The Fish Returns to the Sea

"If we'd been a little luckier, would things not have ended so badly?" "Mom, I tried so hard to love you. I'm sorry." "Yu Jing, would they be happy only if I died?" "It's okay. Getting married... is... pretty good. Don't worry about your big sister. You have to... live well." We were all children abandoned by the world. I tried so hard to stay alive, and I was so close to seeing the light... At six, I wished my parents wouldn't get divorced. I didn't want our family to fall apart. At sixteen, I wished the whole world would rot, like a rotten orange. At twenty-six, I wished I could be a little luckier, even just a little. Grandma used to say, "When people die, they become stars." That day, I gazed at the starry sky and embraced the sea without hesitation. The gray world had no room for me. "When I grow up, I'll be the best adult ever!" The six-year-old girl was covered in mud, yet she smiled so brightly. "If only I could go back to before it all happened. I just want to live." Somewhere between awareness fleeing and returning, between brain death and a dying heart, between the shore of awakening and the deepest, darkest depths that were slowly swallowing me, there was a narrow crack. I withered in that vacuum. A fish flapped its fins soundlessly on dry land, its lips opening and closing. But it was too parched to speak, and slowly became like the walking dead. I want to live. I want to live! "Little one, what's your name?" "Big Sister, my name is Yu An." "Then may the rest of your life be safe and peaceful..." Theme: Saving yourself and being loved