A Wake, Awake
by Audrey Sze
12-14 years | 1st Place
Mingda lived in a quiet museum of a language that his children no longer knew how to inherit. The house guarded Mingda’s silence. Inside, dried orange peels and incense drowned the air. Portraits of ancestors lined the hallway, staring down into rooms where the loudest sound was the hum of a refrigerator. On the paint-peeling wall, a traditional Chinese tear-away calendar remained stuck on a date that had occurred years ago. The sight of it reminded Mingda of his old home in Beijing. Mingda’s heart ached. Sometimes he wished his family hadn’t insisted on bringing him to the quiet suburbs of Melbourne with them.
The chirp of the phone sliced through the silence. On the oak table, his daughter’s name pulsed in a pale glow. He didn't answer.
As the screen went black, a heavy suffocating silence rushed back like a damp woollen blanket. There were no snapshots of smiling faces or crayon masterpieces pinned to the fridge. He had two children and five grandchildren, but when he searched his mind for a memory of a party, the scent of birthday candles, or the chaos of a song, he found only a vast grey void.
Later that day, Mingda went outside to take the trash out. In the bin, he came across a peculiar, heavy artefact resembling a clock. The afternoon sun reflected off its metallic surface into his glasses. A web of cracks crawled across its protective glass cover, hiding the numbers beneath. On any other day, Mingda would’ve walked past. However, the Chinese newspaper he had read this morning had warned: “Opportunity must not be lost; time will not come again”. He sighed. What harm could it do? He strained his back to pick it up, chuckling to himself.
Back inside, he sat at the table to inspect it. It had no hands, only numbers across three dials. The first read 7, the second 07, and the final slot held 2026. Today's date. Mingda fiddled with the third dial with his calloused thumb. It turned with a click, rolling forward to 2036.
Instantly, the air grew frigid. The refrigerator’s hum ceased, replaced by a whine vibrating through the floorboards. Mingda gasped, gripping the table as the world blurred. Outside the window, the familiar Springvale streets blurred as the golden afternoon sun streaked across the sky like a shooting star, flashing into darkness, then blinding light, then darkness again as if seasons were flying by.
The whine faded into an eerie silence. The air no longer smelled of orange peels but rather reeked of stagnant air, cold dust, and loneliness. Mingda coughed, the sound echoing sharply through the empty house. His footsteps left perfect prints in a grey carpet of dust. Everything was exactly where he left it, yet completely unrecognisable. The kitchen counter was covered in mould where a decade-old bowl of rice sat, and the table felt like it would snap if he leaned on it. On the wall, the yellowed calendar edges curled inward like dead leaves. No one had cleaned. No one had visited.
The house had simply been left to die, and something told Mingda he had done this to himself.
He stumbled through the rusted gates of the community cemetery under a dull, grey sky. It didn't take him long to find his name. He couldn't read the English text on the surrounding headstones, but he recognised the Chinese characters of his own name.
The sight made his breath catch. There were no bouquets, no food, and no incense. The earth above him was choked with thorny weeds. His glass photograph was shattered. A spiderweb split his face in two, half of his smile lost in the dirt. To the world, he wasn't just dead, he was completely erased. He touched the cracked stone, realizing the grey void in his mind had finally become real.
Mingda used the last of his strength to go to his daughter’s house. They lived in a bright house in Keysborough, surrounded by private schools. Mingda tiptoed to the window, squinting to get a good look.
Through the window, he watched them. The room was filled with the warm but foreign chaos. His grey-streaked daughter poured tea while his grandchildren laughed, their voices enveloped with joy. The walls were covered in snapshots of beach vacations, but Mingda’s face was nowhere to be seen. There was no family altar, no space held for his memory. They spoke quickly in a language he could not understand. They were perfectly whole without him. He was a ghost standing in the dark, watching something he could never get.
Tears pricked Mingda’s eyes. With shaking fingers, he rolled the dial of the pocket watch back. The freezing wind rushed over him again, the strobe light of decades reversing. Suddenly, the familiar fragrance of dried orange peels and incense filled his lungs. The refrigerator hummed its usual comforting tune. He was home.
Mingda hobbled toward the table. His phone was still pulsing with his daughter's missed call. For years, pride and a language barrier had kept him isolated, but he had seen the alternative of being completely forgotten. He pressed call.
The phone rang twice. "Hello?” his daughter’s voice came through, sounding surprised.
Mingda closed his eyes. He forced his throat to form the syllables of a language he had spent a lifetime avoiding.
"My child," Mingda whispered, his voice trembling. "Hello. I am okay. H-how are you?"
There was a stunned silence, followed by a sharp intake of breath and a soft, watery laugh. "Baba," she said, her voice instantly lighting up. He could practically feel her smile even kilometres away. "You're speaking English?" "I’ll try," Mingda smiled through his tears, looking up at the portraits of his ancestors.
For the first time in years, the heavy silence of the house did not rush back in. It was gone, chased away by the beautiful sound of a new beginning in a suburb with faces that looked like his.