Appendixes Omen: Omen

Appendixes② Omen: Omen

Many people paid for success with the happiness of their youth.

—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The iron spike was hammered into the railroad tie, splitting it with a deep crack.

Old Li, the worker, turned pale and looked around in a panic, afraid someone might notice.

The tie had been soaked in decrystallized anthracene oil and was made of birch. It wasn't anything particularly precious, but it was still beyond his means to replace if the foreman found out.

"Hey." A coworker patted the old man on the shoulder and offered him a waterskin. "Old Li, want a drink?"

"Get out of the way! You're in my way!" Old Li shuddered as if he'd been electrocuted and shoved Wuliang Jin, who was in the same work crew, aside.

He didn't have much strength. Even that shove left his shoulder aching where it had bumped against Wuliang Jin's.

He couldn't remember when he'd gotten so weak. Maybe it had started in the summer, when the sun grew ever more scorching. He rose early to haul lumber at the docks, going back and forth between the railway construction crew and Sanyang Harbor in Ermao County. After a while, he'd gone bald, and his skin had been tanned dark and glossy.

"If you don't want any, you don't want any!" Wuliang Jin said with a grin, pretending to brush him off and letting the old man save face. Everyone knew the old man had a daughter at home, a sixteen-year-old girl of marriageable age.

The gravel ballast pierced his straw sandals. Scorching rocks and pebbles burned the soles of his feet red.

Old Li didn't answer. He stood frozen, waiting for Wuliang Jin to leave and everyone else to look away. Then he'd pull out the spike and get rid of