Fiction: Group 3
Tales of the Pearl River Delta
Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School, Sit, Christy - 13, Fiction: Group 3
aves of wind swept past his face, and uncountable water droplets falling down from the sky
formed a translucent beaded curtain. A man stroked his soaked wet white beard. He sat there,
shivering, in the cold, inhospitable Pearl River Delta…
He was the clockwork machine man.
******
“Mr. Cogwheel. This job is now yours.” That sentence was what made me work like the Titan Atlas,
supporting the deadly weight of Pearl River Delta, and giving me pressure every milliseconds in my whole
lifetime.
My responsibility seemed easier than ever, that was what I thought at first. All I had to do was to
protect the Pearl River Delta clockwork gear machine. I was the one who had to check whether all the
gears were working properly every day and night. The nonstop running of the machine meant that the cities
in the delta, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, were developing. Each gear was important, because if
one were damaged, the whole gear machine would break down, and eventually, the Pearl River Delta
would just stop and be doomed in time.
I wasn’t worried about the stopping of the gear machine. In fact, I was pleased to see that the gears
were all working properly, and never believed the pace of the running gears would change. How could
they? That was a question that I’ve regretted asking…
Everyday, I watched the horizon of hundreds of houses lining and stretching along the bark of the
Pearl River. The river looked like a cyan blue slithering snake, and its skin shimmered in the warm sunlight.
The air was fresh and pure. Green paddy fields of mustard with yellow flowers waved in the cool breeze.
One by one, like the unfolding of blooming flower petals, windows of each house flung open, exposing
colorful interiors and filling the streets with the exuberance of life. Young women rushed out to the little
markets, as the shopkeepers opened up their linear array of shops. They would wander slowly in the markets
to look at the fabulous products traded through the Silk Road.
“Hi! Mr. Cogwheel!” A child waved at me gracefully as he walked by. “Hello there, little kid!” I
smiled and winked at him. Most of the people knew me. They knew that I was the protector of the
clockwork machine.
White dolphins were the famous animals of the Pearl River Delta. You could often see them
swimming around, streamlined. Sometimes they would leap out of the water, and wave at you with their
dorsal fins. They were friendly and intelligent, like the people then in Pearl River Delta. Human on land,
dolphins in water, that was the perfect combination of the delta.
During the festivals of the Teochew culture, everyone would go out to the street and celebrated
together. Some would go out and watch music operas, known for their uniqueness. Joy was everywhere.
And I would repaint the gears one by one, peeking at the smiling faces between the holes in each gear…
Everything was fine and in order. Until one day.
“We didn’t kill…” said a skinny man.
“No, we didn’t,” interrupted a well-built man.
The room was filled with eerie echoes of wrongfulness. The well-built man went over to the clock
machine, and touched the metal gears, with a sardonic grin on his face. The gears felt cool, as if they didn’t
welcome the strangers. “Nice and neat.”
“Make the clockwork machine go faster! We’ve got to compete with other cities!” said the scrawny
man.
They looked at each other. A devious, sinister smile distorted their faces.
I could hear those voices, but I couldn’t recognize them.
Wake
up, I told myself. I knew it had to be a dream, but my eyelids seemed to sewed shut, and
wouldn’t open at all. I tried to pinch my arm, and counted to three. Yet, when I felt the hungering cold of
the ground leeching the warmth on me, I realised it was no dream. I felt dizzy, as if the world were full of
gears, going round and round.
When my eyes slowly fluttered opened, I hauled myself into a sitting position. There were two men
standing next to the gears, and the one who was well built was turning the gears forcefully! How did I let
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