Short story: Living with the dawn
Nam pushed the door open, a few faces looked up, the shop was deserted on a late night. Outside, it was drizzling. The rain was caused by storm No. 13, making the night even more desolate.
Nam pushed the door open, a few faces looked up, the shop was deserted late at night. Outside, it was drizzling. The rain from the circulation of storm No. 13 made the night even more desolate. The group of gentlemen drooped their red clothes by the window looking down at the street. There were few people or vehicles. The clock hands moved to a new day. The people who lingered at this shop mostly did not want to go home, or maybe for some reason, they chose to sit here with coffee, or light wine and let themselves drift into the night to wait for the new day with a jumble of contemplation. Most of the customers were people who had experienced the hardships of life, experienced the economic recession. They came and spoke softly, sighed, sipped coffee. Sometimes they were alone and silent, drenched in the night.
The strange shop only opens from 10 pm to 7 am the next morning, like a romantic business in the time when every inch of land is gold and time makes money. The shop is located in an old apartment building that is probably over 50 years old in this city. The shop owner is a middle-aged man with long, curly hair, dark skin and thick, dark lips. He is alone in the shop. He makes and serves the drinks himself. Customers come to the counter to order and when they leave, they naturally put money in a small iron box on the counter. If the bill is larger than the price of the drink, they can boldly empty the iron box and find change to get the remaining amount. The shop owner is busy making drinks, sometimes washing glasses, but sometimes the dark-skinned man is playing a guitar gently and softly. "Please do not disturb, especially the money." The shop owner posted this sentence large and clear on the drink counter made from an old, purple, refurbished cyclo.
On the 6th floor, in a house, men drifted into the night.
***
During the real estate freeze, Tinh returned to the rented house in the suburbs with empty hands. After only two years, Tinh looked old and haggard, surprising his friends. The children who had left their homeland came to this city with the hope of changing their lives. Starting from the letters in the classroom, then to the part-time jobs, the days of searching for an internship company until getting an official position in a suitable company was actually a journey that no one could have imagined.
The suburban rented house with affordable rent for four boys witnessed nights of studying, sighs of boredom, tears of resentment because of the story of old ghosts bullying new ghosts in the office and heard the four boys laugh when their Tet bonus was enough to repair their parents' house and buy a car for themselves. In that same house, the four boys burned incense and considered each other as brothers, praying for a beautiful house for each of them. But Tinh chose to leave first, in the skyrocketing real estate market. Tinh's bachelor's degree in education was neatly packed at the bottom of his suitcase. Tinh ran from the East to the West of the city. Tinh saw the number of numbers jumping into his account getting higher and higher. Tinh patted his drunken friends on the shoulder with the roast duck to say goodbye. I'll go first but I'll take you guys along. The whole group nodded and sighed.
That day, Vi was also sitting with us. She chose to leave the city to go to Thieng Lieng island in the campaign to increase teachers for this remote salt island. Vi looked at Tinh and shook her head slightly. Tinh was always impatient, like an inflated balloon, the land would bury money, people would bury themselves in the land. Vi was born and raised on this land. The day the land turned around hastily for bustling urban areas, Vi's parents also rushed into the land, also grabbing each piece of land according to the times. Just like that, selling small pieces and borrowing more from the bank to get a bigger piece. When the big piece got a good price, they sold it again and borrowed more from the bank to split it into two big pieces. Just like that, the land bloomed with thirst. Thirst that was never satisfied.
The day the land burst like an over-inflated bubble, the bank interest had increased to several hundred million a month. The house that my grandparents left for my parents had to be sold to cover the loss. But the freeze was a persistent freeze. The inflation chart continued to fall miserably. Vi and her parents moved to a rented house in Binh Chanh to wait for the right time. But before the right time had come, the bank's deadline had come. And so they went bankrupt one by one. Vi understood, Vi felt it, but Vi could not convince Tinh.
Vi chose to say goodbye to Tinh to go to Thieng Lieng. Tinh chose to leave the suburban boarding house to go to the city center. The friends were bewildered. Duy, Ky and Nam sat listening to time slowly move towards dawn. But then Nam was right, Tinh had returned.
***
On the day Ky got married, Nam didn't come home. Nam carried his camera and rode his motorbike through more than 80 countries, stopping in a desert somewhere in Africa. Nam said that girl was brave as hell, and that carrying a wandering poet on top of that would make her life miserable. Ky calmly said that it was love. The simplest thing in life is love. It's just that people think too deeply and become afraid. Like Ky, she's happy enough to live like that!
Nam still regularly updates his journey. Sometimes Vi tells Nam that living a leisurely life will be hard when he gets old. Everyone will eventually get tired, when looking back, loneliness sometimes kills people before they get old. Come back, Vi will matchmake you with the most gentle teacher, Thieng Lieng. Nam puts a smiley face in Vi's chat and then transfers the matchmaking offer to Duy. The guy is the richest in the group with a villa in the misty mountain town.
Duy was talented and calm. After graduating, he pursued a career in architecture. Combined with his passion for drawing when he was young, Duy's designs always conquered those who loved delicate beauty. Duy rose quickly. The day Duy left the boarding house, no one was as nervous as Tinh. But Duy was still the weirdest kid in the group. The weirdness lay in his personality, appearance, and even the unimaginable things.
This city has fourteen million people, all we have to do is love each other and live. Duy lives leisurely and then disappears into the hustle and bustle of the crowd to make money. Ky still leisurely writes poetry. Tinh continues to dive into the dream of the land. Nam drifts with the wind. Luckily, Vi still sends messages to the group chat every day.
But for more than a week, Vi has not sent a single message.
***
Tinh arrived sleepily, looked at his rough, dusty friend and shook his head slightly. This city would be peaceful if it weren't for a stray like you. Nam remained silent. He looked down the street. It was past two in the morning, the street was deserted. The owner of the bar began to get excited, spreading gentle drops of music throughout the room. The men still drifted into the night with a state of wakefulness.
Ky arrived in his jogging clothes as the sun began to set. It was 5am and the shop was starting to empty. The men who had drifted in from the night had long since disappeared. Only four men sat looking down at the street from the window of the old apartment.
Vi returned to the city on summer days. The night was a bit drunk from the gathering. The Saigon rain seemed to soothe empty souls. Loneliness is what makes people melt into the rain the easiest. That night, Tinh took Vi back to the rented house on the outskirts of the city. The thirst for land was covered by the thirst for love. It turned out that Vi was still single on the small island. After ten years standing on the podium, Vi was chosen to be the principal of an elementary school surrounded by water. It took more than a day to get from the city center to the salt island. Vi saved up enough to buy a small house and decided to stay on the remote island. There, Vi knew that the poor children needed her more than the lights of the bustling city. Vi gave Tinh a choice.
In her drunken state, Vi pushed Tinh into the corner of the bed. Tinh was like a dry branch that had not been watered for years. Tinh felt like she was flying in the cool, fresh air. When Tinh woke up in the morning, Vi had disappeared.
Four thirty-year-old men looked at the gloomy autumn morning because of the storm that had just passed. To the west of the city, the land had blossomed into a riverside urban area. To the east, the land had blossomed into administrative and commercial buildings connected to the train from Suoi Tien station. But to get to Thieng Lieng island, one had to cross the Vam Sat forest road, with a total of one large ferry and two small ferries. Thieng Lieng was still part of the city but was far away. Was autumn in the east, autumn in the west, or autumn in Thieng Lieng any different?
I don’t know if it makes any difference, but this fall, Vi became a mother. Duy took a deep drag on his cigarette, blowing a circle of smoke into the air. The other three friends suddenly turned to look at Duy, then all their eyes fell on Tinh.
November has enough sun and wind but also rain so the city is filled with a gentle breeze.
***
Nam picked Tinh up from the suburban house, threw her on a motorbike and drove through the forest to find the salt island. When the sunset was red along the Long Tau River, the motorbike stopped at a small wooden house with a trellis of pure white flowers. Duy had been there for a long time. The house was built after Vi's text message. Duy was still a quiet person who only liked to do things and not talk. The house faced the salt fields. Tinh still sat there pensively watching the sunset fade into the sky and earth. There was no sound of vehicles at night. There was only the sound of whispers and Tinh's tears at night.
Half a month later, the wedding of only 5 people took place at the sleepless coffee shop. Vi smiled in her red ao dai. Tinh seemed to have stopped thirsting for land and instead craved the sounds of children. It turned out that at this age, Tinh had just realized that the ten years of her life had been winding around, and the time returned to Tinh was just the love that had completed a love affair.
Ky got drunk and read poetry again. Surprisingly, no one criticized Ky's poetry anymore. Those twenty days, now sitting here are people of the past Autumn. For the first time in ten years, Nam has finally stopped wandering and settled down in this city. Nam will come back with Duy to help with the design company. Also after all these years, Duy has decided to close the shop, so that the men will stop drifting into the night. Everyone has to live with the dawn.