The Piranhas

A foxtail grass.

The first time I noticed him he was already taller than the planks of wood supporting the rails. There wasn’t a breath of wind that day, and between the sleepers the grass stood tall and straight – chest out, stomach in – like the lead gymnast from our school years, a boy who moved with such precision that he was both admired and envied. Of course the foxtail grass had been there long before I’d paid him any attention. But though I waited for the train here at the South Shanghai Railway Station every day after work, I’d never seen him before. Perhaps the rail ties marked a sort of threshold, like the height chart at the front of the bus. Once a child grew taller than 1.20 meters, they had to purchase a ticket. The child existed before they reached that height, but in the bus ticket headcount they could be ignored.

Once the foxtail grass had made his impression on me, I began to notice other things too. A layer of moss covered both sides of the railroad tracks – some patches were dark, others light, others barely visible, as if a secret pattern had been woven into them. It was not a peaceful world under the sleepers. Several grass-like plants snaked out of the ground, reaching for the bolts on top of the ties. Occasionally a platoon of ants made an appearance, marching across the moss. The gaps between the railway sleepers were like caves to them, while the bumpy gravel below was a mountain road. By making the crossing, the ants could visit their relatives on the other side.

As it turned out, he was not the only foxtail grass. More shot up, stubbornly, at different points along the platform. There were more on the side where the passengers stood. Some grew well beyond the stumps of the sleepers and approached the height of the platform. Even though they were close enough to brush my shoes, I hadn’t noticed them until now.

After that first encounter, I began to enjoy waiting for the train after work. Each day the foxtail grass, like an excited adolescent, would exclaim, ‘Look! I’ve grown again!’ The various components of the track all served as markings to measure his increased height.

One day, the foxtail grass – the very first one, the one that had lured me into his world – swayed past a dangerous mark. I worried about his fate. Clutching my purse, I glanced at the countdown on the screen – there was only a minute left until the train arrived. The foxtail grass was still clinging to the track, dozing greedily. The far end of the track began to glow, as if there were tiny lamps hanging from either side, lighting up, one after another. Wake up, I murmured, or you will be chopped down. The foxtail grass did not budge, and the people around me started to rub their palms together, preparing themselves to compete for a good spot. This was the terminal station. An empty train arrived. Whoever got on first would enjoy a comfortable ride for some time.

All at once I had a vision of the train as an endless line of pregnant women, all of them in active labor. As the train pulled in, the women were thrust onto the operating table, emitting long, painful screams. The foxtail grass was gone. The women were cut open and gutted. People shoved their way in, reaching for flesh. Nobody seemed to care about the babies in their bellies.

‘You getting on or what? Move out of the way!’ I was pushed aside. A cacophony of footsteps – like thunder, like drumbeats, like pile-driving. The lights on the train doors started to flicker at the same pace, accompanied by an urgent ‘beep beep beep’, as if something had gone wrong in surgery. Then, before I could understand what was happening, the open bellies closed up, like it had all been a bizarre performance. With another long, painful roar, the women were pushed to the next operating table. In their roar, I somehow sensed a note of exhilaration.

Once the last woman had been sent away, the foxtail grass sprang back up. How flexible – he had bent down to one side beneath the moving train. He seemed to recognize me, his witness, and showed off his agility by twisting his body. I cracked a smile. Then, seeing the uniformed staff patrolling the platform, I resumed my flat expression and stepped back.

‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ I said, not sure why I felt the need to explain.

The man walked on without a pause. Six minutes and fifty-eight seconds until the next train. Besides me and the metro staff, the only other person there was a man in his forties. Perhaps he was actually waiting for someone. I sat down next to him, leaving an empty seat between us.

‘You noticed the plant too?’ he asked, out of the blue.

‘What plant?’ As if caught playing a prank by a parent, my default reaction was to deny everything.

He leaned his head closer. ‘The plant that looks like a foxtail grass.’

‘Isn’t that a foxtail grass?’ As soon as I’d said this, I knew I was exposed.

The man’s eyes looked very small behind his thick glasses. He was balding, with a few tufts of hair holding up the facade. I had a sense that he was well educated, cultured and understanding, so I didn’t feel bad about my earlier denial.

He said the plant was a tropical species, originally found in Sumatra, but in recent years it had also been spotted in non-tropical regions around the world. He mentioned the scientific name of the plant, but I forgot it as soon as he’d said it. I still only call the plant ‘the foxtail grass’.

‘It’s difficult to remember,’ he said, with a smile. ‘It’s okay if you don’t. Back in college, we’d repeat the scientific names like the names of our relatives, and once we’d memorized them they did feel like our relatives!’

I smiled back.

‘I can tell you just started working,’ he continued. ‘You haven’t been worn down by life –’

The corners of his mouth drooped, and he waved his hand. He told me about the plant’s personality. It felt like he was talking about a close friend: ‘He’s very good at adapting to changes,’ the man explained. ‘That’s why he can bend over completely with such short notice. In the tropics he uses this posture to prey on flies and mosquitoes, stretching out like a lizard’s tongue. That is his instinct.’

I liked the foxtail grass even more now that I knew he hunted flies and mosquitoes.

‘We used to keep the plants in our dorm rooms, and thanks to them we were free from mosquitoes all summer long.’

We only got to exchange a few more sentences before people started to fill the benches. Most passengers stood by the edge of the platform, ready to pounce. Through the gaps between their legs, I could still see the foxtail grass.

With each passing day, the South Shanghai Railway Station became more like a jungle. The patches of moss gradually connected into a vast carpet. The foxtail grass grew taller. As much as I welcomed the change, I couldn’t help but worry.

The scholarly man and I took the same train most days. We didn’t talk – just nodded at each other before turning our gaze to the lush garden. Over time, we heard more and more grumbling voices.

‘Look how wild the weeds are getting,’ a woman in her fifties sighed. ‘No one cleans under the tracks anymore.’

I thought this was just an isolated complaint, but it seemed to resonate.

‘That’s why,’ another woman echoed, ‘the trains keep getting slower.’

‘And they break down all the time,’ said another. There seemed to be a tacit understanding among people of that age group in Shanghai. One by one, they picked up the conversation.

‘Somebody has to do something. So many bugs.’ A plump lady in her sixties lifted her chiffon pants.

An ominous feeling gripped me. There were two rows of red bumps on her pale, chubby legs. She scratched them generously. Before long, the itching seemed to spread like an epidemic across the platform.

‘I also got bitten there!’ someone else cried. Soon, everyone was touching mosquito bites they’d got yesterday or the day before. Those who didn’t have bites scratched imaginary ones. I stood still and looked around, feeling as if I were in a rainforest surrounded by well-dressed monkeys. I looked at the scholarly man. His thick glasses, like mirrors, blocked my gaze. Neither of us mentioned that the plants killed mosquitoes.

The next afternoon, when I returned to wait for my train, the tracks had been cleared of grass. They looked awkward and strange – like a friend who’d long worn a beard shaven clean. I felt this was as much the result of my silence as the complaints of the older passengers.

The foxtail grass was gone, this time forever. I stared at the countdown on the screen. From time to time, I stomped my feet to ward off the mosquitoes that came to feed.

A year passed, and another summer ended. Typhoons came one after another to herald the approaching autumn. On pouring days, the heavy curtains of rain hanging from the roof of the shelter kept passengers in check more effectively than the yellow lines on the platform.

Given the weather, I was not surprised to see a puddle forming under the tracks. I didn’t pay much attention to it, even when the puddle lingered through a few sunny days.

‘There, look!’ The scholarly man had walked up to me. He shoved his glasses up onto his bald forehead, then left with a mysterious smile.

He hadn’t pointed in any particular direction, but I could sense he meant the puddle. The geometric patterns of the station’s half-open dome reflected on the water, much like a neatly divided paddy field, with a few red dots bouncing in the center.

A few red dots.

Like camellias blooming in the early spring, only they were hidden in the field. After a moment, they shook again, like stage lights tracking performers, flicking on and off for special effects.

I wondered what these red dots were.

‘Piranhas!’ Two days later, the scholarly man leaned into my ear again. ‘First found in the Amazon River basin, typically no larger than a human hand, they can gnaw an adult cow to the bone!’

My face turned the color of bone.

‘Don’t worry,’ he kept whispering, ‘they can’t bite through metal. Besides, they live in the water and don’t mess with life on land. I’ve kept these fish as pets for years.’

I tried not to let the piranhas’ nature bother me. Slowly I came to embrace their existence. Much like in the foxtail grass days, I found that I enjoyed having something to look at. The rainy days now felt meaningful. I no longer worried about that unsheltered moment before boarding; I didn’t mind when rainwater fell from other people’s umbrellas, dripping onto my business skirt. The piranhas craved the rain, and I too felt as if I were living in the puddle, thanking the rain for nourishing the earth.

I liked to watch the raindrops rippling across the puddle, and the piranhas thrashing to the surface for a drink. I’d even miss a few trains so that I could sit and watch them. In October, a week of intermittent rain caused the water to rise, heaving the piranhas closer towards the approaching trains.

‘Don’t worry.’ The scholarly man stood next to me. ‘They are not as stupid as people think.’ Ever since the arrival of the piranhas, we had grown close again.

I didn’t respond, but kept staring at the puddle. The moment the tracks began to vibrate, the piranhas vanished under the water. Only once the roaring train had passed – now carrying the bustling crowds – did the red dots start to dart around again, reminding me of the fireflies from the countryside that a city girl like me had never had the chance to see.

‘I love them,’ the scholarly man said. ‘They’re extraordinarily dangerous, but the danger only adds to their charm.’

I kept nodding.

It was happening slowly, but the piranhas were growing. Once as tiny as a pen tip, by November they were as thick as a brush dipped in vermilion and dotted on the black puddle, spreading lines of red silk. I worried that in a few more weeks they’d be fully rouge – so dense they wouldn’t dissolve.

Perhaps most people killed time at the station by staring at the countdown on the screen. If they did see the red dots, maybe they assumed they were reflections from something in the station’s dome. But I knew it wouldn’t be long before the piranhas were discovered. I sensed that a countdown for their survival at the bottom of the puddle had begun.

On the weekends I grew anxious about not being able to go to work. The last time I’d felt this way was back in my school years, when I would count the hours until I could see my crush again on Monday morning. That was an innocent time, before the internet and mobile phones.

Then one Saturday, I found myself riding an empty train to the South Shanghai Railway Station. The sky and clouds were reflected in the puddle, creating a black-and-white negative. The fish were tinting the clouds red. Engrossed, I didn’t notice the scholarly man sitting down beside me on the bench.

‘Mesmerizing, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ I didn’t hide my feelings anymore. ‘But once they are discovered –’

‘It doesn’t matter if they stay here, right?’ he continued. ‘They don’t cost taxpayers anything, and they won’t harm people. Whoever sees them gets to own them.’

The metro staff walked past, and the man fell silent. The piranhas seemed to smell the danger, sinking into the water, leaving a faint red on the surface. The less observant would assume it was just a reflection of the setting sun.

I didn’t say I was waiting for a friend this time.

Not many people were at the station on weekends – only passers-by with clear destinations in their minds and large suitcases in their hands. We were the only two keeping those beautiful light rail residents company.

No one has been able to explain to me how exactly the piranhas were discovered. Perhaps someone sold the lives of these fish to the local newspaper in exchange for a small cash reward. Perhaps the same loud and fussy passengers, talking about their new discoveries and conspiracy theories, alerted the staff. Or perhaps a curious child alarmed her parents . . .

In short, a TV crew came, and their flashlights frightened the fish into jumping around in their cramped puddle. The light rail train was suspended by the startled authorities. People who weren’t in a rush to get to work crowded around the platform. They stood on the outermost layer, as the inside was packed with reporters, metro staff, police, and so-called experts. Nobody was sure what they were looking at.

Of course I missed all this. It happened in the late morning, when I was already at work in my cubicle. All I could do was imagine the scene based on the rumors that were spreading through the city. Something was happening at the South Shanghai Railway Station. Some people theorized, quite reasonably, that someone had jumped onto the tracks. The story spread, and eventually acquired an element of truth when the presence of the piranhas was revealed.

‘The person who died,’ my co-worker told me the next day over coffee, ‘was bitten to the bone by piranhas. How horrible – can you imagine?’

‘It’s true,’ another co-worker joined in. ‘My cousin Wang was on the platform at the time.’

Even after the media had clarified that there had been no suicide, news of the piranha murder incident continued to sweep the city. I had to extinguish any hope I’d reserved for the fish: the loss of a human life – even an imaginary one – would have to be atoned for.

For the first few days, the government only reported that piranhas had been found at the South Shanghai Railway Station and that the incident had been properly handled. Because the government had failed to determine the origin of the fish, people turned their energy to uncovering who had brought them to the station. Reporters visited pet markets around the city to interview store owners about the sale of piranhas.

For a week or so my TV screen was filled with these interviews:

‘Did the customers who bought the piranhas know that these fish are dangerous?’

‘Of course they knew. They’re piranhas!’

I imagined people sitting in front of their TVs, saying to their families: ‘They knew this and they still bought the fish. How twisted!’ I imagined them chewing fish as they watched the news, spitting out the bones skillfully.

In the end, the real world always finds a way to live up to rumor. Two weeks after the piranha murder incident, the news ran a story about a middle-aged man whose forefinger had been bitten off by his pet piranhas. The man’s face was pixelated. The police clarified that this case was not related to what had happened in the South Shanghai Railway Station. But I was sure that some angry people somewhere would convince themselves otherwise, concluding that the man on TV had released the piranhas in an attempt to kill all the residents of Shanghai.

Eventually I stopped watching the news. My studio apartment felt much darker and quieter than the world outside.

I have not seen the scholarly man since the piranhas were exposed.