Everyone refers to him as Khùng. It is unclear how long he's been in this prison
and what his real name is. It is also unclear whether he is mentally deficient
or just pretends to be. He speaks to neither the wardens nor his fellow
inmates. But he seems to understand what others tell him to do or not to do and
complies. No one knows why he is there. Had he been either a violent or
non-violent protester? If the latter, he would have been eliminated long ago.
If he had been judged insane, he would have been put in an institution not a
prison. Biologically and psychologically, Khùng is in a class unto himself.
Other prisoners have full names; the authorities know their dates of birth,
their places of origin, their dates of incarceration and their alleged crimes.
These prisoners have some idea when they came and how long they have been
imprisoned, although they don't remember know why. They have no idea what the
name of the prison is, in what region it is located, or whether it is on land
or on an island.
When
transported by car they were put in vehicles covered up on all sides. When
transported by boat, they were kept in the hold. When transported by train,
they were put in freight cars with the doors locked. They had been given no
warning they were being taken to this prison. They were notified individually
or in groups only a few minutes before being ordered to a gathering point. They
were afraid of being taken to a prison known for never releasing their inmates.
Their lives had
been taken from them along with their families and property. They are
prisoners of an endless present without any hope of learning their fate or
having a future beyond the walls of the prison. Judgment and reason become
nonsense when a man’s life is reduced to dull routine. The only thing that
keeps him alive is his fantasies, disoriented as they are with respect to space
and time. They survive as creatures confined in dark caves, divested of the
basic reference points of existence, victims of a spiritual torture unfamiliar
in the standard legal systems of human civilization, being subjected to
sentence without trial with unspecified terms. Not having any other choice,
they resign themselves to it and adjust as best they could and await the
unexpected. Their humanity has degenerated. They doubt the basic assumptions
about their own past such as memories of a life when they were free, the names
of familiar places or people they knew.
Disoriented
about existence, they have lost their sense of reality. They are surrounded by
strange creatures who serve as their wardens. They are not the same species as
theirs; their faces and bodies are covered with long yellow hair. They walk
upright like humans, but are known to run on all four limbs. Their mouths
protrude to display ferocious jaws. The jailors don't speak the same language
as their own. They communicate in some kind of crude speech that only simulates
human language. When the inmates listen to them speaking to each other, they
sound like ravens cawing, or chimpanzees screeching, or assault army dogs
barking. Cruel, bloodthirsty, mean.
However, the
wardens appear to understand human language and when necessary, can communicate
with inmates in four ways: speech, written notes, gestures and facial
expressions. Some wardens go around the camp undressed, displaying their hairy
bodies and faces, but most of them wear green uniforms. The fabric is unlike
anything the inmates have known on Earth. With time, this material gradually
disappears and is replaced by cloth.
On days that
appear to be some kind of celebration or holiday, high ranking officials come
to the prison for inspection. Instead of wearing green uniforms like the
wardens, these officials wear formal suits like officials on Earth. However,
they have yellow beards and often they walk on their hands and feet. They do
not stay long and the wardens follow them around like pets.
Khùng acts so
strangely that nobody knows if he is an Earth man or a creature from another
planet. Some guess he had been a criminal living on the same planet as the
wardens. It is clear that there isn't much in common between him and the
wardens. He looks human, always walks upright and has no yellow hair on his
face or body. His clothes are made of sandbags like those of the other
prisoners. His mouth does not protrude to display two ferocious jaws as the
wardens’ do. The way he eats and drinks is the same as the other prisoners and
follows the same fixed schedule. The wardens eat anytime, anywhere, on the
ground, in a tree. They do not care if the place is dirty or clean and eat
voraciously and quickly because they steal food from each other.
Khùng uses only his facial expressions communicate and only when he is forced to
do so. Most of the time, he has a blank expression. From time to time, as if he
is remembering something, he displays emotions such as anger, discontent, joy,
sadness, love, and hatred. That is another reason his fellow inmates assume he
is human. It means that he must once have been a member of human society,
experiencing suffering and happiness, love and disappointment, looking forward
to the future and his fulfillment of his destiny. He might have been a
brave soldier resolutely advancing toward the enemy and then condemned by fate to
be imprisoned. He might have been a scholar, a university professor, a writer,
a poet, a playwright, a musician, a painter, an artist, a singer, an unlucky
lover, a faithful husband and a dedicated father. In short, he might have once
been human, living his life under the sun that shone above the Long Range
Mountains and the faithful waters of the Red River and the Mekong River. But no
one will ever know Khùng’s past. Perhaps even Khùng himself has lost it along
with his language.
Language is
normally viewed as a means of restoring the past, understanding the present or
discussing the future; the sine qua non for human existence. Language, whether
spoken or written serves as a means for sharing parts the immense space hidden
by the darkness of the past. That immense space might include the happy sunny
days of youth, animated by bird songs in spring, summer, and fall. On those
days, clouds rolled above prairies, flooded with multicolored flowers. Those
were carefree school days with teenage diaries full of affection, aspiration,
inconsolable sorrows, unfulfilled dreams, and unanswered loves. All the
experiences of normal life flowed as a river going up and down with the tides
each day.
Without
language, man carries with him that entire obscure space as if he were a
boulder falling to the bottom of the river. Every day, the river goes
downstream to empty into the ocean and the boulder gets buried deeper in
obscurity. Every day, the water of the river carries so many messages but
none of them touch the boulder buried underneath a layer of inexorable
alluvial. Days, seasons, and years go on with the sun glittering on the river,
but never penetrating deep enough to warm the boulder. Seasonal rain comes to
clean up the river, but never reaches him. Without language, he is cut off from
existence, unable to communicate. Without language, the past belongs to time,
not to man. If being alive is basically defined in terms of sound, light,
action and reaction, man without language is no longer fully alive.
Khùng doesn’t write to communicate. Perhaps he doesn’t know how to read or
write. No one has ever seen him write. The wardens carry out frequent
searches of the prisoners and seize any personal items such as notes or
sharpened objects. If any kind of note is found on a prisoner, he is thrown in
solitary confinement for long periods. No one knows if Khùng ever committed such
violation and ever received such penalty.
All writing is done is public during the re-education sessions conducted by the
wardens. The wardens summon the prisoners to a large room. They give each
inmate a pen and a sheet of paper. Then, they lecture them for hours and expect
the inmates to take notes. The prisoners must put their names on their papers.
After the lecture, the wardens collect the notes. Later the same day, the
wardens gather the inmates again, return the notes, and order them to write
essays on subjects specified by the wardens. The wardens again collect the
essays.
During each lecture, the wardens describe their civilization. According to
them, they come from Planet X in Constellation 2X. Their race is preeminent
compared with the creatures on Earth. Their civilization does not need to
evolve nor does it rely on any special frame of reference. Their civilization
came into existence fully formed to dominate the universe with superior
intelligence and invincible power. Their species exists only to serve their
civilization by enslaving inferior beings such as the prisoners on Earth. The
principal way they control their slaves is to neutralize their brainpower,
gradually nullifying their own language and then replacing it with the language
of Planet X over time. Their ultimate goal is to remove their Earth essence
completely and transform their prisoners into inhuman creatures.
The wardens lecture the prisoners that no one could stop their superior
civilization from colonizing every planet in the universe. Once Planet X
conquered a planet, the inhabitants are forced to deliver all resources of
food, energy and minerals. Eventually, all inferior civilizations would be
reduced to classless universal worlds. According to the wardens, the
enslavement would not last forever. Eventually, the oligarchy of Planet X would
pervade the universe. All civilizations would be replaced by the yellow
hair oligarchy. No others species would keep their own language or their own
brainpower. There would be no need for direct control as everything would be
subject to the ever-growing power of Planet X. The universe would become an
eternal paradise, directed remotely by them and formed into one common
classless society.
In this universal world, the need for food would no longer be a problem. Once
brainpower is slowed sufficiently, the digestive and circulatory systems of the
enslaved would slow down as well. They would no longer feel hunger and thirst.
The entire population would live without enough energy to have aspirations,
desires, doubt, and questions. When necessary, the masters would wake their
sleepy slaves long enough for them to carry out their orders before letting
them sink back to into their half existence.
Once the universe is fully transformed, the yellow hair oligarchy would return
to Planet X and rule from afar. They would assign a large population of
successfully re-educated slaves to govern the backward creatures throughout
their vase empire.
These lectures are an integral part of re-education programs for prisoners
scattered all over the universe. The wardens have learned to adapt their own
guttural language to include enough words and phrases to make the prisoners
understand what they are saying. With repetition over years, they will replace
the prisoners’ language with their own. The wardens seem to have the power to
know what the prisoners are thinking. Therefore, no matter what the prisoners
say or write, the wardens know it is not the truth, just the regurgitation of
the information in the lectures.
During the
lectures, Khùng does not take any notes. His facial expression is blank as if he
doesn’t understand what the wardens are saying. He just sits there. No one
seems to pay attention to him because they have come to think of him as being
was mentally deficient somehow.
As they grew to
understand the yellow hair oligarchy's language, the prisoners eventually
viewed the lectures as a break in their horrible existence. They write the same
essays about the glory of Planet X; the yellow hair oligarchy as the
intellectual pinnacle of the entire universe; its mission of enlightening all
creatures in that universe; and the irreversibility and infallibility of that
enlightenment process. They wrote about the fact that unlike other species, the
yellow hair creatures emerged strong because they were not subject to
evolution. Human evolution is inferior because it doesn't follow a clear,
straight path, but is a closed circle, ending where it began at zero,
never progressing in terms of biology, language, philosophy, technology, and
customs.
By listening to those lectures long enough, the prisoners learned what they had
to write to please their masters. In a strange way, the descriptions of the
alien civilization they were expected to include in their essays cheered up
them greatly. It helped them realize that they were human and still on Earth.
Their surroundings reinforced this realization as well.
They begin loving the streams they
would go swimming in every evening after done with everyday forced labor; they
begin sympathizing with the forests they're told to destroy, the yellow flower
valleys they're told to deforest. The sun is still the same as the time they
were free. Time is still stretching from their past days with their friends and
relatives. As long as the Earth is there with them, there's hope. They no
longer feel hurt and frustrated when plowing up red pebble hills to grow corn,
dry rice, knowingly aware it's just serfdom, though. Those hills are their own
homeland's. They no longer feel too much pain when attacked by countless
bloodsucking jungle leeches every time they go into forest to gather bamboo
shoots, fruit, or vegetables to sustain themselves. Those jungle leeches,
however mean they are, turn out nothing compared to the yellow hair creatures
coming from an unknown planet. As before, every morning, they take notice of
bird songs on the trees, of the sun rising in the east, and white clouds
gracefully flying in a blue sky as the time free of the enemy. As before, they
take notice of the cicadas' sorrowful chirping in summer noon and the frogs'
drifting croaks in rainy summer evenings.
On their brief excursions beyond the fences of the prison, the inmates surmised
the location of the camp. It has to be somewhere in the Central Vietnam because
of the changing seasons and distinct profile of the Long Range Mountains in the
west. Although they were forced to endure cold, rainy winters, shivering in
their coarse sand bag clothes, the warmth of spring and summer made their
burdens lighter. In autumn, they would take comfort from yellow leaves on the
trees on their way to and from labor work.
More often than
not, they encounter such wild animals as venomous snakes and hungry tigers in
the forests. However, those wild animals are frightened by their humanity and
disappear. It reminded them that they were human beings. In sharp contrast,
yellow hair creatures are not afraid and follow them everywhere: in sleep,
entertainment, even into the water closet. The prisoners cannot escape the
green uniforms as symbols of oppression.
Even the putrid
food made them remember they were still on Earth, even though it is more
suitable for livestock. It is made from bags of rotten rice abandoned for years
in the forest, decomposed from inside to outside, so infested with worms and
pests that the cook team don't even wash what is left of the rice well enough
to get rid of all the vermin. Instead, they simply pour water over it several
times, washing away the top layer of worms and pests. After it is cooked, the
brownish mixture that remains looks more like pig food than rice. After
distributing the bulk of it to the group, the cook team scrape the burned layer
in the bottom of the pot and distributed it as flavoring. The wardens likely
use this pig food to degrade the prisoners’ humanity.
Year after
year, the prisoners always hope they will be released as a result of their
total submission and their repeated self-critical essays extolling the yellow hair
species. It is the logic of desperation. In fact, even if they were released,
true freedom is no longer possible. They have lost so much of their humanity,
including their own language that they no longer will be able to live outside
the oligarchy of the yellow haired race. While they are able to communicate
with their captors, they forget that they are using the alien language to do
so, not their own.
While the
majority of the prisoners survive in captivity without protesting, there are
exceptions. Two inmates, Ngo Nghia and Nguyen Ngoc
Tru, stood up against the wardens' lectures and were executed. Many said that
Khùng defies the wardens as well by not writing essays, but because he is silent
and compliant to all other rules, he was not punished.
History has one color: transparent light. It has, however, quite a few
distorting mirrors for man to look into for self-evaluation. Those are
history's favors. Khùng has no such favors. He needs neither transparent light
nor distorting mirrors for his self-evaluation. He lives in a silent world and
refuses to recognize hope for tomorrow probably because he is aware that hope
and the future no longer belong to him. Ordered to attend lectures beside other
prisoners, he receives no writing materials and just sits there like a stone.
The wardens
keeps Khùng in a place named Shack #5, which houses the team responsible for
raising food for the camp. One part of the team is responsible for growing
vegetables and the other part of the team for raising pigs. The other teams in
the camp occupy different shacks. They include the blacksmith works, the
woodworks, and the kitchen. All other prisoners are assigned to deforestation,
growing corn, rice and so forth. The team responsible for raising food was
about ten strong and is split into two sub-teams: vegetable unit and livestock
unit. Khùng is the only member of the second unit. His job seems suitable to
him, requiring no oral communication with his animals. There might be some kind
of rudimentary communication between the pigs and him; but no one else hears
it.
Everything goes smoothly enough until one day when a warden in a green uniform
comes to Shack #5 and speaks to Khùng.
"The command center wants a pig slaughtered tomorrow. Be ready to carry
out the order. Kill the biggest of the three."
Khùng just stares at the warden.
"What are you staring for? It is not that hard understand."
Khùng keeps staring steadily at the warden. Familiar with Khùng's facial
expressions, the warden seems to understand his reaction. He stops speaking to
Khùng and goes over to the leader of the vegetable team.
"The command center wants a pig slaughtered tomorrow. The vegetable team
must be prepared for the job.
"I'm sorry, but only Khùng deals with the pigs.”
"I just spoke with him. He just stared at me without a word. Try to talk
to him. If the issue is not resolved then you will be disciplined by the
command center."
The team leader and the warden go to see
Khùng.
"You have
received the order to slaughter a pig. Will you do that?” the team leader says
to Khùng.
Khùng normally just nods in agreement. But he does not.
"Follow
me," the warden ordered, leading the team leader outside the shack.
"As the team leader of the vegetable unit and the livestock unit,”
he barked in his ugly language “You are responsible for this issue."
"It is regrettable. Khùng and the rest of the team don’t know how to kill a
pig. It should be the responsibility of the cooking team.”
“Do not
question orders. Khùng must kill the pig himself tomorrow or both of you will be
punished.”
When they return to Shack #5, they find Khùng sitting on the ground, his head
wedged between his
knees.
"Get up!" the warden yells.
Khùng stands up,
staring at the warden.
"I repeat that it is your responsibility to slaughter the pig. Do
you understand?"
Khùng has a worried expression on his face as if to say:
"I can’t slaughter."
Since the warden can read the thoughts of all prisoners, he begin a one-sided
discussion with Khùng.
"This is
not slaughter. It's just a matter of killing a pig. The cook team usually does
it, but they are too busy. It is up to
you.”
"Slaughter
means killing.”
"So, why
are you afraid of the word ‘slaughter’?"
"On the Planet Earth, man and animals are connected. We believe that after
a man dies, he might return as another creature such as a pig, a chicken, a
tiger, a leopard, a lion, a venomous snake, or a fish. Every creature deserves
equal respect in terms of karma and incarnation. Every living body works with a
supercomputer system beyond human knowledge. Every animal houses secret
unknowns together with mysterious communication systems beyond human knowledge.
Every living body has reproductive and self-destructive mechanisms involving
complex inter-relationships. Your inherent cognitive limitations prevent you
from recognizing that transcendent enigma, allowing you to slaughter other
species without regret. I restrain myself from killing other species. Every
animal, including the pig you order me to kill, has the right to a natural
life. I'm not sure what that pig's previous life was. It might have been one of
my ancestors, or an ordinary human with full and inviolable values and
interests."
"Our
species on Planet X isn't subject to evolution,” the warden responded. “The
life cycle of every one of our species begins at birth and ends at death. As
the superior species in the universe, we never show any tolerance toward any
other species. No evolution means no karma or incarnation. Materialist monism
disallows such ways of thinking.”
Khùng shakes his head.
"Even a diamond involves evolution. Both its formation over time and
its value depend on the evolution of humanity. This holds all the more true
with living creatures. If your species ascribe to the finality after death, why
do you tell us that you embalm your leaders' corpses in an attempt to make the
world believe that the owners of those corpses are immortal, everlasting, or
eternal? If everything is finite then why do you claim your dogmas are the
infinite unalterable truths? This is only what I can share with you: Truth of
the stronger; and the stronger here are you, who have won this battle whereas
battles to come are numberless. However, never assume that we're unable to
figure out what you call ‘eminence of species’ really is. No one can claim
oneself eminent when blindly destroying another civilization without knowing a
thing about that civilization. Our species is incompatible with yours. You will
never understand us, so you need to conquer and enslave us. You were lucky to
come at a time in which humans are on the way to a rendezvous with their
destiny after having defeated themselves, in which situation, even the tiny
black ants in the universe can subdue humans, not to mention vertebrate
creatures like you. Sure, history's paradoxes would transform us from the most
intelligent creatures in the known universe into the feeblest and most
vulnerable species that are to be born as sacrifices to the species on your
Planet X. Our planet will turn out one of the immense prisons scattered
throughout the universe that is holding us all, whether we're inside or outside
such local prisons as this. Materialist monism disallows you to think the way
we do but it cannot disallow us to think and believe our own way. It's most
likely the limitations of materialist monism that make you assume yourselves as
creatures that aren't made of anything else than matter; and that matter must
be one of the eminent of the kind whereas creatures that come up as products of
dualism and pluralism are no more or less than decadence to be reclaimed or
even eliminated, if necessary. Perhaps materialist monism presumably represents
one of the fundamental dialectics convincing enough for you to deter any
multipartite systems and to centralize political powers into the hands of a
totalitarian oligarchy consisting of creatures with yellow hair, with two
ferociously protruded jaws, walking on two feet and on four feet as well,
moving on the ground and jumping on the trees, too. Any cultural products of
creatures unable to move on four feet are deemed reactionary, perverse, and
harmful. As long as bipedal creatures' cultural products remain in the universe
challenge is real for your survival; and so is your fear. As an attempt to overwhelm
that fear and inferiority complex, you're using some of us as slaves to teach
you what advanced technology is and what advanced civilization is. Will you be
adequate for the job? Or, instead, will you wind up using all of us as
sacrifices for your own barbarous idiosyncrasy?”
"We read your thoughts right at the beginning. There's no
misunderstanding. We never believe in what you say or write. But what you just
said relates to definitely irreversible laws, is it clear? It's protection for
you and such species as yours. Aren't you aware of our mercy and
humanity?"
"Mercy and
humanity only apply to criminals. We are no criminals; we're just failed by
history and man. Humanity only has meaning in a human community and a
humanistic civilization. You civilization definitely sports no such attributes.
Humanity stands completely incompatible with enslaving and assimilating other
species.”
- "What do you think if
someday, in return for your good achievement in re-education, you are released to
outside society, which comprises human species on a same planet as yours?"
- "I would appreciate it,
because I'd find myself one of the members of human society. Nevertheless, what
about seeing my carefree and complacent human fellows hopping on the streets,
chanting in public playgrounds, making love in taverns, drawing rooms, harbors,
train stations…? I'd feel alienated and rearward. I'd suffer for lack of
language for communication and singing. Further, human society out there might
likely abound with aliens like you, which would make me think myself
transferred to another prison, not released."
"It's
transitional. Once the universal world has taken form, no other will need their
own language any more. By that time, our language will be automatically built
in everybody's brain; and everybody would be equal in terms language. You would
then join others hopping with the music coming from public loud speakers on the
streets."
"Here again, we're grateful. If Planet X doesn't lead us to such a scenario,
greedy and dirty financial oligarchies on our Planet Earth would do. We don’t
blame you. Before falling victim to you we've actually fallen victim to those
perverse masterminds. They stand out far more ferocious, civilized,
resourceful, intelligent, sophisticated, ruthless, and powerful than you are,
simply because they are humans, that is, they are bipeds, unlike you the
quadrupeds. At the same time, the build-in excrement in their brain is much
bigger than the build-in excrement in your brain, too. In terms of evolution,
they've led your Planet X by numberless evolutionary stages, probably because
your species accepts no evolution. Instead authority, or power, they just need
money to have others speak their language, from topnotch media networks to
topnotch universities on this planet. That soft power stands out more effective
than your authoritarianism. You and your offspring would end
up bleeding the losers to feed that mercantilist cast in exchange for the
lassos to be put onto your own necks. They've failed us; history has turned one
of our pages; and we accept that failure as the negative counterpart of
humankind's eminent potential. If Planet X doesn't invade us any other would
effortlessly. You came up as both witnesses before history and history's
instrumentality. Differently put, you just help demonstrating the inevitable.
In fact, you came up just to collect what those masterminds have left over. If
the fate of this planet doesn't lie with us neither does it with you,
indeed."
Frustrated with this circular discussion, the warden turns and walks away. The
team leader, too frightened to say anything, goes back to his duties. Khùng
simply returns to the pig pen because it is feeding time.
The following day, three wardens come to Shack #5 and take the pig to the
command center. Neither the team leader nor Khùng are punished. No doubt the
warden is surprised by Khùng’s intellectual ability and finds it easier to make
another arrangement rather than try to force him to follow his order.
The prison population is always in
flux. New prisoners are brought in. Somme prisoners are released; some are
transferred to other prison camps; some are executed. Some prisoners have lost
language like Khùng. Out of these speechless prisoners, some have been released
but Khùng remains in custody.
It is a hot and harsh summer in the Central Vietnam. The streams inside and
outside the prison camp become clearer and clearer, flowing more and more
smoothly with less and less water. The cicadas chirp more noisily on the green
bamboos. The bead-tree rows regain their leaves, abundant, green and fresh in
the summer sun. Nature has divided the camp into two parts by a small stream.
The west part consists of the command center and the shacks for the bulk part
of the prisoners. The east part houses the special teams for vegetables,
blacksmith work, woodwork and food preparation. The vegetable team relies on
this stream for its garden and livestock.
The stream has
two crossing points, one at a shallow segment about twenty meters wide, and the
other at a deeper segment with a wooden bridge about a meter wide and fifteen
meters long. Since the day the pig was taken away, Khùng would come to this
bridge, to watch the stream slowly flowing to the north where it narrows,
speeds up down a slope, and cascades around by shrubs and boulders in its path.
The stream feeds into to a sunken spot before turning left to a larger and
quieter pond with reddish water, from which the brook heads westward, narrower
and narrower, before vanishing. Two dense rows of lofty trees on each shore
cover the whole sky, blocking the sun and rendering the little stream a bit
sinister.
Some evenings Khùng
follows the brook to the larger pond and spends time looking into his
reflection there. The stream shows with a warm yellow light as the sun set. The
somber evening and murmuring stream vaguely awaken in him a certain remote and
hazy world different from the present. He just stood there for a little time
and then returns to the bridge, staying there until dark.
At first, seeing him standing there too long, the wardens orders him back to
Shack #5. However, since he comes back every evening thereafter to the
same spot, eventually they ignore him. He comes back every evening to
look in the stream that has become his mirror. History has only its transparent
light and multiple distorting mirrors for man to look into for self-evaluation.
The stream provides no such distorting mirrors, just a stretch of water lit
with yellow light.
What does he
see down there? Former melancholic spaces? Sculptures of desolate
metropolitans? Edifices of collapsed dynasties? Windy steppes in early fall? An
alienated and disintegrated being and a disoriented planet? Does that mirror
unveil any part of the freezing cosmos of lost values and the withering space
crossed by the winning troops? He comes to realize that despite the precise
image he sees in the stream, his mirror is distorted. One evening, he often
sees his face covered with yellow hair and his jaw protruding horribly. The
wind disturbs the water and the image vanishes.
The strange
phenomenon does not recur the following evening or the next. Then on a day in
July, there is no wind to disturb the water. The mirror reflects his
yellow-haired face and his protruded jaws clearly. He immediately checks his
face with his left hand and feels no long hair.
After returning from the stream that evening, he receives a release notice
effective the next day. It is unclear how many prisoners in the entire camp are
going to be released this time, but he is the only one released from the east
side. He shows no emotion about his release and goes to bed as scheduled.
Surprised by his lack of expression, everybody assumes he just has no
preparations to do. The transfer or release of prisoners has become so
routine that hardly any of the other inmates pays much attention to it until a
few minutes before the inmates are ordered to a gathering point.
Hardly has he
gone to sleep when he has a dream. He is flying high in an immense blue
sky. He looks down on the Nam Quan Gate, Lang Son, Cao Bang, and the Ban Gioc Waterfalls radiantly sparkling as aureoles on the
pinnacle of the S-shaped motherland. He sees the magnificent forests and
mountains of Le Loi and Tran Hung Dao; he sees Thai Nguyen, Yen Bai, Lao Kai,
Bac Can, Hoang Lien Son, the Red River Plateau, and the Bach Dang River. He
sees Thang Long, the ancient capital. He proceeds to Poet Nguyen Du's homeland and then onto the imposing Long Range
Mountains as gigantic as a grand dragon. This legendary Long Range embraces
vast steppes, frosty terrains of Dalat, Lambiang, Bao Loc, the Ngoan Muc Gorge, and Suoi Vang. Also
along that Grand Dragon are the rivers Ben Hai, Song Huong,
Thu Bon, Tra Khuc, Mount Nui Ngu, the never-ending
Hai Van Gorge, the Deo Cu Mong Gorge, the Deo Ca Gorge, Song Cau, the Dai Lanh
Bay, Thap Cham, and so forth.
His heart and
brain suddenly fill to bursting when he sees his beloved Saigon, once labeled
the Pearl of Fareast Asia. He was not sure what season it is, but flowers are
blossoming all over the Plain of Reeds. The Vam Co
River sparkles in the morning sun like a silver dragon. The Mekong River splits
its way through the delta towards the East Sea. Suddenly the sky turns utterly
gloomy. He sees a long white vessel assaulted by gigantic waves, nearly
engulfing its rear half. Lightning splinters across the putty colored sky. The
vessel keeeps going despite the storm. Sailors
in white uniforms are stationed evenly on the both sides of the deck. After a
new burst of lightning, swarms of sailors in white caps burst up into the air
and transform into seagulls flying away from the vessel. The monster waves
engulf the remaining part of the ship, giving rise to a series of explosions
shaking heaven and earth, followed by countless fire columns mushrooming
fiercely and spreading as quickly as the lightning.
He wake up suddenly. His entire body smells like a dirty animal cage. He checks
his face and feel dense and very long hair on his cheeks. He gets out of his
bed to find his entire body covered with long yellow hair. He rushes out of the
shack wearing his sandbag clothes towards the brook. Although it is completely
dark, he has no trouble finding the way. After arriving at his usual spot, he
is shocked to see the stream emitting a kind of yellow light similar to the
light he would see every evening when he came look at his mirror in the water.
The bridge stands out clearly in that weird light.
Upon reaching
the bridge, he bends his body over the side to look at the water. He sees his
face covered with long yellow hair. His jaws protrude. Reaching up to
touch his face, he notices his hands are covered with hair as well. More
surprisingly, instead of seeing his sandbag clothes in the reflection, he sees
his naked body covered with long yellow hair. Khùng does not recognize himself.
As he straightens up, the bridge starts to sink. He does not move. After a few
minutes, he feels the cold water on his feet, then his knees, his legs, his
belly, his chest, then finally his neck.
Keeping his head above the water, he begins to float down the stream. The swift
current carries him to the sunken area before turning left into the pond. The
yellow light has vanished. A cavernous darkness surrounds him. History's
transparent light had deserted him… on the eve of prison release.
(………The full
version goes with the book………..)