Page 175 - Thorn In The Heart

Chinh Nguyên

Nguyen looked at his sister.

"I cried much time!"

"Why?"

"In suddenly I remembered our grandparent." In emotion
and low voice, Nguyen said.

"Oh...Your eyes were moist now!"

Nguyen wiped his tears, ran to the house and said:

"Because you...! I will tell mom."

When Nguyen was a little boy, he learned a lot of good
things from his grandpa by the legend stories. Also, he
understood a little about Vietminh’s communism and French’s
colonialism, but he did not pay attention to these doctrines until
the war devastated his village and killed the people.

Nguyen’s grandpa had habit sitting on the bamboo bench at
the front yard corner under the moonlight. Also, Nguyen always
lay on his arms to look at the full moon and listen to his grandpa
told him about legend stories. Nguyen always wished to be a
hero as a valiant man in legend stories, and a good person as his
grandpa wanted him to be when he was alive.

Nguyen hated Vietminh, French colonial, and their cruel
rules that they applied to the people in the village. They used the
people as slaves to produce profit, killed the people as they
killed an animal without reason and emotion in their souls.

It seemed they had the barbarous heart of a wild animal
since their eyes were cold on the wax-faces, their hands always
wanted to put in blood to make the people fearing and run away
from them.

175