Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 251

The Fugitive (4. Crime Stories – A Fugitive Fleeing Through the
Pearl River Delta)
Singapore International School, Lim, Warren - 11
Dear Tim,
I would understand if you decide not to read this. After all, I’ve been doing time since you were just
Primary One. I am sorry I wasn’t there for you when you went through school and the challenging teenage
years. And I don’t blame you for staying away either. Who wants to acknowledge the country’s greatest
fraudster (at least at the time of conviction. The shenanigans these days make my mischief look like a small
change)? I might even write a novel, if I get out, about this fall from greatness one day. But until then,
you’re the most important thing on my mind...
The police must have approached you about my jailbreak - and I would hate to get you into
trouble. With all these years behind bars, I’ve paid for my misdeeds - and some. Neither is being on the run
with the police breathing down your neck my idea of fun. I’ve been moving from town to town, city to
city, before the police gets wind of my rabbit hole. After living in the same cell for who knows how long, I
have trouble sleeping at night. I suppose I’m tired of running, of living in fear all the time. So I’ve decided
to leave this country for a faraway place.
And this is my parting letter to you.
All these time around the Pearl River Delta, evading the police, have left me thinking: this region has never
looked better! The roads are clean, wide and well paved, and tall buildings, glassy and strangely shaped,
crowd the skyline. I’ve seen them on TV in the prison canteens, but I remember thinking that it was just
propaganda. Now I can’t believe how fast things move in these cities! Cars, imported and homemade, are
everywhere (where have the once-ubiquitous two-wheelers gone?). I can even visit you in the SAR under
an hour (if only I could board the bullet trains!). The region has surely got itself in a big hurry.
I recall visiting many of these cities when I was young. I never really had the chance to tell you
this, but I grew up near the Pearl River Delta. The place used to be a sleepy bunch of fishing and small trade
towns. I remember the large river cutting through, separating us from Hong Kong (my friends and I looked
into the horizon every dusk, admiring its seemingly never-ending waves, and wondering whether we could
swim across). Now there’s a colossal metal bridge connecting both ends. The day I was travelling on it, it
was so cloudy that cars seem to stroll through the fog and disappear!
One scene remains etched in my mind: The blue, slightly greenish water crashing into the brown rocks
lining the shore. The sunlight, especially significantly at sunset, bounces off the glass-coated skyscrapers
towards all directions, illuminating the river as the flaming sun hangs above it. At night the river is once
again lit up, this time by man-made neon lights. Although it does have its faults, industrialisation really has
benefited the metropolis. Less than three decades ago it was a simple harbour. Now it’s an international
trading centre. Very soon, everywhere in the Greater Bay Area will be reachable within an hour’s ride. And
you don’t need to get there by car. High speed rails at affordable prices. How I wish we had such luxuries
when we were young. My boy, I am so envious of you! I would have given away half of what I have to be
where you are.
Thinking of all of this hurts so much. I really have messed things up. Twenty years of my life just went to
waste (they’ve turned down my application for rehabilitation. That means that, if I haven’t broken out, it
could be my entire life). Not a single minute goes by without me feeling remorseful: a young naive
salaryman who let greed get the better of his soul. I want to drum sense into him. I want to tell him that
crime doesn’t pay. I want to shake him up. But I can't. That fellow no longer exists, and this old man is all