scruta

[Li and Zhou sit in an office in Beijing perusing pages of an English language magazine set to be printed in Shanghai.]

Li

Zhou, get a load of this.

Zhou

What?

Li

[reads]

“In a strange twist of irony, Li Jian from Guizhou Province was unable to succeed at failing. In a protest against China’s college entrance exam, which he had failed twice before, Mr. Li attempted to score a zero. Despite a valiant effort, Mr. Li’s plans were thwarted. He was awarded 12 points for his essay, in which he compared story writing to prostitution, and another 20 points for his minority classification. A widely published writer of stories in his own municipality, Mr. Li is considered a bright young man capable of matriculation. He plans to take the exam for a fourth time. This time to pass.”

Writers are prostitutes? Hah! They should have failed him one hundred percent.

Zhou

You know there’s no way they could have done that.

Li

I know, I know.

Zhou

That would just give him more to go on. Think what kind of ammunition that would be against the educational system. I’ll give him credit though. We’ve got to be the pimps slappin’ our “prostitutes” down!

Li

Ha! Yeah. He does have a point there.

Zhou

Yeah, but prostitutes don’t exist in China.

Li

Of course, according to Li Jian, neither do writers.

Zhou

And neither do we.

[An awkward silence.]

Li

Do you ever feel like your job has a lack of meaning?

Zhou

Sometimes.

Li

I’ve been having this strange dream recently.

Zhou

Really?

Li

Yeah. I dream I’m a bug that’s stuck on a giant beast. I’ve sucked its blood for a long time and grown large and fat. Any moment the beast could discover me, and I’ll be squashed. All of my little twitchers tremble, and I have a hard time sucking the blood. I want to get away, but I know that if I move in the wrong way that would be it.

Zhou

So what happens?

Li

I just stay and wait. I keep taking the blood, and I wait.