主题：【原创】Treasure Island -- 颜赤城

Treasure Island

The city of Je’Ang was the second largest city of the young Republic of Yabul. The name of the island where Je’Ang was located meant Treasure Island. The rumor said, long before the city was built, the island was the base of pirates, who hid their trophies somewhere in the misty mountain.

No one took the rumor seriously. Still, children loved to play a game called Seek Treasure. It was a kind of riddle game. The players were given a map or some hints where the treasure was. Then they could figure it out, search for it and dig it up. During holidays, the award could be a box of candies. Sometimes it was simply a piece of note saying "You Win!" Children enjoyed the game anyway.

Yakk didn’t play the game any more. He was already sixteen years old. During school breaks, he’d do a small job --- taking care of a trailer selling beverage on the beach.

The autumn was almost there. There weren’t too many people on the beach. Yakk was listening to the radio and looking at the sea. It was a clear afternoon. The sea was dark blue as always. The radio said Americans were starting a plan to send men to the moon. Yakk thought, “That could take some time.”

Then there came the man, walking up to the trailer.

Yakk thought the man might be a native of Je’Ang. He looked like the strong fisherman just living nearby. But his skin was whiter than fishermen’s, so maybe he was just a tourist.

The man stopped in front of the trailer. Yakk noticed there was a scar on his chin. The scar was scary. If the man didn’t look so nice, the scar would have made him very hideous. But the man had a warm smile and his eyes gave people a sense of security.

“How are you doing, Sir?” Yakk said.

“I’m great.” The man said, “May I have a cold beer, kid?”

“Sure.” Yakk took a bottle of beer from the icebox and gave it to the man.

The man took the beer, opened the bottle and took a drink. He didn’t appear to want to leave yet. “You don’t have many customers, do you?” he said.

“Nope, the summer is almost over.” Yakk thought it’d be good to have someone to talk with. “Where are you from? Do you live here?”

“I’m from nowhere. But this is my hometown.”

I guessed so, Yakk thought.

“Haven’t been back for a long time. I left in the old time.”

When people said the old time, they meant the time before the republic was founded. That should be over ten years before.

“Do you still know anybody here? Can you find them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find them. Or I’ll leave again tomorrow.” The man looked at the beach. “When I was a kid, my friends used to play on the beach. We loved playing Seek Treasure. You know Seek Treasure, don’t you?”

Yakk nodded, “Of course I do.”

“The girl, I called her Shine, was really good at the game. She was very smart. She won most of the time. But her little brother was a little slow. We called him Trunk. We three always played together. Other kids liked making fun of Trunk. They said he was stupid. But he was not. He’s just a little bit slow. His sister always protected him. Me too. I fought with those kids several times. So they dared not to tease Trunk again. I don’t understand why I needed to do that. Trunk was a big boy. Those kids didn’t dare to fight with him. In the old time, life was poor. But we enjoyed ourselves.”

“I grew up in the old time too.”

“Yes, I guess you were born in the war time, right? Those were some tough years. When you grow up, you’ll feel the pressure of making a living. When I grew up, the only thing I could do was to carry baggage from the port to the town. Trunk was with me. We had a flat cab.

We were both young and strong. But the job was very hard. Rich men weren’t nice to us. You had no chance to argue with them. Police were all bad too. Sometimes we worked for nothing. ‘Don’t argue with them.’ I always reminded myself. I was no willing to beg either.”

“Was there any better job?”

“I was saving money. I fell in love with Shine. We were engaged. But I didn’t want to marry her as a coolie. We were saving money and planning to open a grocery store. We had saved a good amount of money. We could see that our dream was becoming true. That year we already rented a store and started to decorate it. We were planning our wedding as well. Trunk would be my best man. He was so happy for us. We three grew up together. Trunk was really like my brother.”

“Then you got married, didn’t you?” Yakk asked, but he had an ominous feeling that things might have happened another way.