Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 392

Land Perfect
Harrow International School Beijing, Li, Mufei - 12
Imagine a limitless land far out in the South China sea, off the south coast of Macau. On some days, you can
hardly see where the sea ends and the land begins, everything merged in a grey mist of sea spray and windblown
sand.
This is where I live now.
There is nothing here, but imagination.
There is nothing to say, but what I actually mean is of course, nothing but land. More land than Switzerland,
more people than Canada. I will admit that this is a lot but, to me this is nothing. My utopian world is
completely reversed than, this “Land Perfect”.
We lived at the boundary of this ‘Perfect’ land, neighbouring the sea. Our everyday life, depends on tides, and
sea states, storms. In the city, I never had thought of these things.
But here, a high tide combined with sudden storm surges are a threat, so dangerous that people can die. People
do die. I think about these things a lot, tides and currents and death by drowning. My worst fear.
The sea is charming but murderous. My utopian world has no sea, it would be a tropical place like the Amazons.
Full of weird animals and creatures. Sometimes I hate the sea, sometimes I wished that they never existed,
sometimes I felt I am going to drown one day.
On an early morning, for once it wasn’t raining. This was one rare day. As I stare up into the peaceful blue sky, I
think of the people living up there, having no problems at all, no seas and oceans. The vast sky, seemingly empty,
was filled with simply blank clouds. Too simple, too blank, but they were in peculiar shapes. I felt as if, the sky
was warning me about something.
Srolling across the beach was my daily routine, the tide had left the usual ‘line of stuff’- seaweed, plastic rubbish,
shells and pebbles, and some bits of fishing net. There was something, something I haven’t seen here. Footprints,
a long trail of footprints along the line of stuff. I stopped walking. Definitely sure those footprints were not mine,
I wore trainers. The footprints were smaller, narrower and they were bare…
I examined the beach, searching for the owner of the footprints. There was no one but me, so I decided to
follow the foot steps, I ran. It felt amazing, running on miles of silver-white sand, and viewing the glittering sea.
At last, the footprints ended in front of a dark, strange hole. My heart told me this wasn’t a great idea to jump
into it, but my actions were out of control. I jumped.
The air colliding onto my face was painful. Also, I felt the weightlessness which was certainly not pleasant. All of
a sudden, I heard a familiar voice from deep down. Could it be? My sister? Soon the falling ended, it was
something I wasn’t expecting at the bottom of this deep hole. Water, sea water at a level that will definitely kill
you. My worst fear, but is this true? The coldness froze my arms and legs, I couldn’t move but drown in the
bitter sea water. I felt everything. Longing for the last breath, I used all my strength to push myself up to the
surface, but it was hard since there was no light in the hole. It did not work.
Darkness swallowed my vision. A gasp of air, I woke up. Where am I? Home, in the cities? I realized that this
was just a dream. Still I was worried about my sister, was it her? I ran to hear room and quietly opened her door.
My worrying was released.
Back to reality, this land that I lived in was just a dream, only my imagination.