No Footprints of Existence

By Theodore G. Rork

Liang is orphaned twice before he’s nine years old.

His existence is based on begging, then later—when he’s less childlike—on his ability to adapt to the lands he roams. He triumphs, thriving off the fish he taught himself to catch, and avoiding dangers more egregious than wild beast.

The Japanese occupation p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theodore Rork
• Release date: Sep 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733467100

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No Footprints

of Existence

By

Theodore G. Rork

No Footprints of Existence

Theodore G. Rork

All rights reserved

Copyright © September, 2019, Theodore G. Rork

Cover Design Copyright © 2019, Just Write Creations; Jo-Anna Walker

Edited by Chrissy Szarek

Theodore G. Rork

Arlington, Texas

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including, but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Theodore G. Rork or the Author.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-7334671-0-0

Print book ISBN: 978-1-7334671-1-7

Published in the United States of America

First eBook Edition: September, 2019

First Print Edition: September, 2019

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Other Books by Theodore G. Rork

No Footprints of Existence

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

About the Author

Dedication

This story is dedicated to those billions of humans who walked this earth and left no footprints of existence.

This novel is my footprints.

Other Books by Theodore G. Rork

Royal Heritage

Lord Psaras

Connoisseur of Chaos

No Footprints of Existence

Liang is orphaned twice before he’s nine years old.

His existence is based on begging, then later—when he’s less childlike—on his ability to adapt to the lands he roams. He triumphs, thriving off the fish he taught himself to catch, and avoiding dangers more egregious than wild beast.

The Japanese occupation promises slave labor, so he flees to the mountains, where he meets an aboriginal tribe, who takes him in.

There he meets his wife, and they live happily until tragedy strikes. His world is turned upside down when his wife is raped and murdered by a Japanese soldier.

Liang storms back to the village and puts together a hunting party, with the blessing of the chief. He wants to rid his country of the Japanese. He discovers patriotism within, but he teeters on the edge of redemption and vengeance.

Chapter One

Orphan, orphan! Liang is an orphan.

Chu Fu, Liang’s mother looked up from her family’s hut to see who was shouting. She saw an older playmate of her eight-year-old son taunting and sneering at him. She watched as her son wrapped his arms around his wooden carved horse and hugged it to his chest then ran toward home with an ashen face.

Mama! Liang yelled as he entered the hut.

Their home was one of the many one-room, dirt-floor bamboo grassed roof huts, that clustered on a hill where the afternoon shade made the air cooler from the depressing heat. The placement of the domicile section of the village allowed for more room in the flats for farming.

The interiors, furnished with sparse handmade trappings, cots, woven mattresses, mats to sit upon for meals all made from the abundance of bamboo plants growing nearby.

Yes, I'm here, she replied.

"Mama, what does 'orphan' mean?" He asked in a wavering little voice.

She stooped her shoulders and she held her stomach as if it pained. Where did you hear this word?

An older boy shouted it when I wouldn’t let him play with my horse. He wiped a tear from his cheek.

Chu Fu pulled on her hair. I wanted to tell you about this when you were older and would understand it better. This may be a good time to explain. Come, sit. She sighed.

Liang landed at her side on the bamboo cot; she wrapped her arms around him.

An orphan is a child that doesn’t have a mother and father. She kept her voice low, soft.

I have a mother and father. Why would he call me an orphan?

She watched him frown and hugged him again. That stupid boy needs a beating. Chu Fu clenched her jaw. You were born in this house, but I’m not your real mother. She heard him gasp and drew him closer. Your birth mother, Chun Lan, was banished from her house.

Why? What did she do wrong?

Nothing. A man was at fault. She snorted.

Where is she now? Liang, the boy she’d raised for the last eight years, leaned into her.

She hesitated and tugged on her hair again. After you were born your mother turned sick and she went to the city to see a doctor. We found out a few days later she died. Then we decided you would be our son. Chu Fu fidgeted.

"You’re my mother." Liang laid his head on her lap.

Now go help your father and sister in the fields. Leave your toy here. I have to make the evening meal. She beamed.

After the little boy departed, she let out a deep sigh. She had a feeling of weightless, because her explanation had gone so well.

All cooking was done outdoors in a stone-lined pit. The forested hills, shaped in a horseshoe, surrounded vegetable and rice fields in a dell in southeast Taiwan.

While she continued preparing the meal, she recalled the day Chun Lan had walked into her village. She was in her ninth month of pregnancy, destitute and scrounging for food when her water had broken.

Please help me! It hurts so much. The thirteen-year-old had cried as she lay on the ground in the middle of the hamlet.

The inhabitants closed their doors to muffle her pleas.

No matter how loud her entreaty, the price to silence them was high.

Chu Fu had put her fingers in her ears, hoping her conscience would quiet itself. However, the laborious screams tugged at her maternal strings, but she met her husband’s resistance.

During the child’s tenth hour of labor, she started chanting a groaning noise all too familiar to Chu Fu, whose body rocked to a rhythm timed to her grunting pain; this sound was her breaking point.

I need to help the poor girl, she said. She dared to disobey her husband, Shi-Ling, by pushing him aside.

She found the pregnant child soaked in sweat and soiled with dirt from rolling around on the ground. With tears in her eyes, Chu Fu cradled her in her arms, picked her up, and carried her back to her hut.

Upon entering, her husband confronted her with a red face. Custom implies the party helping is taking responsibility for the pregnant girl and her baby. I won’t do it. For her or her child. Throw her out!

It mattered not what words he used, for this situation lived in the echo of a mother’s heartbeat.

Just look at her. Can’t you see she is only a child herself? Don’t you have pity for her? she asked with tears welling up in her eyes. But Chu Fu’s words could not be heard. As Shi-Ling opened his mouth to deliver his final rebuttal, the baby arrived; the argument ended.

Two days after the birth, Chu Fu woke in the early morning to find Chun Lan, but the girl was not in her cot.

She’s more than likely in the woods doing her morning toilet because the baby is still here.

After waiting some time, she went looking for her. She returned to her hut after not finding her and noticed some of their food supply was missing. Husband, wake up! The girl is gone. Her voice wavered as she shook him.

Shi-Ling yawned. Ah, good. Now let me sleep.

Chu Fu winced and moved about, being unable to settle in one place. She left the baby.

He gave her a bitter smile. I warned you, but you’re hard-headed.

She took half of our food with her.

The little thieving whore, her husband growled as he sat up.

She wasn’t a whore. She told me her story of how she became pregnant.

Perhaps by a boyfriend. He laughed.

Don’t be so cruel. She was raped by an attacker in the mountains while picking berries for her family. The rapist grabbed her from behind and never showed his face. Frightened, she never told her parents about the rape.

Shi-Ling chuckled. And you believed her story?

Yes, but Chun Lan’s father didn’t. To save face, he beat her and threw her out from his house with only the clothes on her back. Then he threatened harm to any villagers that attempted to help her.

I would’ve done the same thing. He smirked.

She cringed. During the months before she showed up in our village, she survived by begging for food or dug through the trash dumps for scraps.

Shi-Ling chuckled. Well, she has food now. He sat up in bed and cleared his throat. Did she leave us anything? His tone; softer.

All she left us is the baby and his name.

What name did she give him?

"Liang Guo."

He shook his head. Liang, bridge. Guo, tall? Ha.

I’ll go find a mother who will let the baby suckle, otherwise he’ll die. Chu Fu glared at her husband for his lack of support.

Shi-Ling remained silent.

Nursing mothers came forward. Even though Chu Fu held the responsibility for the child, by custom. To help, the women of the hamlet passed Liang from family to family.

In her estimation, their efforts were to soothe their guilty consciences for having turned a blind eye towards his mother when she needed assistance.

The villager’s generous welfare lasted until he reached ten months old.

Chapter Two

Liang turned his back on the pouring monsoon outside his hut. Mother, I hate the rainy season. The air smells like rotting greens.

If we didn’t have the rain then we couldn’t grow our food, said Chu Fu.

But, does it have to come all at—

The roar came from across the valley. They turned in time to see trees and mud cascading down the hillside and trespassing into a section of a rice field.

He trembled and put a tight gripped his mother’s arm. Mother, could that happen to our house?

No. We’ve built our village on ground that had its landslide in the past. Don’t look at it with uneasiness, but as a godsend. When each mudslide happens, it opens up more land to be farmed so we can produce more food.

Liang smiled and went back to playing with his toy until bedtime. Once asleep, his dream was invaded by his twin brother, the one who’d died inside his mother’s womb and sacrificed himself for Liang.

"You’re the one that killed me because we knew our mother had a limited amount of milk and we battled for the birthright for only one could enter the birth canal. You were the lucky one," said his ghost-brother.

Why are you visiting me now? asked Liang.

"To save you. Go to the door of your house, hurry."

He woke to the ground shaking and found himself standing by the door.

Half-asleep, he grabbed the door handle to keep his balance. Help! he screamed.

The bamboo grass roof drizzled down in pieces on him; confusing him.

Mother! he screamed, but it blended in with the outcries of his parents.

Liang made out the words of his father, Get out the door!

He was shoved by a dense mass of wet mud; it snapped the door from its hinges. He grabbed the edges of the door and tightened his grip.

Behind him, he thought he heard his mother’s voice over the din.

His pulse raced. He hollered into the darkness as he held on to the door. The panel acted like a sled, staying at the frontal edge of the avalanche. Down the hill, Liang bounced, whimpering the whole time, through the level fields of crops. During his descent, his grasp became so tight his fingers almost penetrated the frame of the door. Surrounded on both sides by walls of dark earth and trees, his bladder released.

Help! He choked on his tears.

The roar of the landslide covered the sound of his screams.

The door hit a dry mud wall at the far end of the fields, tossing Liang into the air and over into the last rice paddy.

He ended up on his back, surrounded by plants that cushioned his fall. He cringed and closed his eyes. Liang expected the rampaging mud to cover him in any second. However, the avalanche had run its course. After gaining his courage, he stood and looked out under the light of the moon.

Where the village had once stood was a large cavity in the mountainside. On the flats where the cultivated fields had filled the view was a smooth surface of mushy earth, with an occasional residue of broken trunk roots or leafless branches pointing upward like evil fingers.

Where is my house and family?

Mother, where are you? Liang shouted as he started to shake all over until even his teeth chattered.

His only reply; the chirping of frightened birds.

Help! Is anyone here?

This time, not even the birds answered.

Liang sat and cried himself to sleep.

He woke to the sun blinding him later that morning. He needed to seek out his family. However, only a few steps toward his house he became mired in the mud. Liang turned to go back and found himself stuck to the spot. The suction held him prisoner; he started whimpering and his gaze searched for assistance.

Help! Can anyone hear me?

Again, no reply.

A thickness in his throat signaled the onset of tears.

Don’t cry. Papa and Mama can’t help me now.

He fought the tears. He had to be the master of his freedom. He moved one leg at a time, side to side, to allow space for air to enter the bottom of his foot.

Liang stopped every few minutes to wipe his sweaty brow on his sleeve, then continued his labor. Baring his teeth, he pulled on his leg and heard a wheezing, popping sound as his foot broke the mud’s grasp. The sudden release had him falling on his back, and his second limb freed itself.

He wriggled to distribute his weight until he reached a paddy wall.

Covered in mud, he washed off in a nearby paddy. His village was now a barren, dark muddy wilderness. With a last look, he cried and headed out of the dell. He never looked back.

Like his real mother, he had to shed the comfort of his youth and learn the unruly codes of the wilderness to survive.

He hiked for two days before coming across a village. The empty feeling in the pit of his stomach had nothing to do him not eating since he’d departed; it was the quiver of approaching strangers. With his chin dropping to his chest, he walked up to the first woman that appeared to be around the same age as his dead mother.

Please, may I have some food? I lost my parents in a mud landslide and I am the only one to live, Liang asked with genuine tears shaking his voice.

You poor boy, come with me to my house. She sniffed and wiped her nose.

He followed, and he couldn’t hold back a slow smile.

That was easier than I thought.

He was able to scrounge five more meals from women in the village before he wore out his welcome.

Liang repeated this technique at each village he roamed. His approach would earn him a share of their meager rations for him to remain alive.

He became satisfied with living this way until without realizing it he returned to the village where he began his begging trek.

"Hey, boy, that is the same story you told