The Beautiful Tale of the Great Wall
Bebe Shing,
tanding in front of the grave, I bowed, with a bunch of Chrysanthemum in my hands.
mou
smi
Group 4: Fiction, Good Hope School
“
Come and wipe off the dirt on Dad’s photo, dear,” whispered Mum beside my ear.
I knelt down and scrutinize the black-and-white photo---a young man with brown hair and a
stache, smiling cheerfully and lovingly. All of a sudden, I felt a sense of closeness---as if he was
ling to me.
But his face was unfamiliar.
S
Mum had told me that he left us 15 years ago, when I was a little child who just learnt to call “Dad”. I
could not remember his face clearly, and neither could I remember how he left us.
What Mum told me is, “He left…in an accident.”
What Uncle Thomas, Dad’s brother told me is, “His death was unexpected. But bear in mind, he loves you
so much though he left you.”
But they never understand the worst feeling when you knew someone loved you so much but you didn’t
know why he left. Well, I kept this in my heart, of course.
“
Come on, let’s say goodbye to Dad, we’ll come again in three months’ time.”
I followed Mum to leave the graveyard. Before I stepped out of the gate, I stopped, “Mum, what
exactly drove Dad to his death?”
The answer I received was a complete silence.
“
Mum…”
“
Love, I guess,” she smiled, bitterly, and walked towards the exit.
I lost the courage to continue the conversation.
At that night, both of us zipped up our mouths.
At midnight, while Mum was still in her restroom, I went to Dad’s room---Mum had told me that
empty room used to be his, but she didn’t want me to go inside it. The room was vacant for years, but it
remained neat, and the light brown door is still repainted every year. I carefully opened the door, trying not to
make a single sound. In my furry slippers, I slowly walked to the desk in the middle of the room. I sat on the
wooden chair (Mum told me that it used to be Dad’s favourite furniture), imagining Dad was beside me.
Oh, how could I imagine—I couldn’t even recall a scene of Dad sitting beside me. I’ve always thought,
if Dad had not left me so early, I could have retained many sweet memories of us. However, I just had a very
indistinctive memory of him.
While I was recalling Dad’s face on the yellowish black-and-white photo today, I spotted a dusty box
under the desk. This box was just very different from the other items in the room---it wasn’t clean at all, and
seemed that no one had touched it for years. What was inside the box? The strong curiosity inside my heart
overrode my fear of being discovered in this room by Mum. I pulled it out, examining the words that were
beautifully craved on its wooden cover:
“
The Great Wall of China”
I noticed that there were some tiny words beneath the cravings.
“1998”---
that was 15 years ago.
The words on the cover drove me to open the box. While I was wiping off the dust on the box, I
noticed that my hands were unexpectedly shivering. I gently opened the box. What came to my first sight was a
set of plastic bricks with the theme of “The Great Wall”, but some parts of the “Wall” were not fixed yet. I put
the remaining pieces together, making the “watchtower” on top of the wall. When I was putting the last piece of
brick onto the “watchtower”, I heard Mum walking in the corridor, passing by the room. I quickly hid behind
the large teak wardrobe, hoping that Mum would not come in. When the footsteps were no longer heard, I went
back to the working table and sat on the wooden chair again. To my surprise, the whole “Wall” suddenly
collapsed into bricks without any foreseeable symptoms.
When I picked up one of the bricks, my fingers felt an abrupt stabbing pain, which was like they were
pricked by needles. I released the plastic brick and it fell into the left side pocket of my trousers, but the pain
still continued. In a few seconds the pain was more and more unbearable that it extended from my fingers to my
whole body. I could not stand straight and I looked onto the floor—it was spinning very swiftly that I could not
even see my shoes.
I experienced two more seconds of the sharp pain before I saw the whole room was darkened.
***