Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 349

When Chen Met Xiao
Carmel School - Elsa High School, Elbaz, Elya - 12
PART I - Chen
Hello,
My name is Chen Liang and I am 40 years old.
This is the name I was given. But why do I need one when nobody ever calls me?
Sometimes, even I forget my name.
I am from Hong Kong and I have been living there all my life.
The story that I am going to tell you is not always a happy story, but there is something on it or rather someone
that changed my life from an annoying and sad one into a wonderful one.
My life was pretty sad, I hated it.
I was living alone: no wife, no children, no friends…
I had a happy life when I was a very young child, up until I was three years old. I can still remember that time, it
was one of the best periods of my life. Sadly, it stopped brutally when my parents died in a car accident. That was
on the day of my fourth birthday. How could I ever forget that date….
From then on, my life started becoming worse and worse.
I had to live with another family. They were kind enough but did not have much money to look after me. I felt
sad, like an object that you could sell…
That is how I felt but I could not confide in anyone.
The family eventually abandoned me in front of an orphanage. I was only six years old. I was still very little but
had already lived so many bad things, so much sorrow and despair that I did not care about life anymore.
There was a school in the orphanage, so I attended. I was often bullied. My fellow orphans also felt lonely and
abandoned, but for some reason they thought that I was different and never accepted me - or they wanted to
release their despair by punishing others. I cried every evening on my bed. Not only did I feel lonely, I was also
rejected and I could not understand why.
I stayed in the orphanage. They had become my home and family. Yet on my eighteenth birthday, I had to leave
that new home and find a job, to earn a living.
I chose to work in a bank, even though they offered me a very basic salary.
I remember how much I struggled every day with the little salary I earned.
I had to take a bus every morning. I hated it because everyone was sitting with a friend, while I was sitting on my
own, as always. I had never any friends. I had been lonely all my life.
I remember Wednesday the 5th of November: it was winter and the most important day of the year for my bank.
They were about to sponsor a big football team! We “just” had to convince the directors of the team to accept us
as sponsors. As I was young and I liked football, I was asked by my management to say something too. It was the
only thing that I liked.
I was so stressed, I had never been entrusted with any project so far. For the first time in my life, someone
believed that I was worth something and that I could make a difference. My boss told me that if I did something
good she would offer me a promotion.
So the morning of the 5th of November, I was there, sitting on the bus as usual.
When I arrived at the bank, I looked for the paperwork that I had prepared for the meeting. I had written so
many notes... But I searched and searched and could not find any of them.
I had forgotten my papers!
I tried desperately to remember where I had left them, but I was too stressed to be able to think clearly. I had no
choice but to go to the meeting and start talking without any notes… I did the best I could. Unfortunately, that
was not enough.
I said some very stupid things! The result was quite logical.
The football team didn’t accept us as sponsors.
So the bank dismissed me.
I was out of work, I was back to being nothing.
I ran to my bus. I just wanted to go back to my house as quickly as possible. I felt so miserable.
But by accident I bumped into someone.
It was a woman.