Fiction: Group 3
Ching lowered her head. Yan rummaged her bag for bandages, and started cleaning her wounds.
Ching didn’t resist. When they were done, Ching tried to smile and thank her, but her smile was forced.
Suddenly she was in tears, sobbing uncontrollably as Yan tried to comfort her. “Dad doesn’t care about my
dreams at all, he wants me to be a successful businesswoman. Why can’t he let me choose my future? All I
want to be is an artist, not a boring office lady!” She cried and cried like a broken, vulnerable little girl. Yan
found herself crying too.
They hugged and cried. Ching clung on to Yan as if she were her only life support. After calming
down, Yan looked up at Ching. Fire was burning behind her eyes in anger for her friend’s mistreatment.
“Prove to him. Prove to him that you can choose what to do for yourself, prove to him that art is your road
to success.”
Ching spoke, with new strength. “Yeah. I’m totally gonna show him that
I’m
the boss of myself, not
him.”
Yan moved into Ching’s art studio, watching her finish her breathtakingly beautiful painting.
When she finished, Yan persuaded her to enter the piece for the international art competition.
Weeks passed. They waited impatiently for the results. One day, they received a letter from the
judge panel, informing them of their entry into the finals. “I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!” Yan was
screaming and squealing. For the first time in months, Ching was beaming from ear to ear in pride. Since
she was a child, all her art teachers had praised her for being “extremely talented in art, a prodigy.” Her
perseverance all those years had finally paid off. Reporters and journalists interviewed her; she was elated. At
night, she saw herself in the news. She was the only Chinese contestant to enter the finals. She scribbled in
her diary:
I’ve never felt so happy. In the finals! Gosh.
On the other hand, Ching’s father knew his daughter was safe from a call from Yan. He was informed
that she wouldn’t be coming home soon. It had been weeks since he had seen her, and he was
angry.
Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he turned on the news. “The annual International Young Artists’
Competition’s results have been announced—”
He downed the beer as if it were water.
“—This year, they received 19738 entries from around the world. 10 outstanding pieces were
selected by the judges. This year, a young artist from Hong Kong has successfully entered the finals. Let’s
interview her.”
Ching’s sweet smiling face entered the camera.
Ching? What?
“What inspired you to paint this
amazing piece?” the reporter asked.
“My father never liked it when I brought up my dreams of being an artist—he wanted me to inherit
and run his company. All I wanted was to be free. I found beauty in her posture, like a bird leaning on its
claws, ready to spread its wings and fly. My wish since I was a child was simply for him to change his mind,
let me fly and follow my dreams…”
His eyes were rimmed with tears. All those years, he had never noticed her gifted artworks, paid no
attention to her teachers’ praise. Whenever she brought up her dream of being an artist, he yelled at her to
“get real, did she think she could be successful with a job like
that?
”. The night she ran away, he caught her
sketching. He laughed at her, calling her “a stupid little girl who knows nothing.” She told him that “
he was
the stupid one
”, and in a fit of rage, he grabbed an umbrella and beat her until she wrenched free and ran
out the door.
“Lin, I’ve screwed it all up. I can’t even be a good dad.” He said to his dead wife’s photo.
