The Teller of Small Fortunes

by Julie Leong

“It’s like…life force, or breath. Our spirit. What makes us human. And we believe that all qi is like water,” said Tao. She thought back to how her Baba had once explained it to her as a child, and tried to remember the words he had used, translating roughly in her mind. “Like a mountain pool, fed from a waterfall and flowing away again in many forms—some over rock, some through forest, some sinking deep into land. Water leaves this pool but also returns to it. And in this way, all people come from the same pool, and will return to it in time.”

“All cats are slightly magical, don’t you know? It’s why they’re so smug all the time.

Aye, our lives are short and shaped by circumstance, and maybe we can’t control most of what’s to come. But we can control how we feel. We can savor the sweetness of a blackberry scone, and the company of our friends, and the warmth of the summer wind at night, and be grateful for it. We can be nothing, and choose to be miserable about it, like you—or we can be nothing, but choose to be happy, and let that be purpose enough. Which sounds more worthwhile to you?”

“That’s no excuse. You were grieving, too. The difference is, you were a little girl, and she was your mother.”

There’s no such thing as greater good—there’s just good, and the more of it we can do, the better.”