Fiction: Group 3
Without exception, Huang Fu would return. I would jump in the water to join him and we would play
together. I also began to steal milk from home to feed him. After school, I would take the subway back
home and since my parents only returned an hour after I did, I would grab a small carton of milk and pour it
in a thermos to give to Huang Fu in the evening. My parents eventually noticed that the milk was
mysteriously disappearing but I gave no comment to this statement.
One day Huang Fu didn’t return. He didn’t swim up to me, giddily sloshing in the water, waiting for his
milk and play. I couldn’t see him jumping with the other dolphins in the horizon during the alluring sunset.
This wasn’t just a one time coincidence. It kept on going like this for days on end. I began to grow
immensely worried.
Finally, the day that I got to go out onto the river came. I had gotten a job from my uncle (he worked in
the boats that cleared floating trash from the water). I was excited because I could actually go out and see
everything from the river and out, not looking in. Although the strikingly thick pollution clouds hung
above our heads angrily, it was a sunny day nonetheless. The sun shone brightly against the surface of the
murky water.
I leaned lazily along the side of the skimmer boat as we moved further toward the middle of the river. Then
I saw something that struck me in the heart. A grey shape floating just below the surface. I screamed out to
my uncle to steer that way, gathering strength as to get myself ready to fight the sadness that would sweep
over me, not knowing that there was no way to prepare myself for an event like this one. As we got closer, I
got a clearer vision of what was under, and I didn’t like what I saw. My lips pressed into a tight line, my
eyes grew wide as softballs, my breath hitched. The skimmer boat slowly came to a halt, my uncle joining
me by the side of the boat. His reaction wasn’t pretty. He screeched for the other men onboard to haul the
creature in. Doing as told, they brought it in. Grey little animal with fins and a tail, kind eyes that had lost
their vividness and sense of life.
“Huang Fu!”
I thrust my body toward the animal, slinging my arms around my dear friend. I felt stupid to react this way
but I had taken care of the youngling like a younger brother, a child. Seeing that Huang Fu had slipped
away from here without saying his goodbyes to everything broke my heart. He had left at such a young age,
he hadn’t lived. Salty, hot droplets ran down my pale face. My arms and legs shook. My breathing became
ragged. He was gone and I couldn’t do anything about it.
“He passed away due to contaminated milk that his mother had been feeding him. The milk was
contaminated because of the pollution in the water. I’m sorry Ming Yun.”
I made it my life mission to make sure that the species wouldn’t disappear from the Pearl River. I made it
my duty to raise awareness on their behalf.
My parents disapproved my habit, saying that it wouldn’t lead me anywhere good. Who knew that they
could’ve been so wrong?
