In the middle of China, one could only see rice paddies and dirt roads, except this year, in a drought, it looked more like the Gobi Desert. Sixteen year old Farmer Ming, living by himself without his parents in the middle of this heat stood on his plot of land, looks helplessly at his crops as he is starving and wishing for a brighter future.
Ming grew up into a poor family in the city and before he was born, his alcoholic father died. Ming’s father, Ching, loved to gamble and drink, often at the same time. Ching was not great at playing cards or Mahjong and as a result, his disgrace to his family and his debt led him to kill himself. Ming’s mother was quite a caring mother to Ming and supported him in all his studies and school when he grew up, but sadly pasttsed away four years ago from lung cancer. Ming lived with his uncle until he was fourteen after he was fed up with his abusive parenting and alcoholic behavior.
Vowing to never drink again, Ming traveled for weeks from the city into the farmer land hoping for a better food supply and to survive. Mother Nature was generous to Ming; the past two years for Ming have given his land plenty of rain and sunshine and he was even able to sell of some of his access food for money. However, this year, it was a different story.
This year, his crops were all withering in the summer heat and the wind that blew up dirt just made everything just a little bit worse. Ming had some extra food from last year but a few pounds of rice and some seeds are not going to feed him for a year. Ming was filled with stress and started crying.
“Why?” Ming yelled as tears trickled down his face when looking at the endless fields covered in dirt and yellow crops.
“Well, sometimes Mother Nature is not as kind. Just hope that it will be better next year!” His neighbor replied calmly.
“I hope so…” Ming mumbled as he went back into his little house laying on his straw mattress thinking what to do. He could always ask his neighbors just for some food and survive a year. However, if this drought went on for more than a year, Ming would starve to death as asking for too much food made Ming feel guilty. What else would he do?
The first thing that he thought of was staying another year and hoping for a better harvest next year, but trusting Mother Nature is the best in the world. The next thing he thought of was traveling back to the city to find a more stable job. Ming was in a dilemma and could not decide. The first idea was probably safer even though the risks because traveling through the mountains towering over 8,000 meters was something Ming did not want to do ever again. However, this time, it was different; his life was dependent on this choice.
If he stayed, he had to hope the best from the weather and his neighbors if they had extra food. If he left, he could sell his land and make the treacherous journey through the mountains back into the city. The city by now is full of jobs and housing that is affordable but all between that luxury and Ming now was a twenty kilometer journey from his farm into the city was rocks sticking up from the Earth.
Ming stayed for another month thinking about this but finally decided to sell his land and go to the city for a better future. His neighbor bought all his property for a decent price and Ming kept all his basic necessities for his new life into the city.
Ming stepped onto the stone path and nostalgic memories filled him with images of his parents and uncles. He quickly shook them off and ran up the steps and made sure he could get to a flat area up on the plateau. Ming slowly struggled through this journey in a couple of weeks and arrived into the city now filled with neon lights and skyscrapers. What could he do in order to find a job?
He decided to go into a job fair, but this job fair was different. It was a chef job fair, looking for goods cooks all around town. The job fair was full of people but only one person stood out to him, Lili. She was beautiful and looked quite wealthy and Ming had the guts to ask her out. They went to dinner that night and she pulled out a gun. Ming was dead.