[Nine Stories] Private Writing Project Group · Google Collaborative Platform

[Nine Stories, Season Six] Prologue

Witch Doctor

It was obvious that no one had entered this room for a very long time. The room was small, containing only a bed one and a half meters wide and a cheap computer desk worth maybe fifty yuan, with just enough space between them for a sixty-kilo person to turn around. A thick layer of dust lay over the desk, marked by the tracks of dung beetles. The computer itself was gone, leaving only the square blank imprint where a CRT monitor had sat for years. Above the bed there was a round window half a meter across. At first glance it seemed to have been sealed over with black paper, but when I shone a flashlight on it I saw that it was actually a layer of black furry vine.

There was a thick layer of dust on the mattress too. No quilt or blanket remained, only a pillow blotched with sweat, with the hollow left by a sleeper’s head still sunken into it. I measured the impression with a tape: twenty-eight centimeters across. It had been left by a bald, gaunt man with a very pointed head. By the bed were three books: Ancient Chinese Sorcery, Miscellanies of Youyang, and A Study of Famous Chinese Things. These were probably what he had been reading most recently. Ancient Chinese Sorcery lay open face-down on top of Miscellanies of Youyang. I picked it up carefully. The page it had been opened to discussed “sorcery for controlling human behavior and emotion: the formation and properties of dedicated aphrodisiacs.” The margins were crowded with red-pen annotations in neat small script. “Windless Swaying Grass” and “Peach-Cinnabar Art” had both been heavily circled.

I took out my Nokia E71 and dialed a short code.

“Well? Found anything?” the person on the other end asked anxiously.

“Damn it,” I said. “This guy was a witch doctor.”

Rules

Include the following sentence in the story. You may freely fill in the book titles in the blanks. The titles may be chosen from books you have read, which is recommended, or you may invent them.

By the bed were three books: *___*, *___*, and *___*.

No limit on length. No limit on genre.

Post it to the [Nine Stories] group, publish it on your own blog, and add links to the other participants’ entries.

Deadline: March 15.

Prize for this season: several portions of Chengdu local specialty pickled chicken feet, supplied especially for those who turn in their work on time.