Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4 - 7 2018 | Page 61

Pre-emptive second-hand embarrassment pools in my stomach. I stand up and take a step towards the toilet
at the end of the hallway. As I pass by them, I attempt to ignore them as best as I can.
A rumble. The world goes off-balance. I stumble backwards, but before I can fall, someone’s shoved their
arm out behind me.
“Nothing is wrong, yes?” Grandmother’s face is crinkled up with concern. She carefully examines me up
and down for injuries. It occurs to me that I’m taller than her, so why do I feel so small? Curious gazes
prickle my neck. That middle-aged woman’s still going ‘tut, tut, tut’. My face burns.
“Fine,” I mumble, and hurry off to the bathroom without a single backwards glance.
ETA: 2 Hours
Mom’s in a bad mood. So she takes it out on me and demands that I do my homework or else. And I am
doing it. I’ve skipped to the end of Journey to the West , though, because honestly, I can’t suffer through
any more of it.
The ending’s probably the worst part of the book, and that’s saying something. The travelers finally reach
their sacred West and request to receive the texts, but they’re refused by who I think are two of the disciples
of the Buddha because they didn’t bribe them beforehand. It’s only after Xuanzang and his servants relent to
give them a precious gift they received from the Emperor that they can get what they came for. What’s that
even supposed to mean?
After all those trials and tribulations they’ve undergone, all the perils they’ve escaped or confronted? That’s
it? That’s the reception they’re met with at their supposed holy land? How great can those scriptures be if
they’re from a place like that? Makes all their toils and ideals seem really extraneous and unrewarding. Ugh .
I just don’t like this story.
Never mind, I’m free of it until I actually have to put pen to paper for the book report, so I should stop
ruminating on a glorified travelogue and start thinking about happier things. We’re almost there now!
ETA: 1 Hour
There’s been a half-hour delay since the airport over there is sorting through some issue or another, but
we’re so close to landing. I’m so, so excited!
I can’t help but look out the window every couple of seconds. I want to be there, and I want to be there
now. Despite that, the day’s lovely enough that I barely begrudge the fact that I haven’t spotted any sign of
New York just yet. Blue skies as far as the eye can see, and the clouds are all soft and puffy like cotton.
If there’s one good thing that came from wasting my time on that book, it’s the knowledge of how, even
though I’m going to have to do a full series of stretches as soon as I finally step off this plane, flying’s much
more pleasant than the prospect of battling and journeying through the country wilds at a time when air
conditioning didn’t exist.
Blue skies, white clouds, the gentle brush of air running through my hair. If I pretend hard enough, I could
almost imagine myself as a bird, an eagle perhaps, beating my powerful wings and soaring with impossible
grace, an infinite stretch of space unfolding wide below me, journeying towards the land of my dreams.
Almost there.