Fiction: Group 4
“Don’t what on earth me!”
“Do we even
have
family owned things?” His eyes suddenly clear as if he just came to a ground-
breaking realization. “You have no idea, do you?”
“I have every idea—”
“I was right. You only had your mind on silly, trivial things.” He sighs. “What about bigger things?
What about things that concern the freedom—a right we are born with—of the people?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“The movements. Do you know about them?”
“What, the water and river stuff?”
“Get involved. Help the people to gain back freedom!”
I am a little taken aback. Al chants the whole thing out like a battle cry—like he genuinely believes in
them.
“But, you don’t think it’s a little…selfish? After all, they take away our river for the good of everyone
in the Pearl River delta, not just us!”
“It’s you who’s being selfish!” He says accusingly. “You are just not willing to
do something
!”
That’s it. It’s ridiculous. I am not talking to him.
Besides us, perching on a pine tree, a stupid robin chirps a few high notes.
The girl was still sneaking peeks at her brother at a ten-second interval after the sky darkens from a
glowing navy colour to now as it is—an orange so vibrant that it just screams “dawn”. Soon, she knew, the
sky would break into an unnaturally white colour.
It is doubtlessly her brother, for their hair bears a likeness—hers a shade lighter, but both shares a
resemblance with water. Flowing water. For all I know, there could be a million reasons for why she is here.
To check on him could be one of them.
He and his friends were waiting, their feet tapping on the moist ground, making ludicrous squelchy
noises she’d sure laugh at the sound of if it wasn’t for the scary air around. It unsettled her just to think
about what horrors her brother was up to, and she wasn’t a person easily unsettled.
In a blink of as eye their moment arrived. He pulled out a wooden club. She imagined herself
bludgeoning him with that.
“Wooden,” He mouthed, more to himself than anyone in particular.
She knew what he was up to before he struck the barricade with all his might. Then came a small
explosion, where sparks flew in all directions in a blinding flash of brilliant gold.
“Nice,” his friends murmured as they observe the now-visible length of barbed wire fence. “I didn’t
think there would
actually
be a weak point before, how they used every possible mean to lodge us here…”
“Prison…” Some of the words they utter were hazy.
He hit it once more and, like rain sliding off a roof, the invisible coat fell off and a opening was
formed, like a gaping mouth. A gash of white smoke puffed out from the mouth, but nobody took notice.
Something was wrong
, she thought.
They broke down the rest of the barricade, but when they realized something was up, it all did not
matter.
There was no river. All there was before their eyes was a mound of river-shaped……everything.
Like the Pearl River had somehow emptied itself of water and filled it with the contents of a dumpster
instead. Heaps of white foam layering between filthy black water; solid clumps of white and red and orange
and blue keeps the river from flowing; algae bloomed magnificently above the trash and fifth… …
A red-chested robin sits silently, eying all that was happening. They seemed to be oblivious of a
fact that even the robin knew well—that it’s long since the river actually flowed. There are no rivers
anymore. The fact that they are oblivious to that, living and eating well, well, they should be grateful for
that.
