Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 | Page 254

I looked around me, at my comrades, whose faces were, too, beaded with sweat and scrunched up
in concentration. We had all come so far, gotten over so many obstacles. Just as we were returning home,
we were met with one of the most feared pirate fleets in the world. Could this be the end of us?
Very much so.
Very much so indeed.
“Take care, mother. Your son is going now. We shall have a feast when I return!”
Those were my last words to her before I left. How childish of me, asking for a feast upon my
arrival.
“What are you fighting for?”
The question repeated in my mind, unanswered.
“I am fighting for my country.”
That’s a noble answer. I am sure more than half of my comrades will say this when asked the same
question— but no, that’s not my answer. It doesn’t feel right on my tongue.
“I am fighting for myself.”
A selfish answer, but true for many. I am selfish, a selfish son, but again— no, that’s not my answer.
“I am fighting for my wife and children.”
Some of my comrades are husbands, even fathers. This might be their answer, but not mine. I am
not married. I have no children.
“Soldiers!” Someone bellowed from the crowd, “What are you fighting for?”
It’s that question again. Why? Why that question?
“Son, what are you fighting for?”
I saw my mother’s wrinkled face, a light dimple visible on her left cheek. The corners of her eyes
creased as she smiled down at me, one hand carrying my traveling pouch, the other brushing her greying
hair behind her ear.
“My son, I believe we all have something we fight for. Could be wealth, could be love.
Remember this when you are at sea.”
I have treasured this sentence ever since I left— I thought of it when I had trouble sleeping, I
thought of it when we were closing onto land, I thought of it when I was cleaning the decks, I thought of it
when I woke up in the morning forgetting the fact that I was away from home…… and I think of it now,
minutes before my likely demise.
“Soldiers!” The same booming voice echoed through the crowd again, “Hold that thing in your
heart and fight! What are you fighting for?”
I do not know. I still do not know.
All I know is the fact that I need to get back to my mother.