Warning: this story contains themes of abandonment, death, and sexual assault. Please advise before reading.

I remember this street. It’s a long street shadowed by high rising buildings. In the daylight it’s busy, filled with hawkers and food stalls. I used to stop here at this place by the crooked stone path, buy a bag of nuts to snack on, and head to school. It doesn’t feel so long ago that I used to frequent here, a bright high school student who didn’t know what the future would bring, and so never worried about it.

Now that I’ve come back I feel haunted. Echoes of the past called me here today.

I think I’m ready to face them.

I pass by the place where three children used to sit on flattened cardboard boxes. They had matted hair and dark skin tanned from the hot sun. Their clothes were filthy and torn, probably hand-me-downs or second hands found in the trash. They would hold out their hands and beg for anything, even the tiniest crumbs from a steamed bun or the dirtiest fen coin. I used to pass by without looking at them.

They used to scare me with pleading eyes, but I never stopped.

I was afraid of them, afraid of their fate.

Next to the children used to sir a young mother with a baby strapped to her back. She wore the same white shirt and black skirt every day. She was young, the same age as high-school me, with dark eyes and a sweet smile. Every morning she would hold out her plastic cup to passersby and beg.

Once or twice I gave her a couple of jiao coins or yuan, change I didn’t care much for, but the young mother treated them as treasure. Once, after I gave her money she ran straight to one of the hawkers and bought a bag of peanuts. She ate the peanuts hungrily and then went back to her spot at the wall. She then pulled down the top of her shirt so she could breastfeed her child. Her baby suckle loudly, then cry when her milk ran out.

Beyond the young mother was the other young woman. Some days I liked to imagine that they were sisters. They were both of similar height, age, and figure. However, this woman wore her hair up in pigtails. She wore makeup so thick like a prima donna from a Chinese opera. She wore her shirt too high, resting just below the curve of her breasts. Her skirt matched in height, just resting over the crescent of her bottom. She would call out to the men passing by, not caring to ask if they were single or not, her beginning line inviting them out for tea.

I never considered what happened if the men accepted. They clearly knew what they were getting. I never questioned what the young woman did, either. She was simply there. Some days the young woman would not come, and on those days I could guess where she was, but I never bothered to ask.

But whether or not the young woman showed, there were always the babies.

At the end of the busy street there was a corner, one that was always littered with bodies. One, two, maybe a dozen a day. They were newborns and infants, fetuses and toddlers. Their skins were pale or blue or purple. They might have clumps of hair or no hair at all. Their eyes might be closed as if in a deep sleep or wide open, staring blankly at those who passed them. They were alive and they were dead, though with some of them you couldn’t really tell. But one thing linked them all together, one thing that they all shared.

They were girls.