On a China country bus

Twentyfive years ago in China, if you and I wanted to go to the end of the line, where people still looked up from their work in the fields when a bus went by, to villages where we’d see kids rush from their play to salute, for some reason, really stand at attention and salute, as we passed even though they didn’t know we were sitting at the window watching them, to crossroads that were out of the way to everyone except the ones who lived there, face it. We had to take a country bus. Here are 45 flash fiction stories that tell you what it was like.