Page 9 - Thorn In The Heart

Chinh Nguyên

while the sound of bombs and canons always echoed to their
ears. Nowhere, tomorrow they will die by the bullets flying
through their bodies in the early morning, or like the muddy
blood by the Communist rockets, which will send into the cities
at midnight.

Somewhere, after the thunder exploded, there is blood
appear before their eyes, and the collapsed building brick-heaps
covered the muddy bodies.

There are the baby’s cries inside the smoke building and the
blood mixed with the water and were continuing to fill the holes
on the streets, while the people struck with panic.

Nguyen gets up from the sofa to turn the light switch off,
while the images of his village were always crossing his mind
with the flame and thick smock rising in the sky. The French
warplanes were dull on the sky to drop the bombs into the
village, where the cannon shells are flying over people heads
and howled in the air then exploded. So many people died, burn
in the flame and injuries on the streets. Houses in the village are
pocked with the shell fires while the terrible cries were loudly
anywhere for help.

The living room is dark as the wild field catafalque with the
chilly win are blowing and howling in the slits under the doors.
The only thing alive is the cigarette lighter on Nguyen’s fingers,
which is dim and moving in the air. It looks like his soul dancing
with the sobbing music, while the sounds of the patrol helicopter
are rising in the deep night air.

Nguyen puts the last cigarette on his lips and takes a
matchbox on the living room table after he draws a long sigh of
sorrow. In slowly of chagrined, he lights a cigarette, lean deeply
into the sofa with his fatigue and indifference, while he holds a
match up on the tips between his thumb and forefinger to look at
the fire dancing in the dark. His face is barely visible from the

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