Shengliver’s Note: Teen Zijun writes a sequel to Sharon’s story, which is a cloze test found on Page 32, New Senior English for China, Book 7, by PEP (People’s Education Press).

Sharon finally arrived in New York City, the Big Apple. Seeing the skyscrapers all around and the streaming traffic on the streets, she felt dizzy. There were such hordes in the metropolis that Sharon had no idea where the very man she was seeking was. She spent three days combing the entire neighbourhood where Tim was supposed to reside according to the address on the note she gripped tightly in her hand all the time.

At last, she pinpointed the right property. She knocked at the door but there was no answer. She visited the house the next day. Still, no one was in. This kept up for the next two weeks until one day she came across an old lady.

The lady said, “I used to be Tim’s neighbour. I regret to tell you that Tim has left the city because his company went bust. Tim is up to his ears in debt. Listen, youngling, choose carefully. Maybe it is not worthwhile paying so much on your part.” After hearing that, Sharon, dejected, decided to return to her home village.

On the train, many couples, seated together, were flirting their time away. Sharon sat by the window all alone. She stared at the fleeting tracks below, memories crowding in. Into her mind came the scenes where Tim and she had been pacing along the tracks talking about anything and everything under the sun.

In one scene, Tim confessed to her, “I used to be fed up with my life in New York. But here, Sharon, you have helped me to see what life is all about. It is you, Sharon, who have saved my soul. How could I live on if we were apart someday? I belong right here with you.”

Looking back on those days, Sharon thought everything had seemed so sweet then. “Was he possibly lying to me?” Sharon wondered, suppressing her tears. The train was whistling through the Midwestern American landscape.

When Sharon finally got back to her home in the country, she found an airmail letter in the mailbox. Oh, it was from Tim. It had arrived two days earlier. Totally blown away, she thought she might have been too sensitive and that she might have got Tim wrong.

With a flicker of hope in her eyes, she tore open the envelope, fingers quivering. The letter read, “I’m sorry, Sharon. My company has gone bankrupt and I am in trouble. I am not well off enough to provide you with a comfortable life. I would like to see you one more time. I am going to visit you in a week. If you don’t want to see me anymore, I will leave you for good. Will you still love me, Sharon?” Reading the familiar handwriting on paper, Sharon wept long and hard.

From then on, every day Sharon went to the local train station in town hoping to meet Tim sooner. On the third day, Tim turned up on the platform. It was a downcast Tim. The robust Tim was nowhere to be found. When they met, he gazed at Sharon silently. Sharon broke the silence asking, “Do you know, honey, that I travelled to New York in search of you?” Tim answered, “Yes, I heard about it. But Sharon, why were you so silly? I mean I’m sorry about all this. Now here I am. If you would accept me, I will leave you alone no more.” Sharon hugged Tim before he could finish, tears all over her face, heart throbbing. They were reunited at the very train station where they had met for the first time when Tim came to the village five years before.

Soon Sharon and Tim got wed at the village church, and they lived happily ever after.

Every day at dusk the couple paced along the tracks, hand in hand, watching the sun setting below the horizon, listening to the trains rolling by.

All good things must come to an end. Sharon and Tim’s halcyon days did not last very long. One morning, Sharon was found dead beside the rail tracks. It turned out that Sharon had been knocked dead by the train the night before, crossing the tracks to feed the cattle at the cowshed on the other side.

According to law, Tim came into possession of Sharon’s farm, on which Tim earned lots of money and got all his debts cleared within the next two years.

Some years later, Tim became neurotic. Seldom did the folks in the farming community see Tim out of his farm. He stopped pacing along the tracks in the evening.

Tim must have been grieved to the core by the bereavement, thought the villagers.