Dust in the Shattered Light

I stared blankly at my hands. They were red and swollen, rough, and nothing like hands that should belong to someone my age. “Lin Wei.” The police officer across from me pushed over a cup of warm water. His fingertips had crumpled the rim of the paper cup. “Tell me, why did you kill Zhang Hao, Li Ting, Wang Lei, and Zhao Peng?” I came to my senses and mechanically raised my head. In the reflection on the glass, I could see the dark circles beneath my eyes. I hadn’t slept in three days. Not because I was afraid. It was because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Grandma. She sat by the stove, the firelight reflecting on her deeply wrinkled face. She clutched the sleeve of my school uniform and stitched up the worn-out patch, one stitch at a time. “Officer,” I licked my cracked lips, “do you believe in fate?” He said nothing. His fingers paused over the statement form. “I used to,” I said with a faint smile, my throat tightening. “I always thought that if I could just hang on a little longer, things would get better. Like Grandma’s pumpkins. Even if a rainstorm battered their leaves to pieces, the roots were still in the soil, and they’d bear fruit eventually.” But later, I learned that some roots can be ripped out of the ground and left to die beneath the sun.