck was moving too fast. He could make it back to the capital. He would be safe, even if Tsendyin wasn’t. He could warn what few kids were left about the ice box. He could tell them that demons had taken the children, demons with foreign tongues. That they snatched them up and took them far away. It could be too late for Tsendyin. But it wasn’t too late for Gan. He moved away from the box and peeked out through the canvas. There wasn’t a road. Behind them the truck kicked up dust, and through the brown haze, Gan saw sharp rock faces jutting from the edges of hills. But there were no people. No one to shout to for help. No one to signal. There was only Tsendyin frozen in the box. Gan felt in his pocket for the photo. He took it out and flipped it over to the words on the back. He moved his fingers along the letters.
Gan removed the lid again, digging the ice out of the box and into the truck bed. He knew if the men stopped again and looked, they’d know he was here, and he would end up in the box with Tsendyin. But he had made up his mind. They would both escape, and Tsendyin would tell him what the words said and what they meant. Gan pulled at the plastic and chipped away at the ice attached to Tsendyin’s legs and pulled him out of the box and onto the truck bed. His body was stiff and held its huddled shape.
“Wake up, Tsendyin,” Gan said. He slapped his face gently. “Please, wake up.” The boy’s body didn’t move. Gan again placed his ear to his bare chest. The thuds were fainter but quicker than before, if they were there.
Gan dragged him to the back of the truck and untied the canvas. He opened it, tying the canvas to either side and letting the sun hit Tsendyin. He glistened in the light, the cold water running off him like sweat. The sky was bluer here. Gan had never seen it like this in the city. And there wasn’t a cloud in sight. They seemed to be leaving the hills behind; the land smoothed and flattened. The earth behind them was cut in two by the trail the truck had made. Gan leaned out the back and looked in both directions. The flat nothing spread out in every direction, and Gan wondered where these men were taking them. Perhaps they were demons taking them out of the world, off the edge.
This was the farthest Gan had ever been from the city since he was a child, and he had no idea how far that had been. “My family could be from out here,” he told Tsendyin.
The sun moved across the sky above them. Gan kept Tsendyin and the bottle of locusts in the light. The heat brought the locusts to life and the bottle shook, but Tsendyin stayed still, his body motionless. Gan didn’t understand why the heat wouldn’t wake him.
“They’re going to stop again soon,” Gan said. “I need you to wake up. We’ll jump out of here. We’ll find people. We’ll work for them. Or we’ll make it back to the city. We’ll eat well, and we’ll survive. You only need to wake up.”
Gan collected ice, held some to his cut hand, and wrapped more in plastic. He left it in the sun and let the ice melt and drank from the pooled water. He thought about forcing Tsendyin to drink as well, but he worried about him choking. Gan snacked on his locusts. They flew and hopped, and the bottle shook, but Tsendyin was still limp.
The sun was getting low. Gan felt Tsendyin. His skin was moist and slick, and he was still cool. Gan took ice and held it to his own head as it throbbed. “Tsendyin, they will stop soon. The sun is setting, and they have been driving for hours.”
The truck slowed and Gan feared it was too late to escape. He reached for the canvas but stopped as he looked down. The dirt on the ground had turned to small stones. The truck slowed more and lurched forward with a splash. Running water covered the stones and the back tires as they entered a river.
The water rose swiftly, nearly to the truck bed, and Gan wondered whether the water would flood in, or the truck would stop. But it pushed forward through the river.
“This is our chance,” Gan said. He reached into the water and splashed it onto Tsendyin. But the boy didn’t move. He stood up, put his hands under Tsendyin’s arms, and held his bottle of locusts in his armpit. Then he dragged him to the edge of the truck bed and fell back into the water, pulling Tsendyin with him. The water was swifter than Gan had expected. It pulled his legs from under him, and even in four feet of water Gan was dragged down. The locust bottle popped out of his arm and floated down the stream, but Gan refused to let go of Tsendyin. He tried to get their heads above the water, pushing off the river bottom, but the rocks under his feet gave way and he slipped. The river rolled and twisted him and dragged him down. Gan hit the river bed and lost Tsendyin.
Without Tsendyin he was able to get his own head above the water. He kicked repeatedly at the rocks below to keep himself up. Above the surface he could see the truck, now far behind, pulling out of the river and continuing forward. But Tsendyin wasn’t anywhere. He was still somewhere under the water. Gan yelled for him, but his words were swallowed by the river.
He pushed off the ground and climbed to the edge of the water and watched for Tsendyin. But he didn’t resurface. Further down the river, the setting sun reflected off of the bottle of locusts, and up and across the river the truck moved further and further away.
Gan climbed out of the river and ran downstream following the bottle of locusts. “You’re a gift, Tsendyin!” he yelled. He yelled again between fits of coughing. He kept running and kept looking over the surface of the river. The truck disappeared into the distance and he was losing the bottle, the river flowing faster than he could run, and growing deeper downstream. It got darker and the landscape turned orange. The river reflected the harsh light and Gan squinted as he searched for Tsendyin. Twice he reentered the river nearly drowning as he chased what turned out to be nothing but glare. The sun set and Gan moved out of the water and collapsed on the shore, shivering as the hot day turned into a cold night. Gan took the photo out of his pocket and unfolded it. “What does it say?” he asked. The words on the back of the photo had smeared even more, and the photo was splitting where it had been folded. Gan was losing all he had left of Tsendyin. “What does it say?” he yelled.
This time there was no one to save him, no Lama to guide him back into the world. He set the photo in the river and let it float away.
Gan laid down and watched the stars move above him, brighter than he’d ever seen, and closer too. He rolled over and curled into a ball, shaking. Two stars across the river moved together, their light growing brighter and closer.
“The truck,” Gan said. “The demons.” The truck lights turned and started along the riverbank, following the opposite shore towards him. He pushed himself off the ground and waded into the river. “Sorry, Tsendyin,” he said as he got deeper. “Sorry, Zorig.” He thought about the things each one left behind as he moved into the river. “Od, Chimeg, Yul, Tab, Suhk, Chinua, Otgun.” He named more of the sewer kids as he lost sight of the stars, slipped under the water, and was taken away by the river.
He sat next to the wooden box. It felt cold, so Gan rested his head against the wood. He realized it was freezing, its coolness coming through the wood. He pushed himself up and struggled to balance as the truck bounced.
The top of the box was latched and tied shut. Gan tried to untie the knot, but it was too tight, and he couldn’t pry it loose. He looked around for something to help open the box. He dug through piles of empty cardboard boxes and rolls of plastic wrapping until he found a glass bottle. He broke it on the truck bed, shattering it to pieces. He carefully took one of the glass shards and used it to cut at the rope. Slowly the rope frayed and as Gan got more impatient, he cut and pressed harder. The glass dug into his palm and blood dripped onto the truck bed. With a final swipe of the glass against the rope, it severed. Gan dropped the piece of glass and held his bloody hand in a fist as he unlatched the box and pushed the lid up.
The box was filled with ice. Gan dug, the blood from his hand mixing with the ice and turning it pink. He reached something solid just below the top layer and wrapped in plastic was Tsendyin. Gan recognized his shape, curled tight, his head and neck bent unnaturally to fit in the box. Tsendyin’s skin was blue, and he seemed to have shrunk.
Gan dug more, moving the ice to the edges.
“Tsendyin,” Gan whispered. He ripped and tore the plastic off of his face, and touched him, recoiling at his wet and oily skin, beads of liquid resting on him like dew. He tried to lift him, but some of the ice had attached to the plastic around Tsendyin and made him too heavy. Gan twisted Tsendyin and faced his body upwards. He put his ear to his chest and listened for a heartbeat. It took time for Gan to tune everything else out and hear the thick thuds, his own or Tsendyin’s he didn’t know, but he hoped it wasn’t his.
“You’re a gift, Tsendyin,” Gan said. “You’re alive. You have to be alive.” The truck came to a sudden halt and Gan fell back down, sliding back along the floor. He protected his head as he hit the cabin with a loud thud.
The cabin doors opened and closed as the two men exited the vehicle.
Gan jumped up and closed the box’s lid and redid the latch, working to make it look like it had never been opened as the men came around the truck. As they started to untie the canvas, he hoped they wouldn’t notice the red bloodstains on the wood and the rope. Gan pressed his back to the box and slid down as the canvas opened and the bright sunlight flooded in. He closed his eyes as the men exchanged words and the canvas was closed again. Gan listened as the men undid their belts and liquid hit parched earth. Then the men got back into the cabin and the truck moved again.
Gan could escape now, before the truck was moving too fast. He could make it back to the capital. He would be safe, even if Tsendyin wasn’t. He could warn what few kids were left about the ice box. He could tell them that demons had taken the children, demons with foreign tongues. That they snatched them up and took them far away. It could be too late for Tsendyin. But it wasn’t too late for Gan. He moved away from the box and peeked out through the canvas. There wasn’t a road. Behind them the truck kicked up dust, and through the brown haze, Gan saw sharp rock faces jutting from the edges of hills. But there were no people. No one to shout to for help. No one to signal. There was only Tsendyin frozen in the box. Gan felt in his pocket for the photo. He took it out and flipped it over to the words on the back. He moved his fingers along the letters.
Gan removed the lid again, digging the ice out of the box and into the truck bed. He knew if the men stopped again and looked, they’d know he was here, and he would end up in the box with Tsendyin. But he had made up his mind. They would both escape, and Tsendyin would tell him what the words said and what they meant. Gan pulled at the plastic and chipped away at the ice attached to Tsendyin’s legs and pulled him out of the box and onto the truck bed. His body was stiff and held its huddled shape.
“Wake up, Tsendyin,” Gan said. He slapped his face gently. “Please, wake up.” The boy’s body didn’t move. Gan again placed his ear to his bare chest. The thuds were fainter but quicker than before, if they were there.
Gan dragged him to the back of the truck and untied the canvas. He opened it, tying the canvas to either side and letting the sun hit Tsendyin. He glistened in the light, the cold water running off him like sweat. The sky was bluer here. Gan had never seen it like this in the city. And there wasn’t a cloud in sight. They seemed to be leaving the hills behind; the land smoothed and flattened. The earth behind them was cut in two by the trail the truck had made. Gan leaned out the back and looked in both directions. The flat nothing spread out in every direction, and Gan wondered where these men were taking them. Perhaps they were demons taking them out of the world, off the edge.
This was the farthest Gan had ever been from the city since he was a child, and he had no idea how far that had been. “My family could be from out here,” he told Tsendyin.
The sun moved across the sky above them. Gan kept Tsendyin and the bottle of locusts in the light. The heat brought the locusts to life and the bottle shook, but Tsendyin stayed still, his body motionless. Gan didn’t understand why the heat wouldn’t wake him.
“They’re going to stop again soon,” Gan said. “I need you to wake up. We’ll jump out of here. We’ll find people. We’ll work for them. Or we’ll make it back to the city. We’ll eat well, and we’ll survive. You only need to wake up.”
Gan collected ice, held some to his cut hand, and wrapped more in plastic. He left it in the sun and let the ice melt and drank from the pooled water. He thought about forcing Tsendyin to drink as well, but he worried about him choking. Gan snacked on his locusts. They flew and hopped, and the bottle shook, but Tsendyin was still limp.
The sun was getting low. Gan felt Tsendyin. His skin was moist and slick, and he was still cool. Gan took ice and held it to his own head as it throbbed. “Tsendyin, they will stop soon. The sun is setting, and they have been driving for hours.”
The truck slowed and Gan feared it was too late to escape. He reached for the canvas but stopped as he looked down. The dirt on the ground had turned to small stones. The truck slowed more and lurched forward with a splash. Running water covered the stones and the back tires as they entered a river.
The water rose swiftly, nearly to the truck bed, and Gan wondered whether the water would flood in, or the truck would stop. But it pushed forward through the river.
“This is our chance,” Gan said. He reached into the water and splashed it onto Tsendyin. But the boy didn’t move. He stood up, put his hands under Tsendyin’s arms, and held his bottle of locusts in his armpit. Then he dragged him to the edge of the truck bed and fell back into the water, pulling Tsendyin with him. The water was swifter than Gan had expected. It pulled his legs from under him, and even in four feet of water Gan was dragged down. The locust bottle popped out of his arm and floated down the stream, but Gan refused to let go of Tsendyin. He tried to get their heads above the water, pushing off the river bottom, but the rocks under his feet gave way and he slipped. The river rolled and twisted him and dragged him down. Gan hit the river bed and lost Tsendyin.
Without Tsendyin he was able to get his own head above the water. He kicked repeatedly at the rocks below to keep himself up. Above the surface he could see the truck, now far behind, pulling out of the river and continuing forward. But Tsendyin wasn’t anywhere. He was still somewhere under the water. Gan yelled for him, but his words were swallowed by the river.
He pushed off the ground and climbed to the edge of the water and watched for Tsendyin. But he didn’t resurface. Further down the river, the setting sun reflected off of the bottle of locusts, and up and across the river the truck moved further and further away.
Gan climbed out of the river and ran downstream following the bottle of locusts. “You’re a gift, Tsendyin!” he yelled. He yelled again between fits of coughing. He kept running and kept looking over the surface of the river. The truck disappeared into the distance and he was losing the bottle, the river flowing faster than he could run, and growing deeper downstream. It got darker and the landscape turned orange. The river reflected the harsh light and Gan squinted as he searched for Tsendyin. Twice he reentered the river nearly drowning as he chased what turned out to be nothing but glare. The sun set and Gan moved out of the water and collapsed on the shore, shivering as the hot day turned into a cold night. Gan took the photo out of his pocket and unfolded it. “What does it say?” he asked. The words on the back of the photo had smeared even more, and the photo was splitting where it had been folded. Gan was losing all he had left of Tsendyin. “What does it say?” he yelled.
This time there was no one to save him, no Lama to guide him back into the world. He set the photo in the river and let it float away.
Gan laid down and watched the stars move above him, brighter than he’d ever seen, and closer too. He rolled over and curled into a ball, shaking. Two stars across the river moved together, their light growing brighter and closer.
“The truck,” Gan said. “The demons.” The truck lights turned and started along the riverbank, following the opposite shore towards him. He pushed himself off the ground and waded into the river. “Sorry, Tsendyin,” he said as he got deeper. “Sorry, Zorig.” He thought about the things each one left behind as he moved into the river. “Od, Chimeg, Yul, Tab, Suhk, Chinua, Otgun.” He named more of the sewer kids as he lost sight of the stars, slipped under the water, and was taken away by the river.
About the Author
Jonan Pilet studied Creative Writing at Houghton College, the University of Oxford, and received his Master of Fine Arts at Seattle Pacific University. His debut short story collection “Nomad, Nomad” is being released on March 1st, 2021. For more on his work, please visit his website.
About the Work
Pilet wrote "Locusts" when revisiting his childhood home of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in the summer of 2019. He noticed that the children that had lived in the sewers were no longer around the city. So he asked around to try to figure out what had happened. "Locusts" is based on the stories he was told.
Jonan Pilet studied Creative Writing at Houghton College, the University of Oxford, and received his Master of Fine Arts at Seattle Pacific University. His debut short story collection “Nomad, Nomad” is being released on March 1st, 2021. For more on his work, please visit his website.
About the Work
Pilet wrote "Locusts" when revisiting his childhood home of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in the summer of 2019. He noticed that the children that had lived in the sewers were no longer around the city. So he asked around to try to figure out what had happened. "Locusts" is based on the stories he was told.
