When walking though the four feet wide ramparts of the third tallest structure in the Shenzhen campus, Yang Liu thought of his predecessor Sun Danyong. He could see few lit up windows on the high rise dormitories across Sham Chun River. He needs to go further down and wait for his morning red cab to get into one among its bunk beds for a short morning nap. Instead of going down, Yang sat on the other side of the parapet facing second campus. He could only hear the conveyors mumble from the top floor and see shadows of his first shift colleagues at the tinted grey glass windows of the second campus. The shadows stood still, except their hands moving in a metrical manner. Looks like a church choir playing the same note throughout.

The four feet parapet was wider than his squeaky steel bunk bed painted green. When he got in to his dorm six weeks back, his supervisor advised him. ‘Yang, per the current contract, you own four hours of a day. Please consider others who share this space’. He carried a twelve inch brown shaded synthetic travel case with him that barely fits into the spot reserved only for luggage, marked against his employee id.

He locked his certificates from Harbin Institute of Technology and a photo album presented by his college mate Hua Zhai and a pack of fortune cookies from his mother in this maroon box. Hua’s last year’s summer visit to his home town Dali was unforgettable. She travelled with him between the metal and mineral factories of Xiaguan. She took pictures of Yang’s brother in his mining outfits, cooked fortune cookies with his mother and stayed at their downtown Xiaguan’s low profile single room chalet for couple of days. She has sent all of the snaps with a 5’x 4’ photo album over express courier a week after she left for Shanghai.

Yang heard his mother calling him when sitting on the nearby tea shop’s wooden bench facing Ming’s Temple. Children started walking towards his old elementary school early morning. He likes to sit there looking at Ming’s Grand Buddhist temple’s top layers, which is partly visible from this dragon tailed wooden bench.

‘Hey, how are you’. It was Hua’s call from Shanghai.

‘I am fine Yang. Heard that you are moving to Shenzhen this weekend?

‘You are right; I got a small job where Sun was working’

‘That’s awesome, but Yang, when thinking of Sun I am scared to send you there’

‘Nothing to worry Hua, I will be a good boy there. I am just thinking of Maami and Lu. Lu was working his whole life in the copper mines of Xiaguan. You know my father struggled to death here. I am not leaving by brother for that destiny’.

‘Best wishes Yang’. He heard her receiver dropped on to the cradle. Yang went to his mother. She was looking at his father’s portrait. His face is getting broader than before as the oil mixes started spreading outwards from his peach colored chins. She then looked at Yang and asked him to come near her. He bent down and stay close to her. She held him closer. He feels like the little Yang came back from school on the day winning his silver medal for the best third grader. His father was looking at him. He was in his mining suit and Lu was looking at Yang admiringly. Lu always likes to follow his father. That night, they all lay down after the rice noodle and potato supper, heard mosquitoes across Xiaguan. Yang’s father was sleeping like an eleventh day hunger striker, was powerless to dash them away, and got numerous anopheles bites prior to that daybreak. Only Cangshan mountain top was saved since no mosquitoes were able to reach there during that tropical fatality. His father’s pale red shaded mining outfit was too large for Lu when he wore that after a week. Slowly mosquitoes started fleeing Xiaguan to further down.

Yang got off from the parapet very carefully and started walking through the terrace. It was lengthy enough to walk few minutes to reach the other end. An array of solar panels on the roof top reflected moonlight in a slanting position into his hairless face and wide forehead fleetingly. He looked at his wrist watch and realized that he is almost loosing an hour from his dorm contract of this morning. He took hold of his left hand and gazed at its lean fingers. Nails of his left index finger and thumb half worn-out. There might have thousands of smart phone printed circuit boards (PCBs) been moved in front of him during these six week’s time. He was placing SKY77542 Tx–Rx iPAC™ FEM on apiece PCBs day and night. Yang kept the Power Amplifier Modules (PAMs) with his right hand in the beginning, but alas, he left scores of PCBs without placing the PAMs on time. Conveyors did not wait for Yang’s beginner greenness, got fined and stayed extra hours to send the committed money order homewards. He thought of using both the hands to place and press PAMs into the approaching phone boards. Sharp PAM edges worn his scarcely using left hand fingernails virtually by half within this moment in time and he as well became a member of the church choir unknowingly.

Morning moon is hardly visible between hotel crown plaza’s roof garden and the thick rain clouds clustered over Shenzhen. Our city need a rain. Let the electronic filth and smolder settle down in a cooling summer downpour in my city. Let its Hi – Fi trashes may washed off from the scarlet tiled straight streets of Shenzhen. He saw the first crack of dawn in the eastern sphere when wishing these superior fortunes to the city of Sun Danyong and Sham Chun River. He thought of his father’s mining suit and the fortune cookie note on a red paper piece he carry with him all the time, ‘your first light wishes will be fertile a day’ . Dark frosty clouds more or less touched the tip of crown plaza, but stayed motionless resembling militia on a battlefield foresees major’s commands. Yang looked at the dark sky from East to West and saw millions of PCBs and Power Amplifier Modules across. He started looking desperately for his missing prototype in the galaxy of PCBs. He could not find his missing prototype in the nearby Solar System, the Milky Way home ground, the Whirlpool of outer orbits and even in the Andromeda Galaxies in the constellation. He could hear his supervisor’s slender voice from the fourth floor hallway now. He is back for his first shift. Yang missed his four hour break of the day. But he is still probing for his missing prototype. He found it, hăo wa…….After everything else he found his missing Smartphone trial product in the Sombrero Galaxy, the unbarred spinal one. He saw his father with pockmark of anopheles bites on his whole body with millions of malaria sufferers, with Lincoln, Lenin and Gandhi. He saw rain clouds all around, all across Shenzhen, covering the second campus, over hotel crown plaza. He walked backwards to the very end of the parapet, then he started running backwards, to the very end, to nowhere, then he started flying backwards, towards the Sombrero Galaxies.

Afar, across the mighty serene Pacific in San Francisco, at Moscone West Convention Center, a jubilant Steve Jobs proclaimed, ‘In 2010, we are going to take the biggest leap since the original iphone’. The crowd applauded cheerfully. Steve continued amongst the loud applauds, ‘today…..today…..today…… we are introducing the iphone4’. On the blue and black shaded huge display screen upon the stage, there exhibited the magic word, ‘iphone4’. The suited and tied spectators continuously celebrated.

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Sajan Ayathamattom