Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 256

I breathed deeply and found myself a little bit relieved, realizing that I was no longer holding the
object that had led to this perversely colorful orchestra of the human anatomy.
On the side of the street of the chaos there was a young mother who sat lying on the ground. Her
eyes were weeping readily as she clutched onto a small, limp body. It was apparent from her pained sobbing
that it was the body of her child; her toddler son, as I was later told, who had been very tragically caught in
the crowd, and trampled over by several middle-aged men.
I approached her, and her weak, reddened eyes stared up at me helplessly, whimpering. But behind
her glossy wet eyes, I could see a growing curiosity that couldn't be contained.
I handed her a bag of gold, and all the heartache in her eyes disappeared with a disbelieving blink,
fading into an empty nothingness. Her red eyes widened, and as if she was in a trance she ceased all sobbing
and wailing. She placed down the limp, small body and in its place, she cradled my bag of gold.
For a moment, I couldn't hear the sounds of fighting in the background, and my head spun slightly
in a dizzying blur.
She was looking down, but I could still see her face.
She couldn’t help but smile.
“Gold is the answer to life,” Commander Zhou said back on the boat. He had just woken up and
learned about our visit to the village. “It’s the answer to all life’s problems.” He took a sip of his alcoholic
drink. “How many dead this time?” he asked as he wiped his lips.
“Reports said around twenty peasants,” I replied. “From our side, we lost two. There were just too
many. And we still couldn’t bring ourselves to kill unarmed peasants.”
“Hm,” Zhou muttered. “Better than the last village, at least.”
I nodded slowly in agreement. “Yes. It’s better than the last village.”
Zhou sighed, flourishing the damp air of the cabin with the smell of stale alcohol. He glanced at
me. “We have to stop tossing the gold like that, and just hand it out like civilized men. Why don’t we ever
do that?”
He continued to look at me searchingly, looking for an answer.
I gave none.
After a while, he left the cabin, and I was left alone in the room.
Though I gave no answer to his question, I gave thought to it in the safe confines of my head. I
supposed there were many different reasons why I always tossed the gold like that. I supposed there was a
certain, forbidden fascination to it, a certain curiosity that I couldn’t help but satisfy and explore, over and
over again. There was something appealing in the raw honesty that the gold brought out from people,
something I would never see, back in the kingdom, where people dressed nicely and spoked elegantly in
wealth and jewelry.
And then, I supposed, there was a hopefulness in me that always made me toss that bag of gold into
the crowd, a side of me that hopes that people would not lose themselves, would not commit themselves to
savagery and damnation over something so ultimately… small.
On the table next to me lay the bags of gold we were given by the emperor. They were laid out in
an orderly fashion, just sitting there, ready to be delivered and gifted to the world. I took one into my hands
and examined it, feeling its cold hardness against my fingertips.
I stared out the window, gazing out into the wide, vast sea, and I found my hands holding out the
bag of gold towards it, as if I was offering some kind of sacrifice to the waters.
I closed my eyes, and I saw myself ripping the bag apart, its contents scattering out, pouring like a
golden waterfall that seemed to never end into the abyss of the deep blue sea, ridding it and its disease
forever from humanity.
I smiled.
But I knew it was impossible.
So I stood up from my chair, and clutching an answer to life in my hands, I walked out of the
room, ready to set sail to the next village.