Page 56 - 2021 English Magazine - Final

one or the other until finally, someone found him dead in a hotel room.
written by Natalie Chan Jia Yiing
The children sat around the fire, waiting for the old woman to come. Every night, she would sit, gazing into the
fire with unseeing eyes as she spun story after story effortlessly. The children had no homes, no mothers to
turn to; and so, they clung onto the one piece of childhood they could all remember: stories. The old woman
hobbled over and knelt before the fire, her gnarled hands folded neatly in her lap. Opening her mouth with
a raspy breath, she began.
“Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl.
They both lived in contentment, and they had ev-
erything they needed. They were not alike - two
entirely different beings, but funnily enough, their
stories ended in the same way.”
“Do they get married and fall in love, grandma-
ma?” One of the children asked, raising her eyes to
look at the old woman. The old woman chuckled.
“No, child. This is not a foolish, idealistic love sto-
ry. Now listen.”
“The boy knew exactly what he wanted: to be
rich. He wanted to be one of those millionaires
on Santa Fe, drinking and gambling and enjoying
the rest of his life in opulence. Some might call it
hedonism, but to him, it was simply a quest for
comfort and contentment. He was not all bad, ei-
ther, for he wanted to be a philanthropist; to be
something good in a world of evil.
“He told anyone who would listen: I want to be
rich. He would murmur it to himself all the time,
and soon, it became his own mantra; his own war
chant. He imagined himself basking in the warm
afternoon sun on the terrace of his mansion with
countless servants at his beck and call. ‘I want to
be rich,’he whispered, as he greedily collected red
packets during Chinese New Year, taking not just
his own but his younger brothers’ and sisters’ share too. ”I want to be rich,’ he murmured as he went to bed,
counting the stack of money over and over before tucking it under his pillow. ‘I want to be rich,’ he mumbled,
as he spent his days in casinos and clubs spending his money, thinking that he would eventually earn back
everything that was rightfully his. ‘I want to be rich,’ he murmured as he played game after game,
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Here, the old woman stopped for breath, and one of the children spoke again. “Why did he die?” The old
woman looked at the boy with fathomless, depthless eyes. “That is up to you. Perhaps he crossed the wrong
people. Perhaps he owed money to bad people. Now, be quiet and listen.”
“And there was a girl. She was a good girl, an obedient child - more than a parent could ever wish for. She
wanted nothing more than to please them; to make them happy, and so she worked and studied day and
night, blinking blearily at her textbooks as she aced test after test. Her teachers praised her and raved about
her, telling her that if she kept it up, she could do anything; be anything she wanted to be.
“But the girl didn’t know much. She went on studying, getting her degrees, then working job after job, typing
aimlessly on a keyboard or reporting endlessly during meetings. She worked and worked, until one day, her
parents brought her to see a doctor. ‘Catatonic,’ he said, frowning at her as she looked at him tiredly. Finally,
one of her co-workers found her dead at her desk. She was buried near her childhood home, and no one knew
what happened to her parents - they simply disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the faint memories of
the villagers and the now-empty house that they once resided in.”
A few of the children looked horri-
fied, for they knew the power of sto-
ries, having grown up on them. “All the
stories are true,” said the old woman,
scrutinising them from under her wire-
rimmed glasses. One of the older chil-
dren raised a timid hand. “Grandma-
ma, what’s the point of the story, then?
They both die, and their dreams never
come true.”
The old woman looked down at her
hands, then at the campfire as she
spoke. “It warns us about the perils of
ambition without diligence, and the
danger of being diligent without pos-
sessing any ambition. A man may have
ambition, but if he does not work
towards it, he will never move forward. As a wise man once said, it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget
to live.”The old woman stood, leaning heavily on a cane that one of the children brought her. “At the same
time, a man may know how to work hard, but without ambition; without purpose, he will simply work himself
to death. A life without purpose is not a life worth living. Bear that in mind, children, when you leave this place
and go forth into the world.” She blinked wearily at them. “Remember that.”
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