Getting out of the boat

  Restitution A short story by Jonah Robson When first assigned as assistant to an imperial advisor, I was determined not to get my  fingers cut off. I’d heard stories of young attendants, eager to please, getting assorted digits chopped for insolence such as getting the wrong type of meat from the wet market, or interrupting their master, or even for not making their masters’ corn tea fast enough. Imagine my terror, then, when I was appointed to no other court advisor but old Sunye, the most hated, enigmatic, and, frankly, depressed looking court advisor in the entire city. I’d seen him only a few times: once I spotted him wordlessly observing a public debate between some high class citizens:my father, and our capital’s Committee of Cultural Order. He stood at the back of the meeting hall, leaning up against a wrought iron pillar, arms crossed, his face displaying weary exasperation. He did not speak at all.  The second time I saw old Sunye in public, he was being harassed in the