Paper

Paper
by Catherine Lim

Summary of Paper

Tay Soon dreamed of having a beautiful house with a swimming pool. His wife, named Lee Yian, and his children also dreamed of having a wonderful house. At the time of the story they were living in the house of Tay Soon’s mother, but Lee Yian was unhappy there. Tay Soon and his wife had already saved 40,000 dollars, and they wanted to borrow the rest of the money that would be needed to buy the house.

At that time, the stock market became very popular. People were buying shares in companies and then selling them when the price of the shares went up, They were becoming rich doing this. Tay Soon and Lee Yian bought shares and soon the value of their money doubled. They told Lee Yian’s sister to buy shares, and she also made money. Tay Soon‘s mother, however refused to buy shares.

After some time, just as Tay Soon was dreaming of being very nice. The price of shares went down, and he began to lose his money. He did not sell his shares because he thought the price would go back up again. However, the value of his shares continued to go down until he had lost all his money. Lee Yian and Yee Yeng’ also lost their money.

Tay Soon went mad. His dream of owning a beautiful house had been destroyed. He stopped going to work and he beat his children. Finally, he had to go to hospital.

Tay Soon’s mother said she would pay for his funeral. She asked a man to make a paper house to look exactly like the one Tay Soon had dreamed of owning. The house was made of the best quality paper. It was beautiful. It had a paper swimming pool and paper cars like the ones Tay Soon had dreamed of owning.

The paper house was burned at Tay Soon’s funeral. It burnt in three minutes.