Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 257

Future Adventures of the Greater Bay Area
Singapore International School, Meng, Yuxuan - 11
As I walked down the streets of Guangzhou, I looked up at the giant screens on the walls of
buildings. I walked past one with today’s date on it: Thursday, 18 November, 2034. I could still remember
my childhood days of 2019, back when the world was practically dying. Plastic pollution, water pollution,
air pollution, you name it, any type of pollution and we had it. Topping all of that was global warming and
humankind was left struggling to survive in this harsh world. As of now, I am a 25-year-old all alone in this
world, which is no longer as horrible to live in. Why is this so? It is all thanks to the Greater Bay Area.
Scientists had predicted that the ocean would be expected to contain one ton of plastic for every
three tons of fish by the year 2025. Luckily for humankind, that never happened. Why, though? It is all
thanks to one special person, Sharon Rogers. Rogers discovered the rare metal, planium. It is now the
strongest metal in the world, stronger than titanium, lighter and less dense than lithium, yet not as reactive,
and, using the right method, can be even more flexible than nitinol. Interestingly, when burned at just the
right temperature, planium can be used as a replacement for carbon-based fuels without giving out large
amounts of carbon dioxide as well. Soon, companies began to create bags made of planium instead of massproducing
plastic bags. Plus, due to the sturdiness of the bags made of planium, it would be too much of a
waste to throw away, so there would be no need for a person to have too many plastic bags because one
could probably last you a lifetime. With the use of plastic bags reduced, people were able to clear out plastic
bags from our waters faster and our waters became less polluted. With planium as a replacement for carbonbased
fuels, there were fewer greenhouse gases on Earth and global warming also got better. All of these
little changes together made great big changes.
Years ago, Elon Musk wanted to design a new type of Tesla. However, there was no metal on
Earth strong enough to withstand whatever technology Musk wanted to include in the new Tesla at the
time. However, after planium was discovered, Musk was finally able to design the Tesla X100. With
planium, new technology was made possible due to planium being able to hold together no matter what
environment it was put in.
As I continued walking down the streets of my hometown, I came across a new library, built quite
recently. This library was built to be environmentally-friendly, much like the majority of buildings in the
Greater Bay Area these days. This library also had tours to show tourists and citizens how the library was
built to be environmentally-friendly. This made the library a preferred spot for tourists. “I have nothing to
do at the moment, and I haven’t been here yet, so why not give it a chance and try it out?” I thought to
myself. So with that, I signed myself up for the tour.
“Hello, thank you all for taking some time to come to our library tour. My name is Jay and I will
be your tour guide for today!” Jay said with a smile. He continued, saying, “So I will be taking you all
through the Silent Corner, up to the roof, and then to our East Side today. As many of you already know,
the construction of this library began in June 2034, and it finished and opened just last month. Now, I know
most of you must be thinking, ‘Why did the construction of the library take so long?’ Indeed, the
construction of this library took longer than predicted, but that’s mostly because, during the construction of
the building, one of the construction workers did not attach a piece of the roof properly. This piece of the
roof crashed down and destroyed a good part of the library. Luckily, we were able to quickly repair the
damaged section.”
“Excuse me, but will we be able to go and see that section today?” a female tourist asked.
“We will! The section in question is the Silent Corner. Speaking of which, we’re here! Welcome
to the Silent Corner, and please remember to be silent!” Jay whispered. “As you can see, there are no
obvious signs that this place was destroyed once before.”
Looking around, I could see that Jay wasn’t lying; if he hadn’t told us that this was the section that
had been destroyed, I would never have known.