When the end is just the beginning…

We have heard phrases or sayings that suggest there is always a new beginning after any closing.  When one door closes, another one opens.  The end of a story is the start of new one. Divorce is a new opportunity i.e. a new beginning etc.   And I always surmised that what does not kill you only makes you stronger is a saying that falls into this same realm of closure and new starts.  Saturday closes the week, and Sunday is sitting right there; ready; primed; eager to get a new week off and running.  There are two summer contributors who have the task of closing out this series of aaduna introductions to the next issue on a Saturday.  The actual beginning in this promotional initiative will be the launch of the summer issue and that will come soon.  With the realization that the end is just the beginning, we present He Junhua and Flo Au.

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He Junhua (photo provided)

 
He Junhua was born in 1988 in Hubei, China and currently resides in Tongliao, Inner Mongolia, China. Mr. Junhua is the author of over twenty short stories and fifty very short stories and is the recipient of several literary awards.  Here is the opening from his summer issue story, “Tuesday Siesta.”

T

he lips of the backpacker were almost cracked when he suddenly found that the herdsman yurt of Alatanula’s was left unlocked.

Not even a single drop of water could he suck up from the kettle. If only the thirst had not been that unbearable, the backpacker would not have broken in Alatanula’s yurt in such a rude way. As he pushed the door open, the backpacker found a kettle of milk tea on the stove that was still hot. He hesitated for a second before he lifted the kettle. He then drank the milk tea in the kettle up in one breath, like an aged horse that had trudged over one thousand miles of gobi.

            The backpacker left 20 bucks on the table in the first place. Then he found it a bad idea and decided to wait for the host.

            He hadn’t expected that he had to wait for a whole day.

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Flo Au (Image provided)

Flo Au is a previous contributor to aaduna with a fiction piece in the winter/spring 2017 issue.  We continue to marvel at the happenstance that brought her to our world and then our world to her.  In October 2016, she shared, “My creative writing teacher has directed me to look for journals in the database, Poets and Writers, where I came across your journal. Since I am very fresh and green, your mission about helping new writers to get their works published is pretty tempting to me. I then just tried my luck.”  More than luck, Flo has talent for weaving interesting stories.  Here is the opening excerpt from “Egg Tarts.”

T

he new principal in his most expensive white Armani suit strode out from his office with his chin pointing upward, like a white peacock’s strutting its way out of a cage, slowly spreading its gigantic fan of its exotically gauzy-netting white feathers, to greet the crowd of other principals and teachers, who veiled their faces with excessive admiration yet concealed derision and contempt underneath. As expected by the two rows of his teachers in their uniforms waving sharp colored flags, queuing in long winding snakes from the door of his room, along a corridor, through a foyer, down two flights of stairs and reaching back to the school entrance, he had never nodded more ardently, more earnestly to the educational officers, surely the first ones leading others to step inside the school. The principal wore his well-practiced smile and fixed his eyes on the officials, ready to open his mouth to deliver his cautiously formulated speech which he had tirelessly, unrelentingly recited in front of the mirror every day since last week. He had long been waiting for this chance.

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Closings are often bittersweet.  New beginnings, though challenging, are sweeter.

Watch for aaduna's Summer 2017 issue - LAUNCHING SOON!

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aaduna - a timeless exploration into words and images - is a globally read, multi-cultural, and diverse online literary and visual arts journal established in 2010.  Visit us at www.aaduna.org where we put measurable actions to our words.

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