Free Pow! by Mo Yan

the nose is a bull's weak spot, and no one, not the best farmer alive, knew more about bulls than my father, though he wasn't much of a farming man. Tears sprang to my eyes as I sat there, on top of the wall. I'm so proud of you, Dieh, and of how you've washed away our humiliation and reclaimed our lost face through your wise and courageous action. The butchers and peddlers ran up to help him and wrestle the white-faced, yellow bull to the ground. So that it wouldn't get up again and hurt anyone, one of the butchers ran home rabbit-fast to fetch a butcher knife, which he then offered to the now waxen-faced Lao Lan, who took a step backward and waved away the man, turning the task over to someone else. The butcher turned from side to side, knife in hand. ‘Who'll do it? No one? Well, then, I guess it's up to me.’ He rolled up his sleeves, wiped the blade against the sole of his shoe, then hunkered down and closed one eye, like a carpenter with a plumb line. Taking aim at the slight indentation in the bull's chest, he plunged the knife in. When he pulled it out, blood spurted into the air and painted my father red.

    Now that the bull was dead, everyone felt it safe enough to climb down. Blackish red blood continued to flow from the wound, bubbling like a fountain, releasing a heated odour into the crisp morning air. The men stood about like deflated balloons, shrivelled and diminished somehow. There was so much they wanted to say but no one said a word. Except my father, who tucked his head down low between his shoulders, opened his mouth to reveal a set of strong but yellow teeth, and said: ‘Old man in the sky, I was so scared!’ Everyone turned to look at Lao Lan, who wished he could crawl into a hole. He tried to cover his embarrassment by looking down at the bull, whose legs were stretched out straight, its fleshy thighs still twitching. One of its blue eyes remained open, as if to release the hatred still inside. ‘Damn you!’ Lao Lan said as he kicked the dead animal. ‘You spend your whole life hunting wild geese only to have your eye pecked out by a gosling.’ He then looked up at my father. ‘I owe you one, Luo Tong, but you and I aren't finished.’ ‘Finished with what?’ Father asked. ‘There's nothing between you and me.’ ‘Don't you touch her!’ hissed Lao Lan. ‘I never wanted to touch her—she asked me to,’ replied Father with a proud little laugh. ‘She called you a dog, and she'll never let you touch her again.’ I had no idea what that was all about, but later, of course, I realized out they were talking about Aunty Wild Mule, who owned a little wine shop. But when I asked him, ‘Dieh, what were you talking about?’ ‘Nothing a child needs to know,’ is what he answered. ‘Son,’ Lao Lan said, ‘didn't you say you wanted to be a member of the Lan clan? Then why did you call him Dieh just now?’ ‘You're nothing but a pile of stinking dog shit!’ I said. ‘Boy,’ he said, ‘you go home and tell your mother that your father's found his way into Wild Mule's cave and can't get out.’ That made my father as angry as the bull, and he lowered his head and charged at Lao Lan. They were at each other's throat for no more than a moment before the others rushed over and separated them. But in that brief moment Lao Lan managed to break my father's little finger and my father to bite off half of Lao Lan's ear. Spitting it out angrily, Father said: ‘How dare you say things like that in front of my son, you dog bastard!’

POW! 8

    Without a sound, the woman slips through the narrow space separating me from the Wise Monk, the wide hem of her jacket lightly brushing the tip of my nose, her chilled calf rubbing against my knee. Flustered, I can't go on with my tale for a moment. She carries the Wise Monk's ancient brass washbasin into the water-soaked courtyard, showing me the profile of her gaunt face, the hint of a smile hidden in her eyes. The mass of clouds above us parts to reveal