What I Missed
- Peter K F Cheung SBS
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
FADE IN
Act 1
INT. BEDROOM - 08:30
Sunlight bleeds through the curtains. The room is quiet. PETER, wearing headphones, lies propped up against pillows. He holds a smart phone.
Beside him, his WIFE is bundled under a duvet, her breathing heavy.
PETER (V.O.): My wife has a flu. She's recovering. Slowly.
Peter scrolls through a FB feed. A black and white clip.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): It's the bus terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Peter taps it. We see on screen people in 1960s attire. A pretty woman boards a bus. A handsome man offers his seat to her...
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): There's a charming, comedic tension.
He reads the caption.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Ah, it's the opening scene of the 1966 Hong Kong film "The Strange Romance on the Bus" (巴士奇遇結良緣)
A wave of nostalgia washes over him.
Act 2
FLASHBACK
EXT. TIN SUM, CASTLE PEAK ROAD - DAY (1966)
Bus stop. Peter (12), in school uniform, is waiting.
PETER (V.O.): Every time I see a bus driver, I think he is the king of the road.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): My career dream is simple. I just want to hold that big steering wheel.
END FLASHBACK
Peter surfs YouTube, finds the full film and begins to watch it.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Back then, I saved my pocket money for the grand Western colour films. The bigger the spectacle, the better the value for money.
Watching the film.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): A Hong Kong black and white film felt like... a small thing. A cheap thing. I never saw this.
A character appears on screen.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Ah, he's Yu Ming,
FLASHBACK
INT. CASTLE PEAK HOTEL - DAY (1969)
Peter (15), in a waiter outfit, watches location filming. YU MING is standing near him, waiting for his appearance. They chat.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): His profile is sharp. And he doesn't mind chatting with me.
END FLASHBACK
Peter continues watching.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Dramatic irony. That's what it's called. The audience get the cues and know the leading actor and the leading actress are going to fall in love.
The film ends.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Not bad. Not bad at all. By the standard of 1966....this is lovely.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I feel a profound disconnect. A six-decade gap.
FLASHBACK
INT. RESORT, QING YUN MOUNTAIN - 22:45 (7 July 2026)
Floor-to-ceiling glass panels. Torrential rain lashes against the glass like a thousand tiny hammers.
PETER (V.O.): I meant to gaze the stars.
He clicks the TV remote in frustration. He scrolls through the free movies channel. He stops at a title: North by Northwest.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): It's Hitchcock's 1959 film. I'd seen it before. I can see the stars in the film.
He watches.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): We're in that cornfield, with the hero, panicking, not knowing when the plane will dive.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd):Hitchcock's suspense isn't about what will happen. It's about when. The audience is a prisoner of time.
END FLASHBACK
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): A film I never watched at 12 becomes a time machine at 72. It doesn't show me the world. It shows me the world I walked through without looking.
Act 3
INT. BEDROOM - 22:00
Peter uploads an image to a draft on his laptop. It shows a TV in a room displaying a long aerial view of a straight road stretching into a wide landscape including the cornfield.
PETER (V.O.): I'm a character in my own dramatic irony. The older, wiser version of myself is in the audience, shaking its head, whispering: Look. Just look.
Thinking.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Life is a film I watch too late. The best I can do is search, pause, and realize I was in every scene - even the ones I walked out of.
Reflecting.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): A docudrama. The boy. The bus driver. And the rain. What I missed was never the story. What I missed was that I was in it.
The END
FADE OUT
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