Hutao Drawing Novels & Stories

“I’m guessing I am going to sit with the kids and listen to you teach after all.” He smiled up at me. “Maybe.” He then started to draw on the board with white stone. He was not writing, he was drawing. “What are you drawing?” I asked him. “You’ll see.” I stood there and watched him draw. I tried to make out what he was drawing. It took a long while. But after that it started becoming clear. I smiled. A small group of children came up to his hut and joined me in watching him draw. They were all silent and just watched. When Yoké finished he took the stool away and stepped to the side so that we could all see the drawing.

“He’s always busy now.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry, Aurora. That must have felt really sad.” She nodded, then reached into her backpack and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I made this for you. At home last night.” I unfolded it carefully. It was a crayon drawing of stick figures: a tall man with dark hair, a little girl with pigtails, and....my stomach dropped, another woman with brown hair standing beside them, holding the little girl’s hand. A bright sun smiled overhead, and a clumsy wolf shape sat in the corner.

A minute later Keyla heard cupboard doors opening in the kitchen. Leo, at the table with paper and crayons, was drawing something he'd been working on since breakfast. Three figures in a house — the same round heads and stick bodies he always used, circles for heads, lines for bodies, and a square structure around them with a door. He'd labeled none of them, which was unusual; Usually there would already be letters beside each figure. Something seemed to occur to him. He switched crayons and went back to the drawing. Only then did Keyla look away from the contract. She leaned slightly toward the drawing. "Who's that?"

He asks. I nod at Harry, “It is my first time here in LUAHU. I didn’t know I drew this beach before. I swear to God I had no idea. I might have dreamed about this beach years ago and I have forgotten about it. No wonder it feels so familiar being in here. I usually draw things that I see in my dreams when I wake up or when an imagination pops into my head. But…. how did this happen?” Harry looks at me confusedly as he moved to the next image, “America, look at this one because this is much creepier.”

Priya unfolded it slowly, and laid it on the table. It was, exactly as she’d described, a child’s drawing. Rough lines, the kind only a very young child draws, a square house with a triangle roof, smoke coming from a chimney in careful zigzags, and outside it, standing in a row, six small stick figures, each one slightly different, each one clearly meant to be a specific person even though none of them had faces drawn in. Underneath, in careful, uneven child’s handwriting, the words Priya had quoted.

I tilted my head and bit my lower lip and look away. His face is full of different colors with different drawings. There's a big black circle around his eyes and if he closes his eyes you could see a another eye on it. I have drawn a hair at circles on his nose and something like a booger on it. I draw a middle finger on his cheeks and a drawl on his mouth. I even made his thick eyebrows thicker! However, he still looks handsome yet funny. My eyes widened when he stood up. "You are done? Then leave!" I gulped so hard and hide the nervousness I'm feeling.

I questioned, jutting my chin towards the ceiling as if Tia could see me. "Oh, just a drawing," She answered, and I tilted my head to the side, trying to understand the patterns. I hummed, rubbing my temples. "What does it mean?" I questioned, scanning the white surface which had some dots and lines connecting some parts. "Squint your eyes," Tia instructed. I followed her instructions, making out the drawing of a man and a woman. "Oh, wow! How was it drawn to only work when you squint your eyes?" I asked, releasing my brows and eyes.

I pressed my palms flat against the corners to smooth it out, making sure every line and detail was fully visible. Drawn across the surface was the plan. The house that would one day belong to Lila and me. Even under the dim glow of the oil lamps hanging from the tent posts, the inked lines were clear. Around me stood Wade, Krill, Earl, and several of my most trusted men. They formed a half-circle around the table. I cleared my throat and traced my finger along the outline of the drawing. “This is how the exterior and interior of the cottage should look.” I moved my hand toward the outer sections of the drawing.

Therefore, he drew a picture on his own, trying to paint the beautiful aunt and the child together based on his shallow memory. Joseph took the drawing paper and barely made out that these two figures were a woman and a child. Their heads were drawn oversized, and the proportions were completely off. Zack's typical way of drawing had always involved starting with a large circle and then adding small circles for eyes and nostrils, which often resembled a piglet more than a human. Joseph let out a soft sigh. Did he draw this portrait in order to find a beautiful aunt? Joseph asked, "Where did you see this beautiful aunt?"

"What does your new friend look like, Heidi?" Heidi proudly lifted her drawing. It was a crude, childish sketch of a very tall figure standing between two giant green trees. The figure was colored completely in dark gray and black crayons, but the most unsettling part was the face. Heidi had used a bright yellow crayon to draw two massive, perfectly round circles for the eyes.