Fiction: Group 4
The silence continued for a while as Mei-Ling fidgeted with the ends of her hair. I lit it up and brought it
to my mouth.
Young me blew smoke into the air and it cascaded upwards towards the sky. I sighed, and she mimicked.
James came over with my sister and all of them started talking about America. I stood on the outside, still
smoking and remaining furtive until James came over and grinned at me.
“So, looking forward to West Coast?”
I blinked and tried to think of a way not to embarrass myself with my limited English.
“Uh…yes, yes. Looking so forward to it. It is going to very exciting.”
I laughed at young me. I never forgot how hard it was for me to reach the level where I would no longer
struggle with speaking English. It wasn’t easy at first, but living in America for more than twenty years has
done me justice.
Siu-Yuet smirked and said in Cantonese, “Guess who’s now regretting the times spent sleeping in English
class.”
“Shut up.”
The others laughed along with her, and I noticed blush coming up to my cheeks.
“You guys will get used to it, no worries,” said my sister as she looked at me and Mei-Ling with a smile of
reassurance, “You’ll be back by no time.”
Wrong,
I thought.
I started to walk away from the group and myself. I found myself staring at the sea again. Soon, all of it will
be gone and the construction of Whampoa will be completed. I never got to see it, and that time was the
last time I looked at the remaining bits of Hung Hom Bay.
I looked up and found that everyone was gone.
The air changed again, and I realised that I was no longer standing on the docks of Hung Hom, but the
sandy beaches of West Coast in California instead.
Palm trees, sunglasses and umbrellas. The foreign sun beat down on my back and children shouted as they
played along the .It was the first time I went to a proper beach with university friends. I saw myself sitting
under a parasol with a few cans of beer on my side as I buried my head in
English as a Second Language
vol.3.
My friends were all out on the beach and playing, but I was never the social type, I suppose. I looked
around and spotted Mei-Ling standing and playing in the water with her new friends. Anna and Rachel, if I
had remembered correctly. I marvelled at the sight of the beach, but it was only a background to her.
She
never really changed in her looks,
I thought.
I edged closer to get closer to her, only to find that my feet were getting wet.
The closer I wanted to get to her, water began to wash over my body, covering my knees and eventually
my chest. Mei-Ling screamed in glee as Anna flung a spray of water, then she dived into the sea with her
hair flowing behind her.
