Fiction: Group 4
Salt
Good Hope School, Filleul, Sarah - 15, Fiction: Group 4
ould you like a drink, sir?”
A woman’s face shifted into vision as I slowly opened my eyes and sat up groggily in my
seat. All around me were the ambience of soft chatter and dim lights. A short chime sounded from above me
as the seat belt signal lit up, and that was when I realized that I was actually on a flight flying from JFK back
to Hong Kong. While having been sleeping in such an awkward position, my legs felt numb and the woman
caught my attention again.
The woman, who happened to be an air stewardess, glanced at me with concern as she steadied her grip on
her cart while the plane changed directions. I quickly ordered a diet coke and sipped as the stewardess went
off. Then, I plugged in my headphones to listen to some old jazz on the inflight radio. Wearing a suit on a
13-hour plane ride was definitely the worst idea I’ve ever made. But business is business, right? I took off
my jacket and loosened my tie in distaste. About an hour later, I slowly drifted off to sleep in the low light
and some slow blues again.
Drink long forgotten, I suddenly smelled something much more familiar than the dry, scratchy air of the
cabin. It was rather pleasing, I thought, but what could it be? Could it actually be-
I blinked away the fog in my eyes as I happened to find myself standing in a small room with a low ceiling.
Boxes crowded inside of the microscopic room, and the dusty wooden floor was littered with bright plastic
slippers and a child’s homework book. The room was almost smaller than the bathroom in my house, and a
creaky bunk bed was sided against the cramped space. The morning sun poured into the room through a
peephole of a window beside the bed. I could see dust motes floating around me, and I resisted the urge to
sneeze. The room looked surprisingly familiar.
“Ah-Shing!”
Wait, who’s calling me?
“Where are you?”
A child’s voice pierced through the silence as the door slammed open and its hinges screamed. A girl was
standing in front of me, and she didn’t seem to notice my presence as she bounded forward and climbed up
the creaking bed frame. As she threw off the sheets on the top bunk, and a sudden realisation came into my
mind.
The girl was my elder sister Siu-Yuet, who happened to age about 40 years backward. I caught a glimpse of
a wrinkled wall calendar in the corner and saw that today was 14th of July 1977. I gaped in awe as the girl
sighed in frustration and skipped through the doorway again. Apparently, she hadn't found what she was
looking for. A doll, perhaps.
Am I back in that shabby place in Hung Hom again?
Trapped with curiosity, I tread carefully around the room just to find that I was see-through when my foot
went through a tin box on the floor. Squeezing through the narrow hallway, the living room came into
view, and I followed Siu-Yuet out of the house without sparing a glance at the living room.
“W
