A New Novel

Last night the idea for my next novel came to me! A realistic one for a change, even. I'm calling it Sweeping the Puddles Away.

Twenty-nine-year-old American Margaret Hsu attempts suicide while living as an expatriate in Beijing. She is discovered, saved, and sent to a temporary psychiatric ward in Virginia, the USA, for two weeks as doctors adjust her medications. Woven in with her experiences and tentative friendships with the other women in the ward are flashbacks to the tangled web of mental illness and life experiences that led to her desire to die. She finds solace in working on a script, just for fun, of a modern version of Hamlet where the protagonist is merely under the delusion that he is Prince of Denmark. She lets her hidden writing talents blossom for the first time, having been discouraged from creative activities growing up. She also begins to rekindle a romance with an ex-boyfriend, who is one of the few people to visit during her stay. By the time she is released to recover with a cousin in Maryland, she has begun, slowly but surely, to heal.

Here is what I wrote this morning, as part of my 300-words-a-day challenge (384 words, actually, yay):

Beijing is not designed for heavy rain; it is flat, without enough places for the water to go, and full of cyclists holding an umbrella with one hand and trying to steer through schizophrenic traffic with the other. This is obvious even in my gated housing development out in Shunyi, the district near the airport, where the international schools tend to cluster. Lake Limonade is designed for expatriates, hence its large staff of guards and cleaners. I see a crowd of young men after every storm, shirtless, hollering in Mandarin unison, pushing their giant brooms towards the nearest drain. They are trying to sweep the puddles away.

I like the rain, in fact, which many people wouldn’t expect if they knew my temperament. Even growing up in the United States I liked the thrumming of it, how it meant P.E. class had to be inside (no running the mile) on schooldays, the smell of the soil after. In Beijing the pollution clears away for a day, maybe even two, and you can see the sky without smog blocking it. I wish it were raining now.

It would seem more theatrical for a gale, a maelstrom, or, hell, even a light drizzle, given what I’ve finally screwed up the courage to do. But no, it’s one of our typical days with the sunlight sifting as best it can through the dioxides and monoxides, everything calm. I am empty and quiet the way one is after thorough vomiting. I take thirty grams of Klonopin, prescribed for my panic attacks at the dosage of a quarter of a gram a day, and wash it down with a bottle of astringent cheap vodka. I slice lengthwise down my forearms with a steak knife for good measure – I wince during the millisecond before I plunge but it barely registers as pain - letting my bleeding limbs flop over the side of the bathtub to simplify cleanup for whoever comes after.

It is through a dreamy haze that I notice my ayi, literally “auntie”, metaphorically “housekeeper”, unlock the door. I forgot she had the keys to all the rooms, and that she has been worried about me lately. Stupid, stupid. She screams and I wave sluggishly. “Mei guanxi, zhende mei guanxi…” Not a big deal, really not a big deal…