Cotton thirsty for sun

A bright red wildflower he brought from the forest to plant in front of the house. At first glance, it looked like a sunflower, and similar to a peony, but it wasn't. This plant grew more strangely. For it, sunlight was an indispensable source of energy, the key to life, watering life. Strangely, the harsh sunlight of the Central region made the flower even more brilliant, pouting its red lips, when other species were withering. She named it Bong Khat Nang. He smiled and agreed as if it were a matter of course. Well, Bong Khat Nang, like a water lily or dien dien, that's all. A very Southern name. And since the old days, her imposition was always accepted unconditionally by him, without a single objection.

Illustration: LE NGOC DUY

The pre-Tet train to the South was empty. Of course, most workers left their hometowns to go to the South to work at the beginning of the year and returned home at the end of the year to be with their families, so tickets for the North-South train had to be booked several months in advance, while the North-South train was sparsely booked. So the ticket seller looked at her and smiled warmly: You can go to any car, sit in any seat. If you are tired, go to the sleeper car and sleep, there are not many people on the whole train.

Her choice to take the train was not a coincidence, but it ended a fate with this land, that person. In the past, at this same train station, he indifferently picked her up and they became lovers. The land full of sun and wind showed her a land with chivalrous people of the Southern style.

Then she fell in love, fell in love with the sun, fell in love with the wind, love seemed to permeate every fiber of her being, as if it could be grasped and caressed. She fell in love with each tragic name of the war, each pain of separation of the gentle river, each wild daisy along the roadside... She fell in love as if she had never been able to open her heart so much before. And now, at the moment when heaven and earth meet, people reunite, the ship has completed its strange mission of bringing her back to the South like a cycle of human life. She calls it fate.

The train whistle blew for a long time, then it moved away with a shudder. The group of people seeing me off gradually moved away, of course I was not among them. This was the first time I picked you up at this station, so I had to see you off for the last time, right? But now I was probably taking my kids to school, and they were arguing about something. The older one liked history, the younger one liked to discuss literature, so I often had to moderate the conversation.

The night before boarding the train, she went to his house - a rural area not far from the city. The three-room tiled house was nestled among a vast array of fruit trees. There was a time when she moved here to live with him, but eventually she had to move to her old house in the city to spend more time practicing. He had a passion for collecting fruit trees and planting them all over the garden.

In fact, she had wanted to guide him on the path she had chosen, but she felt that he was sentimental and had difficulty letting go of his own emotions, so she gave up. He told her that when he was young, he used to carry a can of rice and run for nearly a kilometer to feed a beggar woman. Once, on a business trip, he had to scrape up the last coin to help a poor mother in the mountains who was in trouble. On the way back, the car ran out of gas and had to call for help from friends.

Then he got caught up in the worries of everyday life. It was hard for this person to let go of everything, let alone let go of himself. She started on her chosen path, learning to ignore his pensive eyes every day, his distant and reproachful words. Then he gradually drifted away from the orbit of married life and focused only on taking care of the children, just as she had intended.

She chose a hidden corner to observe. In the house, they were having dinner. She could clearly hear the youngest child calling for her father, the sound of spoons and bowls clanging, and the sound of the water fan. Her older brother had a habit of using the electric fan regardless of the weather. He asked someone to bring him food. He was like that again. When they lived together, she often complained about him eating on the desk, the source of many illnesses. After the divorce, he lived with the youngest child down here, and she still texted him occasionally to remind him.

Let go, he told her!

The teacher said that in her previous life she was a palace maid serving in the palace. What a coincidence, every night in her dreams she saw herself and the princess being chased by a group of people. Then the teacher said that she had a predestined fate, she had to practice, had to let go, let go of all her blood relatives, and the rituals of worshipping her ancestors. Before meeting the teacher, she had found life too troublesome. Why did she keep getting caught up in the anger, hatred, and love of everyday life, and then embrace suffering? Why did she have to live that life?

She once confessed that she was not a family woman. She did not want to spend much time on that nameless job. Even family life was the same. It made people feel small in front of an endless world .

You have to free yourself, he told her!

Someone asked her to help him edit a book of poems before publishing. His poems were always full of pain and debt to life and people, so they were not elegant.

You have to let go, my dear, to feel light-hearted and at peace, she told the author. He pondered, knowing that but probably couldn't do it. Oh my, why does everyone have to suffer like this, she sighed.

Almost into the tunnel, someone said, there is Hai Van mountain, how beautiful. The train is like a giant wind python hugging tightly around the mountain pass. In this wonderful arc, everyone on the train has a rare moment to fully admire the shape of the long train rushing through the clouds.

Then the locomotive blew its whistle before plunging into the dark tunnel. Darkness was swallowing each carriage of the train.

Almost to her compartment, she sighed sadly. She quickly looked around, the sun was shining its warm rays through the clouds playing on the mountain top.

Time seemed to stop, she was between two halves of the world, in a few seconds, she would drift into the world of darkness. At this moment, she suddenly missed the Sun-thirsty Flower, the flower she had named.

Minh Anh

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