A Journey To Taiwan
The End
The reverie was broken. Li Wei was shouting, screaming at me to move. I looked. Squinting
into the sun setting just above the ridge. Up the steep hill. I could see him at the top of the
slope, jumping up and down, a mad grasshopper in the evening sun. It would have been
funny, if not for the horror in his face. I scrambled up to the top of the ridge and released my
air, my spirit, winded by the dystopian carnage before me.
Hundreds of thousands of bodies, chaos on the beach. It was all I could see, caught, struck,
unable to drag my sugar filled eyes away from the chaos of humanity, stretching out before
me like a tapestry of murky colour. Li Wei had started to involuntarily run down the other
side of the hill. My legs connected to my body’s flight fight response and I pelted down the
slope as my stomach led me to follow him. We tumbled through several lines of weary
refugees, past the smell and stench of desperation. The deformed inhumane shapes of
terrified people shuffled and dragged their broken bodies. The skin and bones of a people
who shared the common familiarity, with their cause, their nation.
Everybody was in a panic, desperate eyes drawn like moths to a flame, towards the broken
and discoloured junks. Shouting, crying, mania and even laughter. In the distance above the
noise, the sight of tiny boats. Our last hope and then beyond, Taiwan. Impossible freedom.
The fleet lay scattered and distant, floating across the beach close to shore as far as the eye
could see, a mad mess of a wooden armada, a dream of liberty.
3 hours earlier
I continued to follow the troops, we had kept a grueling pace for almost 10 months, terrified
by the ever-advancing PLA army. Gunfire rattled behind us, our rear guards crippled as they
continued to push on and through our defensive lines.
The soldiers herded us on, through decimated villages and winding passages. We the mothers,
the children, the bakers, the teachers, the builders, the nurses, the fabric of an old world,
clinging together to weave a new future.
I had befriended a young soldier on our march. Li Wei was strong but weary now and we
would forage for food together to save our strength. Our rations of a single bowl of uncooked
rice were nowhere near enough food for two growing boys.
“Bìyù”! I heard Li Wei calling excitedly.
I half sprinted through the densely packed red pine forest, leaping over roots, and barreling
through vivid coloured rhododendrons. I stumbled into a fresh clearing. Li Wei stood
hunched over clutching his stomach.
“Píngguǒ (apples)!!”, he exclaimed, clutching and stuffing copious amounts of red apples
into his uniform.
An enormous apple tree, illuminated by the golden evening light, stood tall, like the Xian Táo
(peach of immortality).
“It’s amazing”, I called out, dashing towards him.
I was beside myself. We hadn’t touched a single piece of fruit for months, living off wild
onions, garlic, mushrooms, yams and the occasional crust of bread. Gorging, chomping,
licking, and screaming in delight, I consumed my fill of apples and juice. Surrounded by the
hot shelter of the little enclave of trees, I finally lay down to rest, exhausted.
I must have fallen asleep, I was startled by the noise of what I thought was gunfire and
immediately sat bolt upright. It was then that it all came flooding back to me.
I must have been dreaming. Grimly I remembered, watched, and replayed the memories, the
du
st and sand dancing across the village street, spitting and scattering in its excitement from the
impact of the dropping empty shells from cracking machine gun fire.
I found myself in my trauma, gauping at the Kuomintang troops sprinting outside, passing
sweating medics carrying the near dead and hopeless bodies. Shell-shocked soldiers tumbled
through the crossfire dragging children, women, belongings, loot or whatever they deemed
salvageable.
My Mother grabbed my shoulder, she thrust a blood-stained necklace into my blistered hands.
Oblivious to what she was saying I stood shocked. Fragmented glass flew past my face, the
splinters and shards aggravated by the aggressive thumping of Artillery. A plethora of smells
left me dazed. She continued to shake me, her voice was lost in the swell and the sounds
assaulting my ears. Although her message was clear, 去碧玉(go Bìyù!, GO!) I could only see
her moving her mouth.
She lent back suddenly lost, sitting beside my father's lifeless body, the tears streaking across
the accumulated grease, dust and creases on her face. She thrust away a dog that had started
to feast on my father's detached intestines. I looked back once more at my Mother, her wild
nature protecting the man she loved. Though, foolish at the time, I promised myself I would
see her again, I had no concept of what farewell truly meant.
I snapped back into reality. A lone child peered at me through the crowd. She stared towards
me, her eyes longing for the comfort of her mother. And that was it, she fell, trampled to
death and gone in an instant. A rag doll jostled back and forth by the urgent rush of people. Li
Wei seized my collar and wrenched me through the crowd.
The huge concentration of sweaty bodies made me weary, until suddenly cannon fire erupted
from the hills. Plumes of sand and debris were sent into the air. The PLA’s artillery had
focused their attack now on the beach. Each Explosion sent a new shock wave through the
sand, throwing dismembered people high into the air.
We pushed through the crowd like frenzied eels until we were finally met with the waters
edge.
The seat ran red with blood, bits of human floated in the water, scraping against the bows of
the mob of rugged boats closest to us. Still, the junks lay some way out in the sea, too far to
walk and only now a short swim away. Li Wei was already half swimming, half scrambling
over the floating bodies, searching for a boat that wasn't overflowing with desperate KMT
people. A cacophony of screams and the dissonant roar of the ocean's mighty brawn filled the
air and drowned the many who never learnt to swim. We watched helplessly as two ships
capsized around us from the impact of artillery. The sheer weight of their occupants sank
their boats to the bottom of the sea.
My whole world had been reduced to one single moment of frantic survival. Li Wei and I
clambered into the nearest vessel. The more we moved away from the shore, the sounds of
panic were replaced with the rhythmic splash of oars slicing through the water. We rowed and
rowed until the beach was a distant memory. We dared not dream of safety, although we all
hoped that Taiwan could be a place where our lives could be rebuilt, away from the
contrasting ideologies of the PLA.