litlinks 2022

Fate Will Find a Way

by Ellie Magee, Canberra High School

This is the fourth time this week I’ve ordered from the downstairs Chinese restaurant. The hundred and twelfth time this year. It’s a ritual at this point. They know me by name. They are my only frequently called contact; I can pretend it’s not sad. I open the door to my tiny apartment and there it is, the same order I’ve gotten every day for the past ten months and 24 days, except… it’s not. On top of my normal order is a small shining packet and a note, ‘Happy Birthday’. I act like I have friends until my only birthday present is a single fortune cookie from a person who has never even heard me say anything except, “Small fried rice with honey chicken and stir-fried vegetables.” I take the meal inside and eat. It tastes normal. No birthday magic for me today. After finishing, I open the packet for the fortune cookie. I don’t need to know my fortune but I crack it open and read the slip of paper.

‘Your luck is changing, great change comes, and great things await.’

Wow! I wonder how many other people got that note today. I wonder how many wait and hope that it will come true. How foolish! I clean up the remainders of my meal and wash up. How sad it is to own a single set of cutlery. I wander over to the window and look out. Dingy back alleys and the sketchiest Maccas on Earth. I consider watering the plant on my minuscule balcony, but for all the luck my fortune cookie has foretold, I can’t revive the dead. It’s still light though, so I decide to go for a walk. For all its bareness and 2-star balcony views, my apartment is as close as you can get to the award-winning outdoor markets. I zone out as I walk under fairy lights. They are trying to mimic the stars, invisible due to pollution. A slight breeze comes through and I slip my hands into my pockets. My bare palm is met by the cold touch of metal. I grab the object and pull it out in front of my face: a $2 coin.

‘Your luck is changing, great change comes, and great things await.’

Underwhelming. $2 won’t even get a cup of water here. I keep wandering, thoughts drifting like clouds, coming, going, then disappearing into vapour. A small dog comes up and sniffs my shoes; I don’t know what he expects other than peeling soles and fraying laces. I don’t carry treats. I check my phone for the time. 7:38. Still over an hour until work, the graveyard shift again. My feet keep leading me. I wonder how my family is. My mother stopped calling after I decided law school wasn’t for me. My sister stopped soon after that, or maybe I stopped calling them. I don’t really know.

I stumble, shit, I know better than to think too hard about my family. My vision is going blurry. Not now, not now. I clutch my head. A small dog barks and darkness.

Beautiful blond hair tied back by a ribbon. Top of her class in college. A steady boyfriend also destined for great things. Perfection.

I wake up. Shit, the flashbacks were supposed to have stopped. I’ve never passed out either. I feel the tears in my eyes, I can’t cry. Crying breaks the impenetrable surface, breaks the eggshells I’ve been stepping on for 10 months and 23 days, or was it 24? I don’t really know. Where am I? I think I’m on the north side near the grimy shops with faded signs. I look up from the ground. I’m in front of a newsagent. The sign in front reads: ‘Win 10 Million. Tickets only $2’.

‘Your luck is changing, great change comes, and great things await.’

My finger rubs a circle on the surface of the coin over and over.

I could do it,

but it would be useless. I don’t let myself hope for the impossible,

but if I did win?

I wouldn’t,

but it’s not impossible.

Close enough,

I’m gonna do it.

No, I’m not, it’s a waste of money.

I’m gonna do it.

I push open the door and feel the cool air rush over me. I used to run in and out of convenience store doors as a kid when that happened. The joyous waves of conflicting temperature drowning everything else out.

A bombed test. Blond hair in chunks on the floor. Visits to the therapist’s office on Thursdays. Messy breakup.

I go up to the counter. I could buy literally anything else: a stick of gum that’s probably older than I am; a magazine that manages to be dog-eared despite still being in the plastic packet; but no, I won’t. I nod at the cashier. I’m not used to talking to people. “One ticket for that.” I point at the poster behind the counter, same as the one outside.

“O’ course, love. Anything else with that?” I shake my head, hand her the coin and she hands me the ticket. I take it dazedly, and as I walk out, she calls out, “Wishin’ you luck love.”

‘Your luck is changing, great change comes, and great things await.’

I walk outside and see a girl crying on the curb. She’s holding her head in her hands as tears drip into the drain. A line of crows watch her from the rooftops, reminding me of the children’s nursery rhyme, ‘One for sorrow, two for joy…’; it was one of my favourites. I should go over to her, do something: offer tissues and kind words, the things I never got. Too late. A stranger walks up and beats me to it. She puts her arm around the girl and holds her while she cries.

Screaming into tear-stained pillows. A stern phone call from parents. Gluing the cracks so they don’t show. Temporary peace.

I begin to walk home. Something about the world dims as I step out of the markets, or maybe it’s just the lack of a fairy light canopy. I turn onto my street, well, it’s more of an alley really, but still. I check my phone again. 8:19. Still plenty of time to get home and get changed. That’s as far as I’ve planned; tomorrow will come and it will be the same as every other day.

‘Your luck is changing, great change comes, and great things await.’

I scuff my shoes against the curb as I walk; it doesn’t make any noticeable difference. The house I pass is shaking, lights and music making the street seem like a whole different place. I wonder if the people inside are having fun, or if they’re all just playing the part they’re supposed to.

Smoking on the rooftops. A secret girlfriend. A spilled secret. Abandonment. Threats of disownment. Pills, so many pills.

I walk past the Chinese restaurant. Maybe I should go inside and thank them for the fortune cookie, not that it’s changed anything. I decide against it; they don’t even know what I look like. They probably felt sorry for me. I would feel sorry for me too.

A letter of expulsion. Disappearing into the streets of a city in nowhere. Living on a tightrope, terrified of feeling.

I look down at my feet before I walk through the door. I don’t think that concrete can decay but if it could, it would look like this. There is a small clover struggling to grow between the cracks in the concrete. It is wilted and small, but it’s got four leaves and it’s surviving.

‘Your luck is changing, great change comes, and great things await.’