Hometown River

(Baonghean) - Where I live and work, I only see factories and ports. Many nights, looking out the office window at the vast ocean, I suddenly remember the river as soft as a strip of pink silk. The river is shy with its winding flow around the fields and villages.

Not immense, but wide enough to embrace the hard-working people who depend on the river for a living. The river provides shrimp and fish to warm the hearts of frugal meals. The river adds to create bowls of pure white rice grown from alluvial soil. The river ties into the hearts of children far from home a thread of longing and love that is not easily faded.

The only thing that comforts me when living in a new land is the thought that all rivers flow into the ocean. In the salty breath of the sea breeze, I believe that there is also the scent of my distant homeland. The sea embraces the river. Just like the river once embraced my childhood. On the nostrils that flutter with each breath I take, I always smell the faint scent of alluvium...

When I was a child, I often followed my father to the ferry to sell rice balls with sesame salt. People took the ferry very early to catch the market, to get to the train station, to get to the district town. Many people had messy hair, sleepy eyelids, and hungry stomachs. A hot rice ball eaten quickly while waiting for the ferry also warmed their hearts. A few stories told to each other always brought a feeling of closeness between people.

I often sat huddled in a thatched hut, burning a small pile of firewood to warm my hands and feet to keep warm. Spring rain mixed with the chilly river wind, I sat listening to a poor mother tell stories about picking medicinal leaves for her children. The teacher was also dirt poor but did not charge a single penny for the medicine.

Every time, he would give her a bunch of bananas, some young sticky corn, or split some cassava roots he had just picked up in the forest. One day, he arrived too early and the boat had not yet left. An old man stood there, busy stroking his hair, adjusting his shirt, and wrapping his new conical hat in an old piece of plastic. When asked where he was going, he said, “I’m visiting my old girlfriend after a long time.”

The ex-girlfriend was actually his wife. But the two of them never had any children, and he suspected it was his fault so he insisted on divorcing his wife. Now the old woman had a bunch of children and grandchildren, but unfortunately they all worked far away and could not come home to see their mother even once a year. Her second husband also passed away. She was lonely and alone.

He has remained single until now. Occasionally, remembering the old times, they would find an excuse to visit each other. Sitting selling rice balls, they would hear all kinds of stories about life and love. The river still flows quietly and gently through the years...

Although we were separated by only one river, the world on the other side was so interesting to me. I begged my father to let me go there to play many times. But he always said, “When you are old enough.” Every day, sitting and looking at the giant columns of smoke on the other side, I imagined that one day I would grow up and be able to travel here and there. To faraway lands, to meet new faces. But I did not know that one day, living in a developed city, I would suddenly feel lonely and isolated.

Now the old river wharf no longer has a boatman because the ferry runs noisily. Not many people remember the rice balls with sesame salt. Life changes, people's hearts go up and down. Perhaps only the hometown river remains the same, quietly flowing beside the fates of people...

Bui Quang Dung