The Teller of Small Fortunes

by Julie Leong

Yet it was a very hard thing to leave the only place one had ever known.

Everyone deserves a home, Tao thought, patting Laohu’s whiskery grey nose. And what was a home but somewhere you wouldn’t have to feel quite so alone?

“Was it not enough to cheat them at cards? Did you have to steal their jewelry as well?” “I thought you were reformed,” Tao said pointedly. “I didn’t mean to! It was just there, all shiny and such, and my hand just sort of…slipped. Besides, he’d said something rude to one of the barmaids. Hardly a proper gentleman.”

“Easy to blame foreign folk for anything going wrong, when they’re not here to say otherwise. Easier still when they look and talk funny, and don’t pray to the Mother or her Sons.”

“People think they want true fortunes, but they don’t really. What they want are lies. Small lies, big lies, entertaining lies, comforting lies.

“And the suspicion turns to fear, and the fear, as it always does, turns to anger.”

I am more than just what I do; I am a person, and I am alive, and that is purpose enough.

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?”

“I think you have changed,” said Tao. “In enough small ways that you just don’t quite notice it while it’s happening, but then you look in the mirror one day, and you’re altogether different. That’s how it was for me, anyway.”

Hope was a powerful thing,

We’re not always cheerful and funny. We’ve sadness, and anxiety, and all these other bitter things wrapped up inside, too, and that’s what makes the sweetness all the sweeter.

“I am sad that you have lost so much,” said the old man, empty hand falling back against his side. “I hope you find new joys to take their place.”

Friends who had taught her that to share a little of her old hurts, the memories that pulsed and throbbed at the very center of her like a dark star, did not make her weak.

I spend half the time pretending to be something I’m not, because I’ve worn a mask for so long I don’t know what’s underneath anymore.

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

“You’re not weak; you’re afraid! That’s not the same thing!”

He looked to his wife as if she were water, and he a man dying in the desert.