Paper Effigies

At the last paper-offering shop on Changming Alley, a sheet of red paper was pasted to the door: “For funerals, no invitation needed.” Shen Zhibai used to be a painter. At dawn, on the day after the seventh-day rites for his grandfather, someone knocked three times. A bundle wrapped in white cloth lay outside the door. Inside was an absurdly large payment and a note: “Needed tomorrow.” His grandfather had left behind a thread-bound book, seventy-three pages long. The first seventy-two recorded the work he had done throughout his life. The final page held just three characters: Shen Changming. On the back of the book, a line of tiny writing read: “I’ll teach you the rules of dotting the eyes. Once I do, you have to take over.” There were only three rules in this trade: Never dot the eyes of paper figures. Never make paper figures for yourself. Never work at night past midnight. His grandfather had broken the third rule. So Shen Zhibai took his first commission: to make a paper horse that could run for a young man who had died three years earlier. His paper creations neither helped the dead find peace nor sought revenge. They simply helped people say what they had left unsaid. The price was that each time he dotted a figure’s eyes, he forgot something. The first things he forgot were the happy memories. The final page of the book was still blank. This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.