Sowing Good - Short story contest by Cao Minh Teo

Looking up, Tam caught the boy's eyes looking at him.

1. The rain poured down, sounding like someone letting out a sigh. The rain wasn't heavy, but heavy like a person's heart. Each drop tapped on the tin roof, making me want to cry. The wind was also silent. The silence touched my heart, reminding me of something very old, something I thought I had forgotten but was still there.

The boy was about 10 years old. Skinny. His legs were crooked. He was huddled under the awning of the restaurant. His T-shirt was faded, soaked, and stuck to his skin. A stack of lottery tickets was crumpled in a thin plastic bag. His hair was down, dripping wet. He looked like a drowned rat in the cold rain. He stood still. He didn’t dare to go in. His eyes were glued to someone’s hot plate of rice. A hungry, pitiful gaze.

Taking off the raincoat and putting it on the boy, Tam said hoarsely.

- Lady, give the boy a plate of rice, I'll pay. Lots of meat!

The boy looked up, his eyes wide, his voice mumbling something unintelligible. Perhaps he was not used to being fed delicious food without having to buy anything.

Tam turned away, trying to hide his weakness. But the rain at that moment was as warm as a comforting hug, as if someone had leaned their head on his shoulder and cried.

Suddenly there was a soft call, pulling Tam's leg back.

- Please buy me some tickets, they're about to be released soon...

Tam stopped, rummaged in his pockets, and hesitated. But looking at the boy's bright eyes, he was mesmerized.

Give it here.

The boy gave Tam a stack of lottery tickets, his voice chattering.

- Remember to check, uncle.

Tam walked away alone. Behind him, he heard the sound of spoons hitting rice plates, the smell of food… and the boy's grateful eyes.

The sun rose. Pale. Fragile. Pale yellow like diluted honey. The three lottery tickets in his faded shirt pocket seemed to have been wrapped by Tam's small hands, holding a silent belief in life.

Sowing Good Seeds - Short story contest by Cao Minh Teo - Photo 1.

ILLUSTRATION: AI

2. Tam sat down on the bench.

Silence. Eyes half-closed. The bag of scrap metal placed neatly at his feet. Tam hadn’t collected much today. No aluminum. The bottles were all thin, cheap plastic. Tam sniffed and rubbed his stomach. Empty!

- Never mind! A pack of raw noodles is enough for a meal.

The sunset was red. The wind blew from the river. In the wind, the clear voice of the lottery ticket seller echoed.

- 582916… Right…

The whole Cai Keo market was bustling.

Tam took three lottery tickets out of his pocket. His hands were shaking. His eyes were blinking. The last two numbers matched. Tam frowned and counted again. The six numbers matched perfectly.

The lottery ticket seller screamed! Mr. Tam won the jackpot!

Eight sat still on the bench!

Just felt like a piece of raw noodles stuck in my throat, not yet able to go down my intestines.

Tam's eyes stung. Tam cried.

Crying as if someone had just punctured his hardened life, opened it up, and poured in a handful of light. The light of a very deep longing.

People thought he was so happy he cried. But he said… he was scared!

He was afraid that poverty had become a habit, and now that he had money, he would lose his way. He was afraid that his miserable habits would be swept away like the soda can he had crushed and thrown into a bag.

Then he said… remember!

His father died in the year of famine. The flood from upstream poured in so fast that he could not breathe. He was too poor to have a proper coffin to bury him. He had to take down some of the kapok wood panels from the house door and put them together to make a coffin. He was buried under a row of myrtle trees, with grass growing knee-high. No tombstone. No incense.

Tam said, the life of a poor person, when he dies, is worse than a candle burning out its wick.

Tam cried again. Some children playing hide and seek in the nearby park came running over. Some stared at him with wide eyes. Some whispered, he's crazy.

No. Eight provinces!

He stuffed the three lottery tickets back into his pocket.

Then he sat there until late at night.

Tam looked up at the sky. The January moon was bright like a lamp hanging in the middle of the vastness, without words.

His stomach was still hungry. But his head was full of thoughts.

3. HTV went to the carpentry workshop to film a report.

Tam was splitting wood, his bare back dry and wet from the midday sun.

The journalist paused, his eyes stopping at Tam's arm.

- Hey, what tattoo do you have?

Looking up, Tam smiled. Tam showed everyone his March tanned arm.

"Body donation - University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital".

No one said another word.

The camera stopped rolling. The cameraman’s eyes suddenly became still. Everyone heard the news drop, weightless…!

Tam spoke as if telling someone's story. His voice was calm but there was something aching under the calm shell.

- If I die someday, I will leave my body for the children to learn. Let them dissect and study well. When they save people, then I will have contributed something...

The words fell! Lightly! But like the sound of a pestle pounding rice in the afternoon in the countryside.

No one moved. People were stiff as if they were covered with glue!

Then Tam bent down to the 2 meter long log. He quietly split it. Each piece of wood came out, as if a thread of time was being pulled from the tree trunk.

Last month, Tam went to the province to receive a certificate of merit.

Eight statements:

- I didn't do anything big. I remembered my father died and didn't have a proper coffin to bury him. I thought, the living can help each other, and the dead should be helped even more.

Below the hall, people clapped loudly. Everyone's eyes were sparkling, bright like the 500kV power line that was brought to the West last year.

MC asked Tam:

- How many situations have you helped so far?

Tam scratched his head and laughed heartily:

- I should probably ask my wife... I don't remember!

4. The carpentry shop is called Tam Tang. The name sounds dry, but it is easy to understand. Taking care of funerals with heart. Whenever someone poor dies, Mr. Tam's army of volunteers, including people who work as chanting teachers, motorbike taxi drivers, lottery ticket vendors, or silversmiths, will come. Without waiting for anyone to invite them, without any conditions, they will come as fast as the wind.

Good news spread far and wide. The name gradually became familiar, and became a spiritual support for the poor. Someone from a neighboring village came to ask for help. Tam did not refuse.

The coffin was tightly closed and buried according to the custom of our ancestors. Instead of eating salty food like other people, Tam prepared a vegetarian meal.

Sometimes Tam even gave back bags of rice, incense sticks, and envelopes with several million in them to help those who stayed behind.

Whenever he saw a group buying whole bundles of votive paper, burning it until the smoke filled the sky, and scattering it all over the street, Tam frowned, shook his head, and said:

- Yes, it is a pity, a pity. But who would use it, why burn it like that? It's a pity for the money, a pity for the passersby, and a pity for the poor fate of the living.

People wondered why he did it without calculating the salary, Tam waved his hand. Tam smiled gently like a rice field after the rain.

- Why bother? Do a good deed, take the money, it's strange. Help people, sleep well at night. So happy…!

Seeing her husband was skinny and always worried about other people's business, Mrs. Tu Lia grumbled:

- … Maybe I'll die, and you won't even know! How annoying!

Eight laughs...

That said, every time someone poor died, Mrs. Tu Lia volunteered to go to the kitchen. She painstakingly cooked a pot of vegetarian vermicelli soup, fried each piece of tofu, and meticulously washed white radish to braise. Some people said, vegetarian food is too fussy…!

She waved her hand and said calmly:

- Why risk your life?

Just vegetables, just roots… When the guests finished one dish, she would bring another. The vegetarian meal was exactly like the meat meal. So delicious!

5. The other day a kid in the neighborhood died. He went to work in an industrial shrimp farm in Dam Doi. He was electrocuted and died. His father left him for another woman when he was a baby. His mother had a heart condition. They were dirt poor.

Hearing the news, Tam did not say a word. His face turned stern, his feet hurriedly stepped out into the yard. He climbed onto his old bicycle and pedaled it in one breath. He only had time to turn his head and call out to the men in the group of officials who were sitting drinking tea:

- Prepare the coffin…! Remember to bring burial items…!

The house was rickety and cold. The wind from the fields blew in, thin, cold and bitter like the life of mother and son. The boy's mother sat in the corner of the house. Her eyes were dry. She did not cry. Perhaps she had cried out all her tears!

He thrust a bag of pus into the boy's mother's hand. Before she could look up or ask anything, he said:

- Tu will come to chant later. If anything happens, call me.

Tam's voice was hoarse, but warm. The warmth of someone who had experienced hunger, who had witnessed the line between life and death.

6. Change the winning number. Eight go home.

Bought several fields and built a house. Tam rebuilt his parents' graves. Then, Tam asked the neighbors to contribute labor and bricks to rebuild the communal house yard to worship the local god, where he used to gather to play hopscotch and adults used to burn incense on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month.

Tam did not say much, just smiled toothlessly, "to keep it clean, so that the living can remember the dead."

He also re-roofed the porch of the Thuong Dong temple, where, as a child, Tam would come to burn incense and ask for forgiveness whenever he was afraid of ghosts or had made a mistake. The old roof was rotten, the water coconut leaves rotted layer by layer like old people's skin, and the wind and rain kept whipping them over and blowing them away. Now, Tam re-roofed it, carefully, not letting a single drop of rainwater fall onto the altar.

Sometimes people saw Tam sitting diligently in the middle of the wild garden, turning leaves with both hands, selecting each stem, carefully wrapping the herbal medicine to bring to the temple. When meeting the monk, Tam just said: "The forest trees also have a heart, teacher!"

Poor temple. People come to ask for oriental medicine.

Tam is not a doctor, just a person who remembers the old path.

I remember years ago, my mother used to wrap toothache medicine for people without taking a penny.

Someone asked Tam, after living for decades in a foreign land, why don't you enjoy life when you're old, but keep working hard?

Tam smiled softly and said softly:

- Well, I'm done living... Now to pay off the debt. Give my hometown a little love.

People say winning the lottery changes your life, but Tam only changes back what he once had and what he once lost, like the village, fields, graves, the blood roots that life pushed him away from when he was young.

7. Tam got married. Mrs. Tu Lia, ten years younger than him. Mrs. Tu Lia was widowed after storm number 5 last year, her house was far away in Song Doc. The storm swept through, blew away the roof, all her savings, leaving only the cold ground. Her husband also died at sea. The sea fed people, now it swallows people.

Returning to Rach Ngang, Mrs. Tu lived with her second brother and his wife. They loved each other, but poverty would not go away no matter how hard they tried. Hate it!

Small house, many people, few fields…

On the day of the announcement, the neighbors came to bless Mrs. Tu. She blushed with embarrassment, shy like a teenage girl. Then she said:

- He seems gentle... his smile is cute and kind, I like it. Oh well...

Honest as counting, like a tiny hope planted in the midst of a difficult life. Yes, the fate of a small person, thinking about it makes me feel so pitiful! I pity the tender love in the eyes of strangers. I pity the skinny hands that know how to hold each other through difficult days. I pity people... and then heaven also pity me!

So Tam and Tu came back together, one house!

Fifty years old, getting married. It sounds late, but thinking about it... it's just right. Just right for Tam's life of hardship, tossed and turned by wind and rain, now to have a place to anchor. Anchored not because the storm has ended but because people have learned to wait for each other.

He often sat on the porch, drinking a cup of "crazy tea", smoking a cigarette. Then he smiled to himself. The smile of someone who had tasted enough bitterness, now enjoying a little sweetness.

The fifth Living Well Writing Contest was held to encourage people to write about noble actions that have helped individuals or communities. This year, the contest focused on praising individuals or groups that have performed acts of kindness, bringing hope to those in difficult circumstances.

The highlight is the new environmental award category, honoring works that inspire and encourage action for a green, clean living environment. Through this, the Organizing Committee hopes to raise public awareness in protecting the planet for future generations.

The contest has diverse categories and prize structure, including:

Article categories: Journalism, reportage, notes or short stories, no more than 1,600 words for articles and 2,500 words for short stories.

Articles, reports, notes:

- 1 first prize: 30,000,000 VND

- 2 second prizes: 15,000,000 VND

- 3 third prizes: 10,000,000 VND

- 5 consolation prizes: 3,000,000 VND

Short story:

- 1 first prize: 30,000,000 VND

- 1 second prize: 20,000,000 VND

- 2 third prizes: 10,000,000 VND

- 4 consolation prizes: 5,000,000 VND

Photo category: Submit a photo series of at least 5 photos related to volunteer activities or environmental protection, along with the name of the photo series and a short description.

- 1 first prize: 10,000,000 VND

- 1 second prize: 5,000,000 VND

- 1 third prize: 3,000,000 VND

- 5 consolation prizes: 2,000,000 VND

Most Popular Prize: 5,000,000 VND

Prize for Excellent Essay on Environmental Topic: 5,000,000 VND

Honored Character Award: 30,000,000 VND

The deadline for submissions is October 16, 2025. The works will be evaluated through the preliminary and final rounds with the participation of a jury of famous names. The organizing committee will announce the list of winners on the "Beautiful Life" page. See detailed rules at thanhnien.vn .

Organizing Committee of the Beautiful Living Contest

Sowing Good Seeds - Short story contest by Cao Minh Teo - Photo 2.