Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 398

The New Tales of Old Shanghai
St Paul's Convent School, Kan, Karina Choi Tung - 14
“M
ay God let me go travel around the world and allow me to earn a lot of money and buy a lot luxury
things and so that I won’t need to be forced by mom and the school to donate money to the poor
anymore. They are none of my business and I want use my precious money to buy things I want. Through
Christ our Lord, Amen” Drowsily, I combed my hair and left it on the window pane and climbed onto my bed and went to sleep
“MOM!!!Where is my comb??” “I put it on the window pane last night!!” I go and check my window pane once more. But
what I see is a paintbrush with glitters on it and I scream to my sister, Azura “I am 200% sure that you have stolen my comb and
replace it with your old paintbrush which you uses it when you are still a toddle. See? It is stick with glitter on! Have you done it,
HUH?” “No, I did not” replied Azura calmly while chewing her bread with one eye closed. I ran back upstairs and checked the
window pane once more, thinking that : last night is was still a comb itself and now became a paintbrush with glitters on, no it
won’t be ,that’s crazy. And I was wrong. When I arrive at my bedroom’s window paned, there is note lying beside that paintbrush.
It writes that….
To the little girl who prayed to me last night:
This was your long awaited wish. When you get to the place you want to go, the time in your world will be
stopped until you have complete what you should complete. And you will gain more than what you got and what you want
through this place. By the way don’t blame your sister. It is the meteor who had done it. GOOD LUCK.
As soon as I have finished reading it, the note disappear and became gold dust flying around. Then, it flew out of the window
and became 7 baby birds in different colors. Whoa! I was thinking on how to use this paintbrush instead of thinking what I have
to complete. After a few minutes that I was lost in thought. I think of places that I want to travel in China. Beijing? Xi’an? Guilin?
Shanghai? Wait … Shanghai is my hometown! Since I haven’t gone back there in a while, why don’t I give it a go?
So without
any hesitation, I just wrote the world SHANGHAI on the wall and suddenly I was in darkness….
I think I must have been sleeping for hours in that darkness. I was woken up by a loud boom, a sound I have never
heard of before. Wait… what is that? Why do I see a pool of blood in front of me? Why are there loud booms? HELP why is
there an arm in front of me? Where am I? Why I am in ragged clothes? In this messy and horrible situation, I realized that I am
in the middle of a war alone. My arms are severely injured. Some people were helping out each other. I had a moment of
impulsiveness and wanted to help them as much as possible to save the injured. But on the other hand I saw a pile of dead bodies
piling up in which I think is horrible and creepy so at last I chose not to help and head to find water to clean the blood and
some herbs to treat myself. And I think that it is very disgusting when I see their injured places are badly mutilated.
On my way to find water, an old woman came to me saying that she is blind and needed help to find food as she
haven’t eaten for 2 days as she wanders in the forest. I immediately searched all over my pockets hoping, I can find some food for
her to eat. I had a half melted chocolate in my pant pockets. I hesitated before giving out my only chocolate to the old granny
but because I felt sorry for that old granny so I gave it to her. While the granny was eating the chocolate, I asked her why was
there a war happening and what year it was. She looked at me in shock and said to me “oh boy, shanghai is in a civil war, this war
has been ongoing for 3 days. Today is 15 th May, 1949! Are you too scared until you lost your memories?” The only response I was
giving was “Ha, Ha ha…. Oh really?”