Fiction: Group 4
New Tales of the Pearl River Delta
Island School, Ngan, Dylan - 14, Fiction: Group 4
h, just rub your bottom on my head. It’s fine, old man. Oh and just go and step on my seat as
well. Brilliant. I hate planes and I hate people.
“Excuse me sir, I sit here.”
Great. Middle seat, just when I thought I could get away with it. I smile and move. How am I ever going to
get to the toilet without touching another person? And which armrest is mine? People who design planes
thought: three seats, three people, so, four armrests. That seems logical. And no entertainment, how am I
ever going to survive without a distraction from the horrible people sitting next to me?
Teach me how to put on a seatbelt, show me the nearest exits even if I could just see them with my own
eyes, read the leaflet about the emergency procedures that hasn’t been read for ten years and covered in dust,
with endless instructions. Yes, tell me the weather, tell me the temperature. Please. Just. Take. Off.
I think I’m being stabbed in the ears. Chew. Chew. I don’t think mastication helps. I spit the gum into a
piece of tissue. They should have a pressure torture chamber for criminals.
“The seatbelt signal has been turned off, food and beverages will be served shortly.”
I need the toilet. I can hold it no longer.
“Sorry sir, can you move to the side? I need the toilet. Sir?”
He’s asleep. And so is the man to the left. I am not going to touch them. No way is my skin coming into
contact with that. I take the dust-covered leaflet and I poke him in the ear.
“What? Hm. Ah?”
“Sorry, um, can I please get out so I can go to the toilet.”
“Huh?”
“Toilet.”
He moves his legs to the left. Am I supposed to shuffle through that gap? That space is for ants, not enough
for legs and definitely not enough for me. Move, you lazy animal. How did we ever get this far as a species?
Fine. Shuffle, turn, shuffle and I squeeze out. Before I even reach the toilet, I can imagine the way back.
“The local time and weather is 9:00 am and sunny.”
Local time? Of course it’s the local time, you think I wanted the time of South Africa? Why say more words
than you need to? I’m just glad that we are here.
The last destination, the final place to be in the Pearl River Delta and I am done. Shenzhen. Pearl River
Delta, what a lovely name to describe some of the worst places I have been to. It is too hot, too noisy, too
lousy and miserable. Who would want to come here? People audibly crackle in the heat as they walk past
you. Why would you even need to cook in a place like this? Just put a piece of meat on the side of the road
and watch as it bursts into flames.
O
