Fiction: Group 4
“I had a strange dream last night.” Summer abruptly whimpers. Joy becomes silence. “I saw a woman. I
think it was Mummy.” Her father’s loving gaze transformed into a piercing glare. “Your mother is gone,”
he said in a low voice. Soft, yet threatening. The gecko leaped onto the ground and scurried away. “I’m
going to work.” Summer retreated to her wooden ‘room’ to ponder the mysteries of life on a metal frame.
It was on the last day of school that Summer got the bad news. “He was a great man,” the colleagues,
neighbours and old classmates whispered around her, “if only he didn’t work so hard.” They didn’t know
how tragic reality was: he could watch himself and his daughter starve to death or he could work until he
couldn’t move anymore just to extend her lifespan. He lived his last days in pain for her. He made the
sacrifice, for her. She wailed, just like she did the final time she heard her mother’s voice. She wailed, as if
the tears would wash away her sorrow, her problems, her fear.
Summer closed up like a clamshell on the ferry to the home of the relatives she never knew she had. “Do
you want some candy?” Auntie Yuki asked a friendly, almost childish tone. Living in Macau was no excuse
for a Hongkonger to not have a peculiar name, it seemed. “No, I’m fine, thank you.” came the reply.
“Do you want to play with your cousin Sebastian?” she persisted, once again trying to sound as
unthreatening as she could. Summer responded with silence, almost as if she was considering to break out of
her self-constructed prison – but she obviously wasn’t going to. “No. Please just leave me alone.” she
eventually spat.
“Do you miss your Mummy and Daddy?” her aunt pestered in a genuinely caring tone, oblivious to the fact
that Summer evidently did not want to be talked to.
“My mother is gone and my father is dead,” she yelled aggressively, building a castle of anger around her to
disguise her teardrops. “Wow, isn’t she a lioness.” Sebastian joked. Uncle Ronald stabbed him on the
shoulder with his finger and glared at him warningly.
“We know, and we’re just here to help, honey.” Auntie Yuki smiled brightly, sincerely and innocently, as if
the entire world was built out of rainbows.
Summer wouldn’t budge from her cage of refusal, perhaps she was too used to living in confined spaces.
To Summer, her aunt’s cave of 500 square feet was more like a palace. “I’m sorry if there isn’t much
space…” Summer took her words as a joke. She couldn’t imagine how anyone would find this mansion
small. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that most people hadn’t been living in a wooden box for over
twelve years. She was in awe at the clean, cool marble beneath her feet, the crystal-clear, un-pixelated
movement on the high-definition television screen, the magnificent, prismatic chandelier that hung
gracefully above her head, not just a bare flickering light-bulb that dangled dangerously from the ceiling!
“
Wah!
” Summer finally managed. “Amazing! How many jobs do you have to work to live in a place like
this?” Auntie Yuki blinked. She’d never been asked a question like that before. “Well, you see, our jobs are
a bit different, and my pay… well… we get paid quite a lot more than…” she lowered her voice, “all your
dad’s jobs added together…” Summer stood with the same expression of disbelief on her face. “
Wah,
” she
exclaimed again.
The next day Auntie Yuki and her husband took Summer and her cousin out for a stroll down
Rua do
Cunha
to fetch up some traditional snacks. “People give out so many free samples here,” Sebastian mumbled
through a mouthful of almond cake and phoenix egg roll, “you won’t even need to have dinner tonight.”
But Summer clearly didn’t feel like joking around – all the colour had been drained from her skin, and her
lifeless shambling made it seem as if her soul had left her body. “Auntie Yuki, Uncle Ronald…” she began,
looking up to the clear, blue sky. It was quite rare that the clouds were distinguishable from the grey puffs of
pollution above the
Zhu Saam Gok
region – the Pearl River Delta. “What is it, sweetie?” replied the aunt,
taking her hand. “Actually, you know what, never mind.” the little girl put on her best smile, though
sorrow still shone through her eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right, my sunshine?” asked Uncle Ronald. And
she finally snapped. “Only my father can call me that. I am his morning sun, not yours!” she barked like a
mad dog, storming away towards the unknown.
“Hey there, Sunny. What’ya looking at?” Summer turned around to find she was face to face with her
cheeky teenage cousin. “Go away, Sebastian” she snapped through gritted teeth. “Oh alright, I’ll just leave
you here and you won’t be able to find your way home, because to you, this is the middle of nowhere,
