The sunset at the largest beach in the outskirts of Saigon is not a romantic orange-red as people often see in movies. It is a thick and suffocating yellow. As if the sky itself is infected by millions of tons of waste being piled up below.
The last attractive wind blows, carrying the aroma of empty barrels of organic plows. The burning smell of smoldering plastic and the foul breath of biologically withered human parts. In the middle of the scene. An, a 24-year-old girl with a small body, is moving nimbly like a sparrow searching in fascination.
Her eyes, although certainly showing the fatigue of a day off, still have a slight alertness. Quickly scanning through each batch of materials to look for plastic bottles, big or small things that can be sold for a few silver coins. Not from here. She and her 18-year-old son, Lam, have been from the West to Saigon for 3 years. Since the day her parents died in a terrible traffic accident, the two sisters’ rented room was on the rooftop of an old apartment building, hot as a furnace during the day and freezing cold at night. Rent, food, and money for Lam to go to evening classes. All of it weighed heavily on An’s thin shoulders. So after eight hours of working as a sewing worker in the garden, she designed a car with a platform nearly a kilometer away to this beach, trying to earn a little extra.
People often say: “With human strength, rocks can turn into rice.” An didn’t know if rocks could turn into rice, but she knew for sure that if she didn’t try, the two sisters wouldn’t have porridge to eat. Today was an unlucky day, the car had just flattened a new area, absorbing almost all the valuable things. The stench lingered, the stench was clean on her cheeks, the stench formed into stench.
She defined it as she would take it back. In the distance, near the construction area where few people frequented, there was something very strange. It was not a sack, nor was it an old piece of clothing. It had the shape of a person. An’s heart skipped a beat. In this complicated place, anything could happen. It could be a drunkard who forgot his way out, or a drug addict who was high on drugs.
But a girl’s intuition told her that something was right. Fear crept into her heart, but curiosity and a bit of hidden joy stopped her from walking forward. The closer she got, the clearer the scene became. A man was lying face down on the ground, half of his body was cleaned by pieces of plywood and rubble.
The clothes he was wearing were dirty, muddy and torn in many places. It was clearly not the map of the workers here. It was a Navi blue shirt and beige khaki pants. The fine fabric that An only saw in the brightly lit shops in the city center.
One of his shoes had been pushed away to reveal a pair of delicate socks, everything was terribly unusual. Brother, brother. A shop called, a running voice, no answer, only the sound of the wind breathing through the creepy materials next to it. She used all her strength to pull the man back, a face covered in blood and mud appeared before her eyes. Thick black hair wrapped around wide eyebrows.
There was a deep cut on the temple, the blood had gone into a dark brown patch. His lips were purple and dry, a fire brought a trembling finger to his nose, a weak breath as fragile as a thread came out. Alive! In a moment of resolution, An’s first thought was to run away.
Run away from this place, from this uninvited puppet tail. Saigon is splendid but also full of pitfalls, you can’t even take care of yourself, why worry about the matter of the guardians?” A golden rational saying popped up in her head. Hooking into this matter, remembering whether he was a criminal being chased or a gangster settling scores, how would the two sisters know how to live? But then when her eyes fell on the man’s surprise, the image of her father before that was most important, the situation.
Seeing someone in trouble and not saving them, please don’t be at peace for the rest of your life, my child. The intimate words were like a warm stream of water washing away all the fear and calculations in her heart. No, she couldn’t give up. Leaving a life in danger here, she wouldn’t protect the second for herself. The decision was made in the rules.
An looked around, the clearing was deserted, she used all her strength, trying to help the man who was much older than her up, but he was limp like a rag doll. Unable to be used. A race again old bicycle, pull out the rope still used to force the scrap.
She struggled for a long time, slightly sweaty all over the thin shirt, finally forced the man into the back of the saddle. His body staged on her back, heavy, the bicycle bent down. cried out to sit still as arranged. An trang, soaking all the strength in her legs, going round and round, slowly leaving the clearing, guiding towards the flickering lights of the city.
She did not know that the decision