Fiction / Xincheng Liu

 

:: An Elephant That Never Existed ::

 

My life is a fuck­ing mess. 

The only solace I find is an arti­cle from a well-known film review account, bold­ly titled “Fuck Life, Fuck.” 

The piece is about An Ele­phant Sit­ting Still, the only film ever made by the late direc­tor Hu Qian. It’s said to be four hours long—pure, unfil­tered depres­sion. Hu killed him­self right after he fin­ished it. He was heart­break­ing­ly young, just twen­ty-sev­en. The film nev­er screened in main­land Chi­na. I want to watch it so bad­ly I could die, but I can’t find this film. 

My obses­sion with the film isn’t just about its sup­pos­ed­ly pro­found artis­tic value—though of course, I love art—but more because of one par­tic­u­lar sub­plot: a girl from a sin­gle-par­ent home falls in love with her school’s teacher. Even­tu­al­ly, the teacher’s wife finds out and storms into the girl’s life, humil­i­at­ing her into run­ning away. The girl joins a few oth­er mis­fits on a jour­ney to Manzhouli to find the elephant—an ele­phant that, of course, doesn’t exist. 

The moment I read that syn­op­sis, I near­ly choked from a cock­tail of shock and thrill: Holy hell, isn’t that bas­cial­ly me in anotehr life? In that moment, I for­gave every so-called trashy plot in the world. A lone­ly, father­less girl falling for an old­er man; a stu­dent and her teacher. Sud­den­ly the word melo­dra­ma had a per­fect­ly log­i­cal struc­ture. When the cliché crawled out of the screen and into my real life, all I could do was applaud the uni­verse for its twist­ed sense of humor. 

And after that? 
Well—there was no after. 
He was a pub­lic school teacher, not some sleaze­ball. I was just a reg­u­lar high school stu­dent, my head filled not with ele­phants or escape, but with the col­lege entrance exam. 

Lat­er, I mud­dled my way into uni­ver­si­ty. It wasn’t what I imag­ined. The cam­pus was small, sparse with trees, with nowhere to hide from the open sky. When the sun blazes, it still beats down on half my face; my sun­screen melts, milky tears smeared in globs across my cheeks. I don’t have many friends. The down­side is lone­li­ness, the upside is free­dom. On days with­out class, I wan­dered through the ear­ly after­noon sun­light. A drowsy haze wraps around my heart; I must look like a six-year-old child lost in thought. 

Then all of a sud­den I just stop feel­ing hap­py. Not exact­ly sad, just… not happy—a touch of wist­ful­ness, a melo­dra­mat­ic melan­choly with no real cause. I push open the glass door of the aca­d­e­m­ic build­ing. As I walk past the foun­tain, streams of peo­ple brush by my shoul­ders. That feel­ing is like burst­ing out of a swel­ter­ing street straight into an office cranked full of AC: heat clings to my skin like a sheet of flame, cold air blasts my face like a frigid dag­ger, and my body becomes the bat­tle­field. I feel a chill—not the heart-deep chill of hav­ing cold water dumped over your head, just a numb pause, stand­ing dumb­ly at the col­li­sion of hot and cold. The tem­per­a­ture leaves a blank white void on my skin. It’s so pre­ten­tious, I know. I feel emp­ty sim­ply because it’s been too long since my heart felt a spark of excite­ment. I sus­pect the sweet flut­ter of a crush is like a man’s genitals—leave it unused too long and it rusts like an old iron key, goes impo­tent. After leav­ing the teacher-filled halls of high school, love drift­ed far, far away from me, until even­tu­al­ly it wasn’t even love any­more. In this sti­fling cage of a col­lege, I lived with a dead calm heart, like a walk­ing corpse—even though I clear­ly still had a soul. 

Then, like sal­va­tion, I met Hu Yang. How my feel­ings for him developed—I’d bet the com­plex­i­ty of it could put a cat-tan­gled yarn ball to shame. I’m the type to quit when faced with a snarl of threads, so I nev­er tried to dis­en­tan­gle it. My room­mate, Meng Nai, was Hu Yang’s friend. Meet­ing him was inevitable. I don’t remem­ber how I came to like Hu Yang; the process wasn’t impor­tant. The result was nailed down sol­id, and I had no chance of pry­ing it out with my bare hands.But how much did I like him? I wasn’t sure. That damn ball of yarn comes to mind again: with Hu Yang, even one plus one equal­ing two became a cos­mic unsolved mys­tery. 

Hu Yang is like a black hole for me. Not a black hole that devours light—one that devours my shame. The more time I spend around him, the more of a brazen clown I become. Pass­ing by the giant banyan tree on cam­pus, I imag­ine see­ing myself from his per­spec­tive: strip all the bark off that thick trunk, and that’s me.  

I can only tell myself one thing: what a shame­less fool. 

Hu Yang, Hu Yang. A tree, a man. The world is a rid­dle to me, its answer hid­den on the far side of death. While I’m alive, every­thing is hazy, like flow­ers in fog; I’m a com­plete idiot. Among all the unknowns, the only thing I’m sure of is that my teacher nev­er liked me, and nei­ther does Hu Yang. My eyes are filled with love—this cin­e­mat­ic word hur­tles toward me and I throw myself at it, only to grasp noth­ing but emp­ty air. 

I haven’t seen my high school teacher in ages, long enough that I’ve embraced my iden­ti­ty as a col­lege stu­dent. The teacher is like a del­i­cate leaf book­mark pressed between pages of a book—one I’ll nev­er open again. But Hu Yang is dif­fer­ent. He’s here, around me, in this lit­tle prison of a cam­pus. I run into him con­stant­ly: in the cafe­te­ria, in big lec­ture halls, on plain unre­mark­able roads. He shows up day after day, like cease­less driz­zly weath­er in spring. But even the small­est, mist­ing rain can soak a city in damp. So I have no doubt I’ve fall­en in love with him, just as I’ve always believed that affec­tion grows over time. 

I chat with him on WeChat, get jeal­ous over things I have no right to, pick fights only a crazy per­son would start, hurt­ing both him and myself with masochis­tic enthu­si­asm. 

I’m a hol­low, nutri­tion­less typ­ing machine, send­ing him goofy one-lin­ers I’ve copy-past­ed from Inter­net. I have no grand ambitions—I’ve crushed my wild hopes and desires to dust and parked my ass on them. Plas­tered across my face, like slop­py graf­fi­ti, are four big words: “just mud­dling along.” I say “don’t love me” out loud, yet my actions car­ry me in the exact oppo­site direc­tion. When I’m typ­ing to him, my long nails jab at the screen, mak­ing the rapid clack-clack of a horny lit­tle slut’s hooves. The glass screen bounces back against my fin­ger­tips. I’m like a cat in heat scratch­ing its claws on the wall. 

 

“I won’t ini­ti­ate con­ver­sa­tion with him ever again”—I par­rot the same vow every lovelorn girl in the world makes. 

Am I telling a sto­ry? This isn’t a sto­ry. There’s no tidy, lit­er­ary log­ic here like a the­sis with quotes and ref­er­ences. In fact, there’s no log­ic at all. 

Hu Yang and I are friends—whether or not that damn word “for­mer” ought to be tacked in front of “friends,” we are friends. I’m per­verse­ly grate­ful that time can’t flow back­ward in our three-dimen­sion­al world, that what’s hap­pened has hap­pened. In a world that can change faces faster than a Sichuan Opera per­former, at least some things can’t be undone. We were friends once. On those wet, heavy sum­mer nights in the South, he walked with me down the most seclud­ed paths on cam­pus. We thread­ed through kiss­ing cou­ples and sway­ing car head­lights. I think back on it now—standing here today and gaz­ing back at yes­ter­day, I can almost reach out and touch those moments. My fin­ger­tips tin­gle with the mem­o­ry, and I’m near­ly moved to tears, believ­ing for a sec­ond that I was immersed in such peace back then. I remem­ber the night he, Meng Nai, and I left a bar at one in the morn­ing under a driz­zly sky, try­ing to catch a cab back to school. It was so late even the street­lights had closed their eyes to sleep. Meng Nai’s hair was thick and heavy, like the fur of a small ani­mal. The three of us walked down an emp­ty con­crete road. On one side lay a lake, a patch of ink-black water under the night sky. Hu Yang joked that he’d push me into the lake—he grabbed my arm and we tus­sled play­ful­ly among a clus­ter of small trees by the shore. There were no lamps that night, which made the moon­light as bright as white jade. The moon’s glow spilled over the tree leaves, sneak­ing through the gaps and scat­ter­ing over us in flecks of sil­ver. 

These mem­o­ries, because they are mem­o­ries, are beautiful—so beau­ti­ful. Beau­ti­ful like a scene in a movie. And pre­cise­ly because it’s like a movie, it’s laugh­ably fake. I don’t under­stand why I end­ed up ensnared in end­less fights with Hu Yang. His good man­ners weren’t a gold­en shield pro­tect­ing him from my shame­less attacks; on the con­trary, they became a soft spot I couldn’t resist hit­ting. I became increas­ing­ly aware that I’m exact­ly like that famous line from Eileen Chang: a gor­geous robe rid­dled with fleas. My looks aren’t aston­ish­ing enough to stop traf­fic, but the mal­ice inside me is singular—enough to make even a shrew step back. I hurled every curse word I knew at him. Those insults, like acid rain, cor­rod­ed not only the stat­ues on London’s streets but our rela­tion­ship as well. 

For a long time, I was distressed—distressed that in this pure­ly pla­ton­ic friend­ship, I made every pos­si­ble wrong choice. I took what could have grown into a text­book case of love blos­som­ing from friend­ship and I hacked it off in its infan­cy, chewed it up, swal­lowed it down, and then had the nerve to feel regret. I couldn’t fig­ure out why I was so stu­pid and clum­sy, liv­ing out a ridicu­lous, pathet­ic joke: How do you screw up a rela­tion­ship? Just act like your nor­mal self. 

I began to under­stand that every­thing liv­ing has an expi­ra­tion date. A rela­tion­ship, a feeling—just like a leaf on a tree, just like a per­son. They sprout in secret, flourish—like the Gold­en Age described by Wang Xiaobo, like the height of summer—and then, soon­er or lat­er, they with­er and die. Time and fate silent­ly set every lim­it. Soon­er or lat­er I had to accept that things end not with a glo­ri­ous bang but with a whimper—just as I accept that the air will always be dirty with float­ing dust that we end up breath­ing into our lungs and blink­ing into our eyes. 

In the end, Hu Yang and I still have each oth­er on WeChat. The chat win­dow just sits there, blank and harm­less, for ages. The heart­beat of that rela­tion­ship flat­lined in all the fury and tears. What’s left isn’t some words caught in my throat—there’s sim­ply noth­ing left to say. 

Then one day, Meng Nai men­tioned Hu Yang to me. The very first thing that came to mind was a tree, and only after that did I remem­ber the per­son. I real­ized that I’d final­ly, faint­ly, part­ed the fog and glimpsed a silent ending—or maybe it was a shal­low, as-yet voice­less begin­ning. 

When sum­mer break arrived, the long and use­less vaca­tion lay before me like a blank can­vas. With all the paints at my dis­pos­al, of course I had to cov­er every inch of that glar­ing white. So I decid­ed to go back to my high school—to see the grand youth I once had such high hopes for, and to see the teacher who lived in that grand youth. 

I had already fin­ished read­ing the screen­play of An Ele­phant Sit­ting Still. 

Stand­ing at the school gates, I was engulfed by throngs of stu­dents in uni­form, crash­ing over me like a ris­ing tide and sub­merg­ing me in their youth­ful fren­zy. When the tide ebbed, it left me behind on the shore of mem­o­ry, an exquis­ite lit­tle fish­bone spit out on the sand. 

Lat­er on, when Meng Nai asked me how it felt to revis­it my high school, I remem­ber I didn’t both­er to sug­ar­coat it. 

“Back then the real dog days of sum­mer hadn’t arrived yet,” I told her. “There was a good breeze, and the sun wasn’t too harsh. Can you guess what the weath­er feels like right before mid­sum­mer hits?” 

With­out wait­ing for her to answer, I smiled and said, “Cool—like a fine autumn day.” 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

This sto­ry is the inevitable result of an emo­tion­al col­li­sion. Just as ris­ing tem­per­a­tures will crack ice into water, the accu­mu­la­tion of inner tension—combined with a dri­ve toward beau­ty and a com­pul­sion to articulate—made the act of writ­ing this piece feel less like a choice than a phys­i­cal cer­tain­ty. Influ­enced by the emo­tion­al core and aes­thet­ic restraint of East Asian writ­ers like Eileen Chang, Han Kang, and Lin Yi-Han, I approached this sto­ry as a scream dis­guised as form. It had to be a cry—not raw and ragged like a child’s sob, but refined, con­struct­ed, and lit­er­ar­i­ly shaped. The writ­ing is the expres­sion; the struc­ture is the scream. 

I chose a non­lin­ear struc­ture, inter­weav­ing high school and uni­ver­si­ty time­lines to reflect the frag­men­ta­tion of the protagonist’s psy­che. Through shifts in time and voice, I sought to explore the void with­in the char­ac­ter and their mar­gin­al­i­ty in the world. For me, fic­tion is nev­er sep­a­rate from lived expe­ri­ence. When a sto­ry aris­es from life, it also strikes back at it—with force. Like a ham­mer shat­ter­ing the mir­ror of the real, this sto­ry is both a reflec­tion and a blow. 

Xincheng Liu is a grad­u­ate stu­dent in busi­ness at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­paign and an avid writer out­side her aca­d­e­m­ic stud­ies. She began writ­ing fic­tion in ele­men­tary school and has nev­er stopped, car­ry­ing her pas­sion from child­hood sto­ries into more com­plex explo­rations of love, mem­o­ry, and self-dis­cov­ery. Her recent work engages with themes of cross-cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, fem­i­nist per­spec­tives, and the Asian Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence, blend­ing per­son­al imag­i­na­tion with broad­er ques­tions of belong­ing. She hopes to con­tin­ue devel­op­ing her voice through cre­ative writ­ing and to share sto­ries that speak across cul­tures.