The Angel At The Train Station

By Shuju Lau

In the land where the winds always blew warm and balmy on your skin, and the sun and moon and stars always shone cool on your face, there lives a lovely little girl with curly brown hair. Her name is Yael, the sweetest, kindliest girl anyone could ever meet, and she has been waiting all her life to meet her mother. One day, her train ticket finally comes, and everyone is excited. She sets out with her friends to the train station where she will ride the locomotive to take her to her family. What happens after is a bittersweet story– but one filled with healing and hope.

Yael is based on a real child, a lovely little girl who was supposed to meet her mother in 2009. What was supposed to be a joyous occasion, nine months in the making, quickly turned to grief for those waiting.

Sometimes in our life, things happen that make no sense. Events that cause hearts to break, bring unbearable pain, create lasting scars and take forever to heal. This book was written, not to make sense of those things, for that would be too presumptuous–there is no making sense of these things. It was written by a friend for a friend to give a little comfort in her time of grief. May it give comfort and solace to others as well.- SJL

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcenciel Publishing
• Release date: Dec 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311824417

Shuju Lau

When I was eight, I won a short-story writing contest. That was the last time I wrote a story in 30 years that wasn't for school, work or just because I wanted to write a story.Well, that wasn't exactly true. In high school I wrote an LGBT romance that took up eight large notebooks with tiny lines. In college, I wrote for a newspaper and a radio station writing radio plays in the vernacular. They let me tell the stories I wanted, so I guess those count.After college, however, I went into advertising. I got too busy writing to write. I wrote stories for brands, for politicians, milks, electric companies, shampoos, banks, shopping centers and more. Sure I wrote for people, and I tried to stay honest, but there was something missing. But I didn't care much, I had a job that paid well. Stories could wait.In 2009, everything fell apart. And I wrote even more. More words. Less important. I wrote everything: articles, blog posts, ebooks, ads and more ads, at least 7,000 words a day.I did, however manage to squeeze in a few stories for my friends. I was too broke to buy them proper gifts, soI wrote stories every time someone had a birthday. Yael's story was a birthday story too, I suppose. Just not the joyous birthday that everyone had hoped.In 2013, I realized that I was losing my words. When I speak, my sentences become garbled. I have always had trouble speaking in public, but for some reason, it became worse last year. Tests showed a spot, nonspecific, in the part of my brains that controls verbal skills.That was when I realized the stories cannot wait. That spot in my brain can either grow bigger or stay the same size, I don't know. But what I know is this: if I am losing my words, then I had better get them out now.

Book preview

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