by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Crime Writer
Runfang Zhiang is believed to be the first person in the world to have been killed for his breathing mask. Police report that he was bludgeoned to death by a small statue of Buddha, and that the only unusual thing about the body (aside from the puncture marks in the shape of a head) was the fact that he was found outdoors in Beijing without a mask.
"It wasn't just any breathing mask," pointed out Public Outrage Inspector and amateur time cop Hymie Xuhuan. "It was a Clean Air Jordan!"
Only a limited number of the masks, which feature an image of a stylized human figure stretching one arm with a ball in its hand high above its head while the other arm covers the figure's open mouth, were produced. Even at $175 per mask (in a country where the average worker's wage is 37 cents a week and a promise to be given only two rather than seven daily beatings), the Clean Air Jordan breathing masks almost immediately sold out. They even more immediatelier started popping up on ehBay for over $1,000 each (beatings negotiable).
Many members of China's underclass believe owning a celebrity endorsed breathing mask makes them look like they're members of the country's growing middle class. "They are delusional, of course," Xuhuan, who has no real expertise in this field but was the only person the Chinese government would allow me to speak to (really: I couldn't even speak to the official who told me that the only person I could speak to was Xuhuan - she used a sign language that had been developed for communication with porcupines), said. "Nobody who makes 37 cents a week can enter the middle class, no matter how few beatings they endure! Besides, people who have any real wealth at all are distinguished by their white, logoless masks."
"Aiiieeeee, my little Runfee, he save up money for over 10 years to buy that mask!" moaned amateur outrage aficionado Michelle Zhiang, the victim's mother. "Aiiieeeee, why you say I moan my first sentence?"
You started it with "Aiiieeeee!"
"Aiiieeeee," Mrs. Zhiang told me. "That just a linguistic affectation!"
Celebrity breathing masks have been a hot item in China for many years. There was set of four featuring the likenesses of each band member of the band Kiss in full makeup (the concept of the set confused some cultural critics, who pointed out that most people only had one mouth, but that didn't stop it from selling out in under three minutes). Madonna endorsed a breathing mask with such a provocative design that the Communist Party of China debated banning it from the country (the move lost steam when it was revealed that Premier Li Keqiang had bought seven "because she is a role model for the modern Chinese woman"). A mask with a cockroach motif was released as a tribute to Franz Kafka. Unless it was a tribute to the Chinese United Exterminator's Union.
It's very powerful, the Chinese United Exterminator's Union is.
Not all celebrity breathing masks were successfully launched, of course. To take one example, the Gilbert Gottfried mask, which featured an exaggerated version of the brasH (a scrunchuation of the term "abrasive Helot) stand-up comedian's mouth, couldn't be given away to people who were choking on the smog of a normal Beijing rush hour.
Police quickly found Zhiang's murderer: Abelard Quiquig. In retrospect, taking selfies of putting on a dead man's breathing mask at the crime scene and posting them to your Weibow (the Chinese equivalent of Farcebook and Tweetherd) account isn't how to get away with murder. "Seriously?" Quiquig commented at his trial. "What is the point of going to the trouble of murdering somebody for an article of apparel if you cannot even share it with your friends? I'm surprised I have to explain this to you!"
Quiquig was advised by his lawyer to plead guilty. Five minutes after the plea was read into the court, Quiquig was executed. Five minutes after that, his heart, liver, spleen, left eye, right foot and two thirds of his lower intestine were removed for transplant. Ironically, his lungs were not considered strong enough for this purpose; they were believed to have been given to Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology, a purveyor of fine foods for your cats and dogs.
Despite the harsh sentence meted out to Quiquig, other people have since resorted to violence to get a celebrity breathing mask. A gang in Zigong, for example, beat up a teenage girl for her Mad Max mask (which bore the image of Mad Max' mask); they were caught because they got into a flame war on Fiddycent Qzone (a different Chinese equivalent of Farcebook and Tweetherd - hey! They've got over a billion people - they need all the social media they can get!) over who should wear it.
Many more people may be killing others for their breathing masks and not getting caught because they do not feel the need to broadcast their act to the world. Some people call them Luddites; others call them prudent.
In the final analysis, is a dubious status symbol really worth killing somebody over? "Are you kidding?" Xuhuan said. "Thirty million people in this country died because of a little red book. This? This doesn't even rate an adjective!"