Fiction: Group 3
Brrrrrrg! Brrrrrrg!
I picked up my phone and a familiar voice boomed through the speaker
excitedly, ‘Sean Ng! Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, Charlie, I’m listening. Please calm down,’ I rolled my eyes and replied.
He laughed mysteriously and said, ‘Guess what? I joined a voluntary campaign last week, you
remember that? I pass your home village on the way, so I walked around a bit. It’s the same you’d described
to me. It’s unbelievable! Anyway, I met a pair of old couple. I recognised them right away: the old man
looked exactly like you.’
I stood rooted to the spot.
He continued, ’I venture upon making some inquiry and it only makes me surer that they are your
long-lost parents.’
All the air seemed to vanish from my lungs. My brain was reeling faster than ever. I went back to
the days when I climbed trees in my backyard to pluck their fruits, when my brother chopped woods on the
hills and crafted toy figures out of small wood chunks with his skilful hands, when civil war began and my
father was enlisted, when I forced myself to swallow all my tears as I was sold to a stranger by my own
mother…… I vaguely heard Charlie speaking on the other side of the phone,’ …… your elder brother ……
back home too……can’t wait to meet you……’
Charlie would bring them to Guangzhou Railway Station. I remembered the cornfield that used to
stretch on for miles in this area. I looked around. After forty years it had evolved into a train station, hectic
with people rushing around with luggage. I had parked my Porsche near the exit. Drumming the steering
wheels, I was trying to ignore the twisted feeling in my guts. I vaguely feel people’s lingering stares on my
fancy car. I checked occasionally my Cartier watch, but feeling it a bit out of place, decided to tuck it under
my sleeve.
The afternoon sun light danced on the rim of my sunglasses. In the crowd I spotted an indistinctly
familiar guy walking towards my car. It took me a few seconds to realize he was one of the leaders who led
a strike in my company. He was getting closer and closer. I got out of the car, just for the sake of finding
something to do, determine not to look in his direction.
My heart made a terrible jolt as someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned around slowly and was
relieved to see Charlie’s grinning face. I moved my gaze to the two people next to him. Charlie had not
exaggerated. My parents were the same from my blurred memory: my mother beaming affectionately, my
father with features the same I had seen on my face for my whole life. I stepped forward and hugged them
tightly. Inhaling the deep scent of medicine oil of my aging parents, I felt at home for the first time since I
left them.
‘Where is my brother?’ I asked my parents with trembling voice, dreading for the worst.
‘Ahh, don’t worry. He’s taking our luggage,’ my mother assured, ’Look, here he comes!’
I followed her gaze. My smile froze on the corner of my mouth when I saw who the last person was.
His grin froze too.
It was the guy who had been striking for workers’ rights for the past month in my factory.
I forgot how to breathe momentarily as colour drained from my face. Charlie’s eyes swivelled
between us. Perplexity was written across my parents’ face.
Charlie finally broke the strained silence and asked, ‘Sean, what’s the----‘
‘He is not my brother.’ I would not believe my elder brother had said this had I not seen his lips
moved.
I could almost feel the surrounding dropping ten degrees. ‘Bro, listen. It’s not like that…’I began.
‘Don’t call me your brother.’ His glare was like drawing a sword through my thumping heart. Did my
workers felt the same way when I told them they can only have three days of holidays? I remembered them
clutching the train tickets they have fought for god knows how many months. Regret pounded through my
veins like corroding acid, making my insides squirmed terribly.
A hint of tears glittered on the wrinkled corner of my brother’s eyes. I hugged my brother the tightest
I could and buried my face in his strong shoulders, hoping he could feel the indescribable emotions that
were surging up inside me like raging currents of water rushing along a river.
