Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020 | Page 59

Hong Kong Young Writers Awards 2020
I have finally finished my work. I head home the exact same route as it’s always been and as it
always will be. I take the metro for exactly 46 minutes on the green line, by 10:00 pm I arrive
at my station. By 10:08 pm I am walking the 12 minute journey home.
She would have hated me for this, she lived each day spontaneously, my life was anything
but spontaneous. I have blocked that chapter of my life out but every so often at a late hour
when I am walking home all alone, and all the trees and roads are silent, I can’t help but think
what my life would have been like if she was still here. The roads are empty and dark, a car
passes on average once every four minutes. Each person in each of those cars has lived a life,
each of those people has experienced grief or love, they have experienced emotion just as
any other human being. Yet each second in the last thousands of years had to align perfectly
in order for them to be in that car at that exact time, all the grief and love they have felt has
got them to this exact moment driving on this street. So when I had been walking for eight
minutes and the second car that drove by me stopped right next to me, I knew that every
event in their lives and mine had aligned perfectly for us to bump into one another, because
these things are more than an accident.
When the dark grey Kia stopped right next to me I thought it quite strange. I paused and
wondered what lead this car to stop. This was unusual. I had walked this path for three years
and not once did a car ever stop. I was just about to keep walking home when a lady jumped
out of the car. She came and stood in front of me and whispered, “it’s gonna be alright”,
and as quickly as she spoke to me, she drove away. I stood there for the next two minutes in
shock. She had wavy long brown hair and eyes that looked like warm pools of honey. That
face seemed so familiar - almost too familiar. It looked so much like her, but that was my
past and whatever this encounter was, it meant nothing. I continued to walk home. I felt
uncomfortable and exposed, this was the second day in a row something happened that was
not in my routine. I had buried everything from my life four years ago but it was almost as if
all of it was coming back.
Today is Friday, it’s my birthday. We used to have a tradition each year on my birthday.
We would make a cake on the morning of my birthday and then eat it together. It was the
most simple of rituals but meant so much to me. Now it was four years later and no cake
waited for me, the only thing that awaited me in my day was work and the prospect of
making money. I went to work, it was the same as every other day. No one spoke to me.
I just stared at my computer all day, letting all the little numbers take me on a journey. Today,
just as every day, I worked late. I finished work at 9:00 pm, I took the metro for exactly 46
minutes on the green line, by 10:00 pm I arrived at my station. By 10:08 pm I was walking
the 12 minute journey home.
As I walked home on this 12 minute journey, a part of me ached. I tried so hard to bury
her, bury the memories of her but seeing the face of that woman brought back all the pain.
It all happened four years ago, she was the light of my life, she was the splash of color on my
plain canvas. We had moved into a new apartment and I’d wanted to settle down, and get a
stable job, but she wanted to travel and see the world. What started off as small arguments lead
to screaming matches. Even though we could never agree, we loved each other too much to
stay mad. One night we fought and what started off like any other night turned out to be the
fight that would forever change my life. We fought as usual but unlike all the other nights of
fighting she was really done this time, she said she needed some air, she walked out the front
door and never came back. I let her go. I looked for her everywhere, but I never found her. I
felt lost and without a purpose so I dedicated my whole life to my work. After all, that’s what
drove her away and lead her on that fateful walk.
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