“Just follow the taxi in front, please.” Mei said hurriedly, and the driver in an orange jacket, who looked experienced and respectable, did as she commanded without any suspicion.
They first drove along Bingjiang Avenue, passed the crowded People’s Square and let the empty City Wall be a blurred image of sand falling into nothingness. Out of the window, the vehicles were moving fast, the faces coming closer and closer were expressionless and the backs going further and further were unreachable. The polished surface of the ground under the wheels seemed to shine more glamorously than the cement of the walls. The trash spread randomly. The yellow branches of the trees were waving. Mei sometimes mixed the color with her miseries. But more often she stared anxiously at the back of the leading taxi, reading the last three numbers: seven-seven-four. She seemed to take a great effort to memorize them. She even tried hard to connect them with an aura of sensational visions. She almost captured the vividness of the whiteness and the thinness that alternated the blackness and the thickness of the air running through her nose.