Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 620

“We can think about it after we get her settled into this. We really can’t let this opportunity slip
past us. It’s either that or we watch her future turn out like your bland life right now.” The words weren’t
meant to hurt him, but they stung all the same. “The good thing about this is that the culture over there is
similar to our own. She won’t feel alienated amongst foreigners as there won’t even be any. When I was
over in Guangzhou, I couldn’t find anything that they don’t already have here. The governments have been
working really well to bring all the Greater Bay Area cities together.”
After she was informed of her mother’s plans a few days later, Rina’s first reaction was turning to
Lewis, her expression lost. She wasn’t angry. Just...upset. However, he was helpless as he stood there next to
his wife, knowing he had already failed to persuade her not to go through with this.
If he thought about it like this, it was just unfair to Rina. Maybe she had heard of classmates who
would be going to study elsewhere in the future or had heard snippets of her parents discussing what to do
about her higher education, but other than that, she had been expecting to be able to stay in Hong Kong,
despite its imperfections, for almost all her life. The background planning had been there, yes, but she
couldn’t have been expected to be prepared for something like this, no matter how increasingly normal it
had become after the Greater Bay Area was established. Education had become so demanding and
competitive because now students were being compared with others who lived in the Greater Bay Area.
A few months later, Lewis found himself trudging down to the bicycle shop again, but with no
companion this time. Knowing it would be more efficient if she took Rina over to where her new school
was to be on her own, Eileen ordered Lewis to say goodbye to his daughter at the front door of their
apartment. Hoping that going cycling would somehow heal him up, Lewis left not long after his wife and
daughter, leaving the apartment empty, the air still sickeningly uncomfortable, worse than the mustiest of
buses.
The store was still there and looked just as worn, but as he got closer, he instantly realised that the
store was no more. Not a bicycle was in sight and there was nothing else there. The business seemed to have
failed to keep going. It was just a shell of a store.
Unable to will himself to walk away, he continued to stand there, wondering when it had become
clear that the fate of closing down had turned inevitable for the owners and why he hadn’t noticed all the
signs that he would lose his daughter to the pursuit of education so easily.
When he lifted his hand from his side to wipe at his tears, his fingers grazed the door handle. All he
could feel was dust. Layers and layers of it.