Sesu's Fan

Finalist in the 'Spread The Word 2017' competition

Sesu stared at the present her mother gave her; a fan made out of the most beautiful silk, delicately patterned with blue wisps of cloud, red and gold dragons flying through them. The frame was latticed pinewood with a strange red print on its side. ‘It was the perfect present,’ thought the girl.
A year later, Sesu’s tears were falling into the Yangtze River. Sitting in the one-roomed reed house, she had heard her father walk back from the river. But father was not in his usual jolly mood. Judging by his sad face, worn with many wrinkles, she had known something was wrong.
Father told Sesu the fate that had befallen him; Sesu would have to sell her fan, her beautiful latticed fan, to pay for the family’s rice. Father said he had had many orders for sampans, but he did not have time to make them all. So he had bought some from a richer boat merchant, hoping to pay him back. But in the night came one of the many flash floods that befell the Yangtze, and water had sent his sampans sailing speedily down the river.
The merchant was impatient for his money, so Father had had to give him his precious rice money. So that is how poor Sesu came to be sitting, feet dangling in the river, her tears overflowing.
As the golden ball of the sun hid its radiant face below the now reddened hills, Father returned with a bulky sack and a huge smile on his careworn face. He ran and hugged Sesu, his wife and two young sons.
“I was in town, selling your beautiful fan, Sesu, to the merchant Mincho. You know, the one who gives you sweets? He looked at it for what seemed like hours, until he said, “Mr Sediwa, see that strange red mark on the side? Your fan is no ordinary fan! It is the very fan of the late Empress Lisani, may she rest in peace!” I was so shocked that I couldn’t bargain! Luckily Mincho was an honest man, and gave me eight hundred coins for it! Enough to feed and clothe us for many years to come…”
Sesu, her mother and brothers gasped at the good luck that had fallen to them. Mother didn’t say a word - she just stood up and hugged Father. Sesu hugged them both. Out of the sack came a sky-blue silk kimono for Mother, a large bundle of white rice, a packet of shrimp, another packet of squid and bags of tea. For Sesu, there was a green silk kimono with darker green patterns of flowers and trees. For her brothers there were shirts, pants and little caps. They smiled joyously!
But in the bottom of the sack, Sesu pulled out a tiny fan with gold and red dragons flying through blue wisps of cloud. She looked up at father!
“Mincho gave you this small copy he had…as consolation.”
Sesu smiled.

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