Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4567 | Page 354

For All Time
Chinese International School, Wang, Catherine – 17
M
ei - if that was her real name - disappeared in late October, when the nets had been hung over
the courtyard, dark weeds splayed across the surface of a lake.
First to notice Mei’s absence was the Shizhang, who had just finished intoning the morning
announcements in the thin, nasal voice that had earned him the nickname “old mosquito”. He licked
his lips and called into the crowd, “Has anyone seen Yue Mei?”
There were several muffled coughs, and people hesitantly glanced up from their shoes. The pause
threatened to prolong itself until a voice from the back rows shouted: “She’s probably in the
bathroom.”
“For a whole hour?” Shizhang snapped.
There were a few weak chuckles, but none of us were too concerned. Our rooms had inured us to
abrupt disappearances. On bunkbed frames as thin as playing cards, the most idealistic or the most
homesick girls would flee overnight, their vacated mattresses holding new workers by the morning.
We had all ran before, plunging into the city and its filth - the musk of car exhaust, the wails of infants,
as shrill and persistent as the howls of stray dogs, trailing from the yellow-lit cavernous apartment
blocks peering over the roads. As we spent hours peddling souvenirs or washing dishes, we would
discover that we had merely exchanged one brand of misery for another, sourer, more toxic one.
Groups of us would eventually return, disillusioned, unable to escape the factory’s powerful orbit. The
girls who left alone never returned.
What about Mei?
Mei could sing better than any of us. There was a soft, metallic ring to her voice, like coins clinking in a
pocket.
Mei was afraid to smoke. In the showers we noticed cigarette burns on the backs of her legs,
crimson bubble wrap grafted to her skin.
like
Mei liked to wear patterned skirts that stopped just above the knee. She owned a pair of round
sunglasses. Or were they square?
The truth was, despite the rumors percolating like clouds through the corridors, no-one knew enough
about Mei to grasp why she left. No-one knew that she wasn’t going to come back.
“Maybe,” Yong whispered to us, leaning conspiratorially over her meal tray, “Someone got her
stomach big.” We were sure that Yong knew about these things. She changed the color of her hair as
often as she found a new boyfriend - her hair had been dyed almost every shade of the rainbow before,
and was currently an electric blue.