Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 282

The Root of the Vine
Munsang College, Siu, Yiu - 16
It was 3:00 a.m. The sky was pitch dark. All sounds had been smothered and smudged before being nulled
to nothingness. Not even the howls of the wind, the hoots of the owls or the rustles of the lonely trees in
the freezing cold were heard. It was a long night.
‘Agh!’ A frustrated gentleman broke the silence. Weak rays of light from the lamp on his working table
made him the protagonist in the dark. He placed his hand on the cheek and walked back and forth, just as
an anxious child waiting for the release of his term test results. Then, he stopped walking and stared at the
piles of documents on the table for a long while. He sat down on the fluffy upholstery and opened the file
on top of the others. He tore the very first page of the thick pile into shattered pieces and threw them into
the bin with anger. He kicked over the bin and stood at the exact point with his eyes closed. Everything
seemed to have been frozen. It was like a freeze-frame in a mime. Then, he turned away from the
mountains of files and went to bed.
The name tag on the table marked ‘Mr Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China’. It
was 4:30 a.m.
‘Hey, wake up! We gotta go now. I mean now and we shan’t be late. For no good reason shall we be late
and you know we will be in trouble if you stay in your bed. So now, for the one last time that I’m telling
you, get up. Shake a leg!’ A man in his mid-40s with a long, black cloak commanded, trying to wake the
young gentleman who had been weaned on his warm and cosy bed. ‘Who are you? How dare you speak so
rudely to me?’ He stared at the man with a puzzled and annoyed look.’ ‘I am General Zheng He. I don’t
know who you are and I don’t really care but since you are on my fleet, I am quite sure that you are one of
my Junior Generals. So now, please get up because we are arriving at our destination, Bangladesh, one of
our most aggressive “friends” indeed.’
‘Wait, wait a minute. Slow down. You said you are Zheng He, you mean the Zheng He from the Ming
dynasty, the famous explorer who made his way to India, Africa and Arabia!’ ‘Yes, so what? How can you
not know who I am! You are on my fleet, gentleman.’ ‘Oh Sir, I…I am…’ He stammered. ‘Okay
gentleman, again I don’t care who you are. Just start working now. We will soon debark.’ Zheng He left.
He still couldn’t believe in himself, ‘Did I travel back in time? I travelled back in time! Oh my god, when I
go back, I am going to publish essays about this. I am sure I will. I definitely will.’
Now, he knew that he travelled from the 21 st century to the Ming dynasty.
Another General came by. ‘Hey newbie, what’s your name? I haven’t seen you around before.’ ‘Erm… erm.
My name is Chun. That’s right, you can call me Chun.’ The General left with an ‘okay’ gesture. ‘Phew. I
am really good at camouflage.’
‘But wait, did General Zheng just say we were going to debark on the soil of Bangladesh? From what I
knew, Bangladesh was a poor and crowded country. Also, many conflicts and wars arose in that region these
years. Was there anything worth exploring? Oh, I really doubt that.’ He murmured these while he was
paying his visit to different chambers and parts of the fleet. Soon, they saw the land of Bangladesh.
The first thing that came into their sight was neither the welcoming indigenous tribes wearing cowrie
bracelets and beaded corsets nor the breathtaking scenery of Mother Nature — it was the ‘sea’ of tribes
holding the poor-looking handgonnes that stood along the front. They gave a ‘warm’ welcome to all the
members of the fleet. None of them dared to move. No one was talking or walking. It was like a freeze-
frame in a mime.