Fiction: Group 4
Morning Sun
Island School, Donoghue, Charlotte - 14, Fiction: Group 4
s the light of the early morning sun reflected off the glassy bodies of the skyscrapers on the other
side of the dark, murky waters, a young lady wakes to the sound of her child’s tearless cries for
attention. Her motherly instincts tell her to care for the baby, but she knows that her true love will
not wait for her. She can almost be with him, forever. She tiptoes to the windowsill, letting the warmth of
the light touch her palely tannish skin, and reaches for her inexpensive, tattered low quality clutch that had
clearly been fetched for a low price at Sham Shui Po. It immediately crossed her mind that she deserved
better, and she confirmed her actions, knowing that only her true love would give her what she needed, not
this broke, beggarly, worthless excuse for a husband that would willingly spend his every penny if it meant
she could live another day…
Tears fell from her eyes to the rhythm of the baby’s wails of despair.
Clearing the blurring tears from her vision, the glimmering golden computerised chip on her identity card
came into focus. The reason she suffered in this impoverished family, all for this shiny, thin card… it was
originally in her plans that she would leave when she obtained it – the key to golden opportunities in the
metropolis of Hong Kong. She and her child would live a happy life together, unlike the toughness she had
to go through growing up in the mainland as a girl, she wanted this little darling to have the joyful
childhood she never had.
But it was high time she lived a happy life herself, she thought.
It was painful to leave behind her own flesh and blood, but it was worth it, wasn’t it? Meeting this new man
was in her destiny, he would take care of her, he would give her what she had always wanted. He was her
one true love, her morning sun, the one that would make her feel warm inside. She turned away and
prepared to leave – but her gaze met the googly-eyed expression of her helpless little baby. Choking back
tears, she tried to sound as comforting as she could: “Don’t be afraid, my morning sun. One day, you will
shine bright.”
“Good morning, sunshine.” The baby, now grown into a young girl woke up to the unfamiliar sound of
her father’s voice. Her name was
Sun-hei
, or ‘light of the early morning sun’ in the local language
Cantonese; her dad wasn’t just calling her ‘sunshine’ as a pet name. Another of her nicknames was Summer,
a name that not only fit her bold, bright personality, but matched the meaning of their family name,
Ha
.
Summer mentally questioned why her father was beside her. He was always long gone when she opened her
eyes: even during the weekends he would work multiple jobs, only having a wink of sleep in-between.
Sometimes she would feel upset that he never seemed to be by her side, but she understood that it was the
best for the both of them – her father had always been a poor man, and he had put every cent he could find
into raising her. Nothing could please her more than the fact that she finally had the chance to see him, even
though she knew it was selfish to take even a fragment of his precious time… so she should enjoy every
moment of it.
There was no time to feel guilty.
She pushed the paper-thin sheet that barely covered her away and reached out – “Daddy!” she exclaimed
before he engulfed her with the warmth of a loving hug. Her father smiled wholeheartedly, though not as
enthusiastically as his daughter’s ear-to ear grin that lit up her entire face. “Daddy knows it’s your birthday
today, so I took a few hours off work to be here with you,” he said, placing her small hands within his
sweaty palms. His eye-bags and dark circles made it seem as if he had been in a fight, he had been, in a way:
fighting tiredness whilst working the night shift. “I’ll give you a gift. What do you want?” Summer shook
her head, wiping liquid happiness from her eyes: “You being here is the best present in the world, Daddy.”
A gecko made its way across the mouldy tiles of the cracked ground. The building was falling apart: they
knew that someday, they’d fall straight through the floor. Summer held the gecko in her hands. She never
quite understood why the adorable, helpful creatures that often roamed in the common space between the
‘rooms’ in her building disgusted her classmates. The gecko devours a mosquito, and both Summer and her
father let out giggles of laughter. These were the golden moments of bliss that other people were too
distracted by technology to notice.
A
