China, in Dim Light

On a train moving across north China last year, a girl, blond hair reaching down to her waist, maybe 15, darted past my bottom perch in the hard sleeper. As much as her hair, it was the colorful ankle-length dress she wore that caught my eye, the kind I’d spotted on girls in places like rural Utah and Nevada. I could have sworn I’d seen an apparition, but settled anyway back into my book