Fiction: Group 4
whirring of the machine. Silence. There were twelve of them in one room but no talking was allowed. No
more than one toilet break was allowed per shift. No daydreaming. No fun. She felt like she was drowning
under water, there was no space in her lungs and she couldn’t breathe no matter how hard she tried to.
Squished. Helpless.
Every day was the same. Breakfast. Shift 1. Lunch. Shift 2. Dinner. Overtime. Nighttime activities. It was a
never-ending cycle, a Mobius strip of her life in Guangzhou.
I’m losing hope. The Pearl River. I must see it.
* * *
She felt richer than she had ever been before. New clothes. New food. New friends. It seemed as if she had
more choices in her life yet at the same time, a gnawing gut instinct told her that she didn’t. She was now
sucked into a void of Guangzhou unable to escape, stripped of her decision to choose, in a lifestyle that was
both monotonous and dreary. She had no power over what she did during the day and she had already lost
the will to speak out. It all made no difference.
I thought leaving the village would free me from the shackles of tradition, but am I truly free, or have I just
entered into yet another prison?
She thought of all those hours she spent repeating the same action aimlessly with no purpose in mind, the
blur of days into months into years, all identical and she started to recognise her own naivety that day on the
banyan tree.
Appearance is not always reality. I’ve been a fool.
* * *
“
Xiaojie, Xiaojie?”
The voice shattered her recollections in an instance.
She walked away. Dazed.
Not knowing why, she started to run, a wild look in her eyes. She ran continuously, never stopping until
she reached the Pearl River, breathless. She stared vacantly at the glittering blue surface, seemingly serene
and tranquil yet, upon closer scrutiny, she started to notice the hidden layers of murky brown created by the
filth of human waste for the first time, since she arrived.
What am I doing?
She looked up at what used to be light hues of sapphire, pink and gold that blended into the canvas of the
azure sky; but now, she could only see a shadow smothered by Deng’s Open Door Policies, suffocated with
industries, engrossed with tall blinding lights that hung and hanged the people’s dreams and hopes.
My dreams and hopes. Are they hung, or hanged?
