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  O gently pushed aside my legs. Then she reached under the bed, deeper and deeper, until even her head disappeared. She emerged with the painting, her eyes visible just over the canvas. It took me a long time to understand what I was seeing. The back of my left knee was rendered in vivid detail, while the back of my right knee remained a whorl of black strokes.

  “One day I’ll finish it,” she said. “All I need is time.”

  * * *

  IN THE LIVING room, we discovered O’s mother passed out in front of the veranda. The door was open again. The black substance was everywhere, casting an obsidian shimmer upon the floor, the walls, the furniture. The pla【创建和谐家园】a screen looked the same as before. So did O’s mother’s black shift. But the chemical speckled every inch of her white skin. The dark sheen upon her body was flawless aside from the area around her mouth, where she seemed to have run a 【创建和谐家园】earing hand.

  O fell to her knees and shook her mother by the shoulders. The woman still had her eyes shut as she opened her mouth wide, gasping for words. Her teeth were white, but her tongue was black.

  As O cradled her mother’s head in her lap, I stepped onto the veranda. Dark fumes obscured my view of the building opposite. The air 【创建和谐家园】elled like it was on fire. I waited for the approach of sirens. But all that could be heard were the shrieks of children playing in the distance.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Esther Yi was born in Los Angeles in 【创建和谐家园】 and currently lives in Leipzig, Germany.