2 posts tagged with "Psychological"

By the time the violent tremor from the neighboring country reached our small border town, its force was already spent. The initial swaying was like a weary sigh. Chandeliers swung gently, dust drifting down from the bookshelves like the low murmurs of ancient times disturbed from their slumber. I, Chen, the town library's administrator, was engrossed in a fragmented scroll on ancient geomancy—said to foretell the mysterious connection between shifts in the earth's veins and the ebb and flow of human hearts. Outside the window, the sky was a strange, overly calm grey-blue, as if drained of all emotion before a storm.

Liu Fang's heart felt like it was being brutally scrubbed with sandpaper, each stroke bringing a bloody pain. She stared at the small, pale face; it was her son, Xiaojie, a boy who should have been celebrating his third birthday tomorrow. Now, he lay there quietly, like a discarded, broken toy, having stopped breathing forever.