Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 442

The car travelled swiftly along the highway, constantly shifting the scenery along the road backwards. However,
after the car ran freely for a few minutes, trucks and other vehicles started to cover the space ahead of the car.
The car gradually decelerated until it came to a complete stop. Harrison suddenly found himself inside a
seemingly hopeless traffic congestion, which might tear apart his schedules. As the car progressed forward as slow
as the slowest of all snails, his anxiety rose like an ever-inflating balloon.
After 15 minutes of hardly any progression along the jammed road, the vehicles surrounding him started to
escape forward, and his car was finally set free once again. This didn’t cover the truth that he was severely lagged
behind his schedule though, and he was already late for the meeting.
Half an hour after the meeting was planned to start, Harrison reached his bank’s office in Guangzhou. Seeing the
‘out of service’ sign guarding the lift, he raced up six flights of stairs and entered the meeting room. Still out of
breath, he settled on a seat, and listened to the director’s report of the branch’s condition, which was followed by
a continuous conversation among the attendees of the conference, in which he contributed moderately and asked
several questions. Afterwards, several journalists entered the room. They made many enquiries about the state of
the bank. ‘When do you think this bank will fail?’ One asked.
The director hesitated for a moment, and replied, ‘I am pretty confident of our bank’s future. We still have many
ways to save ourselves.’ It was obvious though, that that reply was intended to prevent panic among the public,
as the options to rescue the bank was extremely limited.
‘May you explain those ways, please?’ The next journalist asked.
This went on for a quarter hour. Just before Harrison was ready to leave, he was notified to go to Hong Kong
and discuss with the Global Bank, with a minimum of three hours remaining before the bank would be forced to
close.
Harrison headed to the Express Rail station and travelled along the tracks back to Hong Kong. When he was
passing through customs at Hong Kong, the immigration clearance system somehow malfunctioned. He sought
assistance from a staff member, who solved the problem as quickly as she could, but it was still 5 minutes gone.
On the taxi heading to the office where he would meet the Global Bank’s chief executive, he looked at a branch
of his bank that resembled scenes meant to only appear in disaster or war films. Crowds, packed together like
sardines, were forcing their way towards the ATMs and swarming around the service counters. Some even
pushed other clients away from the counters. So many people were impatient for their money in their accounts
that organised queues ceased to exist. The staff seemed to be bombarded with a thousand questions every
second.
Soon, he arrived at the office building. Knowing that less than a single hour was left for rescuing the bank, he
sprinted into the lift. He pressed the button ‘13’ and stared at the number indicating the floor the lift reached.
Suddenly, with an abrupt bump, the lift became stagnant at the twelfth floor, trapping Harrison inside.
Harrison used all ways he could think of to communicate with the outside world, including texting, calling and
using the answering service inserted into the lift, while pressing every single button on the lift. Then, he waited
in the lift for response. As time ticked away, so did his patience.
After 20 minutes, the door opened at the thirteenth floor. Harrison stepped out of the lift, only to see no one in
the meeting room. He thought: what are you doing, Global Bank?
Quite a period of time later, the lift door bounced open again with Maria the chief executive of Global Bank
standing inside. ‘Sorry, but I was busy in…’ she said.
‘No time to apologise,’ Harrison answered firmly.
‘My name is Maria Tam. I…’
‘Maria, let’s move into the intended topic,’ Harrison interrupted. ‘Do you have any suggestions for rescuing our
bank? I think your bank definitely has adequate money and assets to purchase our shares.’
‘I’ll have a check,’ Maria replied.