A small, peaceful space

(Baonghean) - My little haven of peace is the street corner where old apartment buildings still stand, and the memories of a beautiful childhood in my fourth-floor apartment. These old buildings are becoming increasingly rare, and they seem out of place in the crowded, modern streets of Vinh. But the memories of them remain intact within me…

Sometimes, memories are like a slow-motion film. You keep remembering a particular image intensely, and it keeps recurring in your mind every day like a slow-motion film, like a dream, like an illusion.

I had a dream like that too. In the dream, I was running up the old, dilapidated stairs of the apartment building where I used to live, up to the fourth floor. My hands traced the yellowed wall and stopped at the room numbered 403. Silently looking inside through the window, I saw a little girl with blonde hair cradling an old doll in a red dress. She looked out the window because she seemed to have heard a noise outside. She looked straight at me but didn't see me…

I wondered what was preventing our gazes from meeting, even though we were only half a room apart. I wondered what would happen if I knocked, opened that familiar blue door, and stepped inside…

Quang Trung Apartment Complex

I would sit down on the mahogany bench, gently rubbing away the tea stains that had settled on the tabletop. I would approach the corner near the glass cabinet, gazing at the scribbled letters I had written there when I first learned to read. The black cat used to curl up on the stool here, and this drawer of the cabinet where my mother kept her sewing supplies. That corner chair over there, where, as a little child, I would play and bump into it, falling onto the floor. I would cry until my tears ran dry. Then I would beg my mother to let me sit on the windowsill and look down at the street. That was the quickest way for me to stop crying. The windows looked out onto the world, and my world back then was Vinh City with its bustling, joyful atmosphere.

That old apartment complex is gone, replaced by a high-rise building with modern elevators. My family moved to the suburbs a long time ago, but I still commute to work every day along the old road. No matter how rushed I am, I can't help but look up at the top of the building, where my apartment, room 403, used to be on the fourth floor. And many times I gaze intently at the old apartment complexes, buildings that are perhaps living out their final years before soon being replaced by new apartment buildings. In them, I find a glimpse of Vinh City from the 70s and 80s. They belong to a bygone era, yet they still exist here, old, gray, and moldy, but strangely peaceful.

The sunset adds to the old, mossy appearance.

Quang Trung Street is lined with many old apartment buildings. Some are gray, some yellow, some reddish-brown, but the most interesting thing is the balconies jutting out, each one unique and unlike any other. Most balconies are used for drying clothes, but some are also used for growing flowers. There are pots of orchids, lilies, jade plants, portulaca, petunias, climbing daisies... but the most beautiful and striking are the bougainvillea bushes. They blaze against the old, grayish-brown backdrop of the apartment complex, like the highlight of a painting, the climax of a piece of music, the flash of light in a dream...

A corner of the courtyard of the apartment complex.

When you're overwhelmed by life's hustle and bustle, you need a quiet corner. A tranquil garden, a starry sky, a canopy of purple blossoms, or a peaceful morning sitting on a park bench… My little corner of peace is the street corner where old apartment buildings still stand, and the memories of a beautiful childhood in my fourth-floor apartment. These old buildings are becoming increasingly rare, and they seem out of place in the crowded, modern streets of Vinh. But the memories of them remain intact within me… Now, in my restless dreams, by the window where I used to stand so many times, the girl with the blonde hair doesn't seem to recognize me. Perhaps I've been gone too long, too caught up in the whirlwind of the present world, to recognize myself, even though we're separated only by a window?

Thuy Vinh - Quynh An