Winfred Wong: Son of the Tank Man

After obtaining everything I needed to set off on my way home, I didn’t hesitate to rush back to the pilot seat and started the engine. It was a long lonely journey; maybe not lonely as Kriss was still on the boat at that time, but during that journey, I had developed a lurking happiness in my heart as if I was on an express train bound for Shangri-La. But as I had approximately covered half of the distance from the beach to Port Aroma, I realized her corpse would be a real problem. If I got caught by the border patrols, what would be the officers’ first impression of me when they found her corpse? It would be greatly detrimental to me.

I didn’t have too many options, and I just wanted to get it done quickly. So what came up to my mind later was as simple as dumping her into the sea, but this thought had really given me a good chill despite knowing she was totally dead by then; dumping someone you knew, even though she wasn’t breathing, without proper cremation beforehand into the sea wasn’t as easy as just lifting up and throwing out a bag of garbage after all. And of course, if I got to choose again now, I wouldn’t have done that. But back then, I was overtaken by fear, a stupid fear I had scolded myself for feeling several times after that incident – luckily she has never asked me about her corpse or else she would’ve probably dumped me already.

And I acted. I tiptoed over to her, lifted her up, carried her over to the gunwales and prayed. My prayer had gone on for what I felt like half an hour before I summoned up enough courage to do it with my eyes closed; I thought I would feel more sinful if I witnessed it, though the heart-wrenching splashing sound full of lament and sorrow produced when she vanished into the sea was loud enough for me to feel that sinfulness. Then I began weeping silently for a reason that was not clear to me till lately. It wasn’t me who killed her. She killed herself. It wasn’t me who killed Jack, Ryson, Mack, Ciara, Frederick, and any others, but I knew I was the one who must take all responsibility; they had all sacrificed their lives in order to help me after all. And from time to time after that, when I was alone at home, I would wonder how on earth did a son of an honorable man who is willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of others end up being the one being helped, and every time when I went through this in my mind, I would usually shrug it off in the end, realizing it’s a daft thought leading to nowhere.

And I remember I had stood there like a statue with the same posture, bending down with my elbows on the gunwales and supporting my chin with two fists, for another half an hour of praying before returning back to the helmsman seat, and when I sat down and slightly turned the wheel so that it didn’t deviate too much from the course drawn on the map, I felt the boat was lighter than before; I never dug deep into this seemingly false feeling even after everything, because I’d cringe badly every time when the thought of trying crept up into my mind. And I am cringing right now.

And the rest of the journey to my destination seemed as fleeting as an elevator ride. The sun had already peeped out from the horizon when I was close to the island, which had a weird war-ship-like shape and was shrouded in sea mist. According to the map displayed on the phone, I was supposed to find something like a dock, where I could disembark. But sadly, it didn’t show its exact location, not to mention that the occurrence of poor visibility was hindering me from observing.

As the boat kept moving forward into the mist, I kept squinting to see what’s up ahead, but before I was able to perceive anything, I heard an alarming siren and someone yelling through a loudspeaker, the ear-piercing electronic echoing sound buzzing like a bee, “We are the Coastal Defense Forces of Port Aroma. Whoever is listening to this please stop the boat and kill the engine, or else we will have to do it by force.”

The pure excitement surged through me when I heard he said ‘Port Aroma’ was almost as mesmerizing as the warm hug Oli had given me before. I’d never thought the most mellifluous thing in the world would be something like this instead of a good old song. I didn’t remember if I had cried or not, but I was pretty sure I was beaming and looking around like a maniac while obeying his instructions in spite of the fact that I couldn’t see him anywhere.

As soon as I had killed the engine, a middle-sized armored vessel that was almost triple the size of mine with a bowsprit and two unmanned guns mounted on each side of the bulwarks came out of the mist from behind and stopped precisely just inches away to the right from my ship, just about the distance so that the two ships wouldn’t collide even while floating arbitrarily. And the next thing I saw was a bearded mid-aged man wearing a blue windbreaker and a typical pale white fisherman hat, with a flashy pair of sunglasses, emerging from the mist on its deck. He then boarded my ship by simply leaping over the bulwarks, which were half the height of me, like he was a superman, landed on the stern of my boat, making it sway, and walked over to me slowly.

“Hey. What are you doing out here alone? Are you a resident of Port Aroma?” he said nonchalantly while strolling and looking around, with all ten of his fingers, just fingers, in the pockets of his ill-assorted khaki shorts.

At that time, I had been expecting to see a group of well-trained uniformed officers marching onto my boat in an orderly fashion, instead of an athletic fisherman, and had thought they were going to arrest me for breaking a law I had never heard of, but then it occurred to me that the government had already dissolved when a doubt evoked by his strange mannerisms crossed my mind, and I suddenly realized now that no one was paying any more, no one was supposed to be enforcing the law any more, that’s why I had scolded myself several times for feeling that dumb fear afterward.

Then my smothered excitement instantly transformed into a fretfulness, which I had once felt when I was waiting for the elevator back then, and I said while sizing him up down to the very details, like what size of shoes he was wearing, any notable scars or tattoos on the exposed part of his body, if he was wearing a ring or not and so on and so forth, “Who are you? I thought the government has already dissolved, and the Coastal Forces has already ceased to exist.”

But he chuckled and shrugged.

“I was just joking. Sorry man, for the big confusion. Haha,” he said, gasping for air between laughs like a clown.

“You were joking?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I thought even a five year old would—” He suddenly stopped laughing and continued solemnly, glaring at me. “Unless you are a nasty smuggler.”

Considering I had already lost my suitcase, which stored every single piece of my personal identification papers, at the burning hell, the fretfulness intensified, because I knew if only he had asked me to prove that I was a resident of Port Aroma, it would look very suspicious for me to refuse. So I remained silent.

But he suddenly cracked a smile, then burst into laughter, when I was gaping at him like I was transfixed. “Hahaha, look at you. You’re really frightened, aren’t you?”

After a brief delay, “Well yeah, frankly, I am a little bit frightened, but who are you? And why did you tell me to switch off the engine?” I said.

He then giggled, held his hands up, motioned me to look at his vessel in a way like he was saying ‘Da-Dah’ and gazed admirably at it. “As you can see, I am a fisherman, who owns an armored boat. Have you ever seen something like this? Isn’t it extraordinary? I thought you would love to take a look at it. That’s why I told you to stop.”