Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020 | Page 49
Hong Kong Young Writers Awards 2020
Dream, If You Can
Singapore International School (Hong Kong), Cheng, Yi Shien – 14
Dreamer.
He wakes, startled, the single word hanging on his lips.
Staring at the dark ceiling closing in on him, he doesn’t understand. For a moment, he
forgets where he is. Who he is.
Then the bed senses his stirring and rises, the blinds unfolding streams of sunlight by the
dawn. So this is how the day begins. His mind drifts as he presses his fingers to the window,
and it seems as if the word is painted over the dreamy bronze-blue sky, but the thought is
soon dismissed. Everyone was dreaming nowadays. It was a world of opportunity, after all,
living here in the Greater Bay Area, a golden region spanning Southern China, Macau and
Hong Kong. The cutting edge technology and new lifestyle, the convenient communications
and innovative population, the healthy eco-friendly hub striving for progress… and so far as
the eye could see, a Bay that transformed the land and marked distinct civilization.
It is an opportunity for him too, today. The opportunity to explore this city, Shenzhen,
and make the most out of a day.
He hovers down the street in a transporter, gliding on the circular plate, processing
everything through his eye lens. There are plenty of new strangers everywhere, their little
IDs hovering above their heads like tiny thumbtacks. Of course, the lens shows more, with
flashy advertisements popping up as he walks past stores, displaying the weather - it was a dry
region since Climate Change made its impact.
Everything’s personalised now. Projectable outfits that reflected your mood, AR worlds
where people could create a fantasy of their imagination, robots that served to your every
command and were sleeping subjects to the numbing world around them. Dare to dream!
That was the slogan of the New Future.
He roams these streets alone in the ocean of people, feeling empty. You’re afraid, he
whispers to no one in particular. You’re afraid of interactions and relationships and people.
You don’t understand.
But he is a wanderer, and he must go on.
He happens by an eco-friendly sharing park, catching two children over a conversation.
They wore the look of the advanced students - ever since personalized education took ahold
of trends, students studied at their own capabilities and pace, specialized in their interests -
with the familiar white hoodie and e-badge.
“Life maintenance here is expensive, alright. But it’s a beautiful place, I’ll give you that.”
“Stressful. With innovation, competition is intense! Weekends, weekdays, holidays, you
know we have to work. It’s worth it, though.”
“It’s progress. And it comes at a price. Our effort… it’ll pay off, won’t it?”
Children, he thinks, intellectuals but children in the mind, children at heart. They don’t
know. Progress? It walks ahead, proud in its march, leaving all in the dust of its dreams. And
all these people, they’re trying to catch the moments but they never have the time for life,
trying to find some fulfillment. Perhaps humans are all lonely.
“Mei mei, when I was your age…” Yet he still sees some old folk stories, the legendary
stories of the first innovators who founded the Greater Bay… “Ba! Back then when they still
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