Fiction: Group 4
We walked through winding streets. A thought hit me. Back home, I could read the words written, but
couldn’t speak with anyone. Here, I could talk, but not read. Funny that.
I sit on my bed, looking out of the window. I share the room with my brother, but he sleeps soundly. The
skyline is darker now – it must be two or three in the morning, and I’ve been awake the whole time. After a
verbal walloping from my parents, I went upstairs while the rest of my family watched a sit-com. The
blaring laughter sounded like blasphemy on our last night in Hong Kong. I was saying goodbye to my
home, mouthing the word over and over, gazing off at the Island as one light, then another, shuts off;
thinning out the glow.
Looking up, I find stars, a rarity. I sit, mapping out letters and pictures. I stay deadly still for a long time.
The air was sickly sweet. Normally, the sound of lapping waves brings the briny smell of ocean, but here,
there was nothing. The river was the wrong shade of green – too brown and not blue enough. The sun was
setting, and the river lit up. It didn’t sparkle like the sea. The Pearl River was docile. It meandered, twisting
and turning, letting the land carve its path.
The sea has shaped continents, beaten rocks into sand and forced the world to its knees. It glitters in
summer, softens in spring, darkens in autumn and by winter it is deadly. A mix of predictable and
dangerous. That was the best thing about the sea.
‘Sash?’ My brother stirs, bleary-eyed with sleep. ‘Shush, go back to bed. It’s only a dream,’ I say, like I do
so many nights. He won’t remember it tomorrow. ‘No, it’s not,’ he says to me, eyes already closing. ‘We’re
really moving, you know.’ He is asleep.
The sun is rising, the sea a glittering gold I’ve never seen before. And this is my send off. This is my home
telling me goodbye.
