Consider Lu Chang

Does Chang feel his teeth falling out? One... two... three... His mouth shuts. How will he speak? Like the moon released at last and speechless, he has lost his descendants. Life splits— a rift, a cleft, the half- light between waking and sleeping. A quartz-colored dawn rescues him. The day clears. Dizzy waves rush to shore. The factory calls him to work, but even there, the gap-toothed partitions in the wall where the rice bowls are kept stay empty. It’s another sad round of layoffs. How many more will be lost? How many?