AnYi 安亦

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Think of the worst pain you’ve ever felt. Now give your protagonist a papercut and over-exaggerate the pain using your own descriptions.

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Version 1.

‘Are you all right, Minru? Is it the printer?’

‘I’m fine.’ Minru just about manages the syllables, her voice almost broken. She closes her eyes for a moment, her entire body going tense.

‘Are you sure? You just went really pale.’ Someone asks in a caring voice from a desk nearby, but Minru doesn’t seem to hear that. Cold perspiration begins to form on her forehead, and she has to take several deep breaths before opening her eyes again.

‘It’s just a paper cut.’ She smiles, although a little weakly. ‘Look, it’s not even bleeding.’

She picks up the freshly printed files and starts to move toward her desk, but abruptly halts within two steps. Paper flies everywhere as she drops to the floor, clutching the edge of the printer for support. She’s biting her lips with such force that they start bleeding, but small, broken groans still leaked through them. Instead of trying to get back up, she slumps against the printer, her fringe already wet with perspiration, her fingers trembling. Almost instinctively, she hugs her knees in a gesture of self-protection, as if trying to avoid some invisible force that is coming to harm her.

It takes a couple of minutes for her to recover this time, but she looks as if it had taken years.

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Version 2.

It’s not so much the pain that bothers me – it never is – the real devil here is the haunting fact that ‘I’ve no bloody idea when this is going to stop’.

I’m sure there is a speck of rationality left somewhere deep down in me that recognises the apparent insignificance of an ordinary papercut. I mean, it’s not even bleeding. You can’t even see the cut if you’re not basically smashing your face onto my fingertips. I’m not going to die. I know that.

But my body doesn’t seem to understand this. It seems to prefer to make a great fuss – I am fighting hard against the impulse to just scream. That’s just stupid. Why should I scream? It’s true that for a moment there’s a white-hot burning sensation and I’m almost convinced my finger is being torn apart, but that goes away quickly – ah ok I take that back. The sensation is returning – with such a powerful rhythm as well. My body no longer wants to stand still; it’s almost stunned by the burning feeling that suddenly seems to come from everywhere…no matter how I move or stay still, or even follow the instincts to scream, it doesn’t seem to help at all. I try to bargain with my body, but of course, it doesn’t listen. So I end up sitting on the floor, completely lost in the slight dizziness, soaked in cold perspiration, feeling there’s no escape.

That, I’ll admit, is the unbearable part.