Fiction: Group 3
I roamed the Senado Square meaninglessly as I waited for my boat to Shenzhen. Olivier’s phone is there,
dead or alive he should be there too. As his secretary I always had to arrange transport to pick him up from
hangovers. Instead of having some drunken hussy shriek over his phone when I try to call him every time, I
just installed a GPS so I can send his driver to pick him up directly.
I woke up on a well cushioned bed, staring at a poker card-covered ceiling. I was in the fine dress I dined
in, a robe with golden-embroidery was wrapped around me. Puzzled, I was getting on my feet as a steward
barged in. “Oh Ma’am you’re awake! I should telephone the captain…” “Wait a second will you, sir?
Where am I?” “Ah yes I was told you might encounter such problems. You ma’am, are on board the Last
Gambit.”
Turns out I was spotted floating amongst the tides as the Last Gambit, a casino cruise ship bound for Macau
lifted me out of water. I asked about Olivier, but none of the Gambit’s crew had knowledge of his
whereabouts. I was the only one found. I was devastated, did he make it? Just then I remembered I could
track his cell with mine. My phone underwent severe damage but my Cath Kidston that clung on to my
shoulder prevented it from being blown to smithereens. It indicated Olivier was in Shenzhen, I tried calling
but no one picked up so I decided I’d make a trip there. I was a bit haunted by cruise ships so I receded into
the comfort of my duvet until we arrived Macau. I immediately booked a speed boat to Shenzhen, but
nothing was available till dawn of the next day. How could I possibly sleep with Olivier missing? And so I
wandered the streets of Macau. A city that truly never sleeps, the streets not deserted by the loneliness of the
night, the lights not dimmed by the darkness of the night, the crowds not silenced by the serenity of the
night. It’s all to my pleasing but my head had no capacity for anything but anxiety.
Daybreak yielded the answers I seek. The speedboat effectively delivered me to Shenzhen under an hour,
just before I arrived I checked my phone for Olivier. His phone had moved! It was originally near the
Chinese Folk Culture Village, now it was located in Shenzhen’s Window of the World. He’s alive and
moving! Hope and joy flooded my heart, releasing a yelp of glee. As soon as I touched ground I raced to the
renowned attraction of Shenzhen. I followed the GPS signal, into “America”, past “Mount Rushmore” and
ending up in front of the pyramids, where the signal indicated Olivier, or rather Olivier’s phone should be
in front of me. I couldn’t see him, so I tried dialling, when some Chinese punk in front of me picked up! I
was baffled, I stormed up to the juvenile delinquent and questioned him. “You’re going to tell me how this
phone ended up in your possession or end up in prison!” “You’re barking up the wrong tree woman! I just
picked it up from the docks two days ago! I didn’t anything!” I broke at his words. The docks… it was
washed up. That means… that means Olivier…he… he’s dead.
I mourned, but life goes on. I booked a plane back home from Hong Kong the next day. Nothing was left
to do, I checked the Internet, Facebook, everything. No news of Olivier. He might not have been much
except a playboy and an insincere philanthropist, but he was something unique, a dearest friend. I boarded
the plane staring out the window in grief. The Pearl River Delta, a prosperous region with booming
economy, now laid my friend unfound. I read from the papers, the government took bribes thus permitting
the under-built cruise. In a rich-cultured, well-educated civilization it was in the end, human’s most
rudimentary greed that killed my friend.
I was drowned in sorrow, when a most intimate voice awoken me from the sea of agony.
“Fe… Felicity?”
