Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4567 | Page 144

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. He didn’t answer, but started to walk the other way, gesturing that I should follow.
‘Is something troubling you?’ I asked, bewildered. But still, I was met with silence.
As we approached the old bridge, I asked again, ‘Chang, is something wrong? I can’t help if you don’t talk to
me.’
He paused his steps, nearly causing me to crash into him. Turning around, he spoke only two words.
‘I’m leaving,’ he said, his eyes frantic. ‘What?’I whispered, ‘But why? I thought you liked Shanghai – ’ I was cut
off as he shook his head, with head hung low almost as if he was ashamed of something. He murmured, ‘I’m
joining the army.’
He left a few days later, and those brown eyes never looked the same.
Shanghai November 1937
We were battling with our enemy under a moonless sky.
Women cradled their child close, hushing their frightened cries that pierced through the night. I shivered in the
corner of our living room. With all the men at war defending our nation, my mother, my sister and I were the
only ones left. Foreign shadows loomed through the thin curtains, like wolves prowling through the night. I
dared not look outside the window. I dared not breathe so loud. For outside the city walls was the theatre of
death and the phantom was there. For three months and eleven days, I heard only whispers of what happened
outside the walls. They said the earth was sodden with ichor and they said the battlefield was annotated with
bowels, the petrifying stench of death seems not far.
One November night, despite the chaos around us, it was quiet. I peeled away a small corner of the curtains to
let a ray of moonlight in. The light glazed through our room, landing on the spoiled vase of bauhinias. Chang, I
thought as my heart sank. I wonder if he was still out there. I wonder if he was safe.
Gazing up into the unnerving black sky, even the clouds felt morose. I closed my eyes, wishing upon the
brightest star up high in the heavens. Please bring him back, I whispered to the moon. As the clouds cleared
upon the shadow of the hills, another blizzard of bullets and spears were yet to dawn.
A year after the surrender of the enemy
In a clatter of plates and cutlery, my mother placed in front of me my breakfast. ‘
‘Do eat up, Cho.’said Mama, ‘We are going to the market this morning.Your sister needs a new dress.’
The perpetual skies of summer were buckled with clouds, the trees rigged with their own blooming seeds as I
walked along the market beside my mother. Suddenly, there was a shout and a cry from afar. ‘They’re back!
They’re back,’ shouted a page boy as he ran past me.
‘Who are back?’I shouted back, tiptoeing in hopes of seeing through the crowd.
‘The army!’ yelled the page boy, waving today’s papers, ‘Didn’t you read the news? Here, take one.’ With that,
he disappeared into the crowd.