Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 156

I spend a day lugging people around the city. As grime accumulates in my toenails, despair builds up in my
mind
Returning home, I slump down onto the pile of rags where I sleep, trying to imagine the comforts of my
old feather-bed. I gingerly poke my bare feet—oozing with grime-filled pus. Flinching as my raw hands contact
the rags, I close my weary eyes. For once I wish I was back in my old world of comfort, however boring.
***
There’s nothing to do here, in this huge compound apart from read, eat, and take lessons. I have already
failed my classes, and I can’t even explore the house! At least my old life was eventful—I had to run rickshaws, and
do chores. The ZuJie – the once admired, colorful building — is now mundane and dull. “Come Vanya, it’s time for
the trip to NanKing!” “Mother” tries to sound excited, but I can see through the show now, just as I can see that the
ZuJie isn’t as it seems. I want to go back to the ghetto, my home.
I trudge into our car, putting my suitcase in the trunk. My “parents” get in as well, and our Ford speeds on.
I stare out the window glumly.
Abruptly, our car screeches to a halt and the driver swears angrily. We have collided with a rickshaw. The
rickshaw driver is about my age, perhaps even younger. A childish voice rings out, “Watch it!” I smile, then freeze—I
remember that voice. I burst out of my seat wildly, and stare at the boy clutching the broken rickshaw.
He stares back.
“Stanislas?”
“Vanya?”
***
On the crowded railway platform of Shanghai, China, two twins stand hand in hand, gazing into the hazy
distance. It is dawn, and they had been roused by their foster parents.
The incoming train grinds to a stop, jolting the twins back to reality. Reality, the fateful, fascinating, fickle
world around them. They are jostled into the train’s open door as the morning wind howls around them. The
rhythmic bumping of the train rocks them to sleep, and they awake to a speaker blaring over the din: “This is the
Vladivostok Station. All passengers headed for Vladivostok please get off.”
They disembark, looking furtively for a familiar brick house—their true home.
They walk on, lost, but not alone.