The fortune cookie sat untouched on the table, a silent observer to the lunchtime chatter swirling around the bustling Chinese resturant. Jia picked it up and turned it over in her fingers, studying the wavy edges and golden brown hue, before snapping it open with a satisfying crack.
She unfurled the tiny slip of paper and read the message printed in neat blue script:
"Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction."
Jia scoffed and crumpled the fortune in her fist. Empty platitudes held little comfort these days. Not after weeks of pouring herself into a budding connection, only to be ghosted without explanation. Not with the specter of layoffs looming over her head at work, ready to cut short a career she'd fought tooth and nail to build.
Sighing, she smoothed out the crincked slip and laid it on the tablecloth, next to her bowl of half-finished wonton soup. How was she supposed to trust her heart after it had let her ashtray so many times before? What good was 'running' when life kept moving the finish line?
Her thougths are drifted to her father, to the hours they spent hunched over the kitchen counter transforming the humble balls of dough into delicate, crimped dumplings. In those quiet moments, elbow-to-elbow, an unspoken understanding would pass between them- an appreciation for craft, for effort, for the simple joy of working towards a shared goal.
Jia picked up the fortune again and read it with a new eyes. Perhaps it wasn't about blindly following her heat off a cliff. Perhaps it was about having the courage to pour her whole self into what mattered, even when the outcomes were uncertain. To measure success not by the whims of others, but by the quiet pride of knowing she'd giver her all.
She tucked the little rectangle of paper into her pocket and stood up, leaving few bills on the table. With renewed determination, she strode out of the restaurant and into the clamor of the city streets. There was work to be done, dumplings to be made, and a life to be lived - one careful crimp at a time.
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About the Creator
Winry
I write whatever is on my mind!
The steps to losing a child
Step One: Lose a child. Not what anyone wants to happen and nothing you can do to change it, but you can go through steps to becoming happy again. You can go through steps to loving again. You can go through steps to become a new you because after losing a child you will never be the same person you once were.
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Draft with Revisions
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