Illustration by Dao Quoc Huy
16-08-2009
By Vu Hong
VNS
At twilight, Mr Bay Triet usually went to the plains of alang grass with a bag over one shoulders. The entire area was dimly lit under the starry sky.
There were only nine families in our little hamlet. We were the first clans to settle in this half-wild land heavily polluted with alum water and toxic waste after the liberation of South Viet Nam. I remember that our migration to this locality happened between mid-1978 and the end of that year. Every night, looking out of the small window of our shanty I felt happier than I did in the days we evacuated to and stayed at the township of Kien Hoa for I was able to contemplate swarms of fire flies hovering over the cork plants by the Ba Lai River to my heart’s content. But I soon found it rather boring. You see, we children are very fond of new things at first, then we tire of them in a matter of days!
In the daytime, we came under a blazing sun. As far as the eye could see, there stood only a few cork trees and several calophylluses.
"This place is full of toxins sprayed by the enemy," Mum told me
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