The Village Prisoner

He looked to the sky

With a pleading eye

But with no reply

He was left to die

"Nǐ jiào shén me míngzi! Nǐ jiào shén me míngzi!" (What is your name?)

The question was more of an accusation than anything else. But the Foreigner could not answer as he spoke no Chinese. What he did know from the tone of the voices around him was his prying outsider presence was deeply resented and unwanted and they wanted to know what he was doing there. This was the beginning of a lifelong sentence.

No Name had been part of a group of visiting English speakers only when they moved on he did not. The village was rife with wild speculation why this was so but his story was never told. No one wished to kill him but no one wished him to remain. Whatever the truth, they took his being left behind as a sign of rejection from his own people, that he must be shameful in some way - and now that shame had been brought to the village. Maybe they wished to kill him, after all.

The villagers came to derisively call him "No Name", hoping that would help drive his despised eyes away. He was seen but not seen, villagers doing their daily business walking by as if he did not exist. In their outrage of being stuck with this supposed loser, their intent was to deprive him of all hope. Suddenly, they had an answer as to the cause of every ill or unfortunate event in their lives: the Foreigner.

Not knowing what to do with him and as they suffered from "labor worship" as most societies, they took No Name to the mine to dig, the lowest of all jobs. He did not have the look or build of a laborer - more like that of a college professor - but the villagers saw this as a just revenge for being burdened with his presence. Driven mad in the darkness, the Foreigner cried out in his nonsensical language as he came to have the thousand yard stare of every beast of burden who'd been stretched too far.

Over time, seeing that he accepted his tortured life, the villagers gave a grudging tolerance to No Name. Parents scolded their children to be good or No Name would come snatch them in the middle of the night! A burglar terrorized the village and until he was caught the Foreigner was roughed up with constant questioning. No Name could see no way out. To go from one of thousands of villages to another deep in the Chinese heartland was no answer. He was given no money, only food and shelter for his labors; a hamster in a wheel.

One night after several years, No Name came out of his hut fully nude with an erection, his arms held out in supplication. He tried to approach a young maiden who screamed as children and other women duly fled. Quickly and instinctively the men gathered to beat and brutalize No Name, wailing at the top of their lungs as they kicked him in the cloudy dirt of the street. No Name had invoked a primal rage in the men who knew they too were prisoners - of their needs. To see this naked admission, that they lived their lives in submission to their women, was unbearable and had to be crushed at all costs - or so they believed.

Another time No Name was dragged to the woods and chained to a tree. This wasn't meant to kill him though many silently hoped for that as a byproduct. After two days he was released having been fed bread and water as he soiled himself without choice. No Name did not know why they'd done this but prior to the chaining feverish cleaning and organizing had been done in seeming expectation of a great event. He died without knowing that Communist Party Officials had come to inspect the progress of the "regeneration project" of the rural countryside. The idea of the freak Foreigner being spotted in their midst was beyond unthinkable.

Though never able to learn the language, No Name was able to get a feel for things and he knew not to complain of the abuse he received - just as the villagers knew not to complain of the abuse they received from the powers that be. So he made no issue of being tied to the tree nor of the time he was beaten after a baby had been stillborn, undoubtedly from the curse he'd brought them.

No Name's life was to be a short one. After the nude beating his body aged rapidly in the following years with unnatural fallout of his hair and his body twisting in stress. That made him only more loathsome, increasing village resentment. The owner of the herb shop - despite being roundly criticized - offered an herbal solution to No Name that was effective in giving relief. However, extending his life was not a goal of No Name who also desperately wanted his presence to cease. So he faded away in the dead of night in a heart attack.

Initially, a feeling of joy and relief swept through the villagers. The beast god was gone at last. Never knowing his name they buried him in an unmarked grave. But they were not free. A silent shame blanketed their souls in the aftermath, for having given no recourse to No Name they found themselves without recourse for their own condemnation. No Name's name was not to be spoken by unspoken agreement as everyone resumed life as if he'd never existed.

But they became prisoners of this secret, daily arguments and contentiousness increased as the unmarked grave called out to them in perpetuity. So dysfunctional did they become that their behavior was noticed by travelers who labeled the villagers "shameful" - a terrible branding and a de facto betrayal of the "great Communist cause". As the village became shunned the populace dispersed into the countryside leaving their home a ghost town, reclaimed by Nature in the shadows of history, its story not to be told.